“Pure bliss” they said and it was

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Poets of the Fall – Viihdemaailma Ilona, Tampere; March 17th 2017

I did consider the Poets of the Fall concert in Tampere as an extra, because it had not been announced with the original tour dates and when it was I decided to skip it at first – yeah, sure, who was I kidding? What I had not counted on was the whole thing being extra-special. The band tweeted afterwards that it was pure bliss and I agree. It was all about the fun! They were given a tiny stage and absolutely made the best of it cheered on by an enthusiastic audience. it was not a technically perfect gig by any means with not enough room for all their lights an average house PA, but none of that mattered, because everyone in the room had decided to celebrate the music anyway. 😀

My original flight had been Friday evening, but I’d rebooked to the morning, so once again I was up in the middle of the night. 11 hours later, at 3 pm, I arrived in Tampere and took a nap first thing. Caught up on editing some pictures and went to the venue rather late. Got there 20 minutes before the meet & greet was supposed to start and found only a handful of people in line. Two more arrived, bringing the total up to seven. The guys were sound checking so I didn’t expect things to start on time. It was really late when Nina finally opened the doors for us and she explained that they’d had trouble with the PA and buzzing speakers. We were in though and the venue was nice, but the stage was one of the smallest this tour. The guys would have trouble not falling over each other.

With so few people I had a lot of time talking to everyone. Joked with everyone about the small stage, chatted about summer festivals with Captain, had an interesting conversation with Marko about studying and talked to Ollie about his work schedule. I love how we have gotten to a point where we talk about pretty much anything after the usual “great show last time, looking forward to this one”. Jari was not there, working with Anna Puu for the night. His replacement was Sami Osala from Sunrise Avenue, but he did not join the m&g.Time went by so quickly and soon the doors opened for the general public. It took a long time for people to arrive though and we did not take our place in front of the stage until way after ten. The place filled up before it started though, just as I had hoped.

The intro started and it took the band unusually long to walk on stage or at least it felt that way. Marko had already sung the full chorus of ‘Shadow Play’ before anyone appeared. The first thing I noticed is that Jani has a shiny new red bass. The guys really did not have much room to move, but they got creative with it and used every inch of available space. That led to some close encounters with them during the night. 🙂 So close in fact that I did not even manage to take pictures with me phone (didn’t bother with the camera). When I tried to take the first one of Ollie he noticed and leaned in closer. Big mistake! The pic is nicely focused, but I ended up cutting of half his head. 😀 Clearly it was not a night for taking pictures. 😉

Early on, during ‘Daze’ or ‘Dreaming wide awake’, Marko started jumping up and down and since nobody in the audience followed suit, Jaska jumped with him. They were facing each other jumping side to side in unison. Meanwhile, Jani was visiting Captain behind the keyboards, playing with him for a while. Much later, during ‘War’, he moved from there onwards to stand behind the drums with Sami, making me wonder how he found even enough space to do it. 🙂 There was a catwalk that lead from the backstage door to the stage and the band made much use of it, at least walking partly up there lots of times. Jaska played there, then backed up to the stage and right into Jani, who was standing in front of the drums at that time. 🙂

I got so many smiles from the guys during the night when they saw me singing along and always smiled back at them with my usual silly concert happy grin. Ollie used the bannister of the catwalk as a footrest all the time so people in that corner got a nice close up view. Then again, everyone at the front had that. The first time one of them stepped up on the cup holder in front of me I involuntarily stepped back. afraid we might bump into each other. 😀 At the start of the game, Marko asked U. if she liked games and held out the microphone to her for a reply. During the solo, Jaska got so close, I was afraid he was gonna hit me with his guitar. He missed the Italian woman next to me by about 2 centimeters when he turned. I was very tempted to touch the whammy bar, but did not dare to.

Marko wasn’t on his knees so much, because the stage was not exceptionally high, but he leaned out a lot and crouched down a few times too. It was U.’s night, he sang to her a lot. 🙂 During ‘Temple of Though’ he walked up on the catwalk, sat on the bannister for just a brief moment, sticking his tongue out and then rushed back to stage in time for the next verse. When he walked off for ‘Rogue’ a woman reached out her hand for him and he hi-fived her which made her scream. 😀 Everyone was showcasing their talent during ‘Rogue’ and pointing to whoever was playing a solo to show whose turn it was. This time Jani was so close I could have put my hand on his bass. Again I backed off a little just to be safe. 🙂

It was warm in the room and must have been hot on stage. Jaska and Ollie made good use of their towels, wiping off sweat. Marko had not even bothered with a long sleeve shirt this time, but Jaska was wearing a jacket all the way through the main set. Granted, it looked great, but it must have been way too warm, considering even Ollie had rolled up his sleeves. 😉 ‘drama for Life’ had me go nuts and jumping along. I just love that song. It also made me laugh because Marko screwed up the lyrics and sang “We’re Poets of the Fall” again in second verse. ‘Everything fades’ was especially and I had a moment of singing together first with Jaska, then Ollie and last but not least with Marko, who turned to me during the “secrets spied, wishes sighed” line. <3

Jani saw me trying to get a picture of him so he stuck out his tongue and leaned in closer. 😀 At one point he stood with Ollie and they were speaking, obviously amused. It was one of the many times I would have loved to be in on the secret. While Ollie was playing with Jaska during Locking up the Sun’, Marko stood with Jani, using his mic stand as a guitar again. I tried taking a mental image of that since I knew I was way too close to do it with my phone. Jaska and Ollie played together a lot and once, when Ollie walked over they looked at each other, signaling “I’m watching you!” 😀 The guys all had so much fun! At the start of ‘Carnival of Rust’ both Marko and Jani stood mannequin still for a while. Then Marko balanced on one leg on the drink holder while singing. Some of us moved a few glasses out of the way to make room for him, but he did not set the other foot down.

There was hardly any break before the encores, just enough for Jaska to get rid of the jacket. When Ollie sat down for ‘War’, the green light pointed at him from below, shone up just under his arm and hit his face. It was a nice effect. 🙂 Jaska had the crazy sunglasses with the lights on again during his solo and looked nothing but cool. Just then, Marko usually stands with Jani, but Jani was behind the drums with Sami at that point. He hurried back though and him and Marko both crouched on the floor together. ‘Lift’ had me jumping again and for a little while, Ollie jumped with me. <3 Captain had a stuffed animal rabbit sitting on his keyboards all though the show. Then he lifted it up and had it headbang along with the music. too funny. 😀 When he took his bows at the end, he brought the rabbit with him and had it bow too. <3 ‘Lift’ was just full of craziness, mad playing skills and everyone getting up on the drinks holder. Jaska did it to my left and when he raised his hands to clap he hit the speaker above his head making it swing. It looked like he was almost touching it with his head too.

‘Children of the sun’ rolled around, we all turned on the lights on our phones as Marko instructed, I shared a last smile with the guys, sang along one last time and that was it. The downside of having a specific song in the end is knowing when it’s over. *sigh* Jani and Captain were hugging with Captain trying to lift up Jani. Ollie shook hands with us. Marko left the stage quickly, but thanked Sami before he did. At the end, all the others pointed to Sami, having us clap for him and we gladly did. His playing was different from Jari’s and not as fine tuned to the songs, but he did a great job! They all took a final bow together, arm in arm. I love it when a show ends like that. Still smiling, I gathered my stuff, having a nice chat with the Italian woman on my way home. That was fun, let’s do it again!

Setlist

Shadow Play
Daze
Dreaming Wide Awake
Diamonds 4 Tears
The Game
The Labyrinth
Temple of Thought
Rogue
Drama for Life
Everything fades
Locking up the sun
Carnival of Rust

War
Lift
Children of the Sun

Clearview Finland tour: 7 gigs down, 8 to go. Next stop: Himos

Relaxed band, Captain’s air instruments and raised lights

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Poets of the Fall – Rytmikorjaamo, Seinäjoki; March 11th, 2017

Where do I begin? And how do I put all these overwhelming emotions into words? After last night’s show in Seinäjoki I feel quite drained, but in a very positive and energizing way if that makes any sense. No matter how hard I try, I cannot stop smiling and despite my memory being already a bit hazy on the details I know it was a brilliant concert. Does it get any better than this?

S. and I slept late, had a nice breakfast until noon and were on our way to Seinäjoki on sunny rads soon after. Despite still being cold outside it felt like spring was in the air. We got there, I rested for a while and just before going to the venue we had the most amazing warm chocolate cake I have ever eaten. So yummy! We were first to arrive, got confused, because one door said “main entrance”, but there was also a “club entrance”. Once I saw that I knew we were in the right spot though, I remembered it from last time. We were lucky enough to hear some of the soundcheck and already could tell the sound was amazing. It felt like a private concert. Afterwards Jari came out and chatted with us a little bit. Next to arrive was S., then H. and we had a good time talking.

Nina was running a bit late, but there were so few people at the meet and greet that we still had plenty of time with all of the guys. When they lined up for the picture, Ollie lifted up his hair for a moment, making the same face he had in the selfie Nina had posted that afternoon and we all started clapping. 🙂 It was so nice seeing them and talking to them again! I chatted with Captain first, told him how nice the new setlist is now that they had changed the order. We also talked about the sound this tour. Except for Nivala it has been really great. Jani told me the last gig at that venue had been during the Twilight Theater tour so it was almost seven years ago I had seen them here the last time. Wow! When I came up to Marko, S. was still talking to him and he just switched to English to include me. <3 I hugged him, then said how nice the gigs in Rauma and Pori had been and that he could get down on his knees and sing ‘The Labyinth’ to me any day. 😉 He smiled and mentioned how much he loves singing that song. We also joked about getting to old for the midnight shows.

Ollie said he wasn’t sure I’d make it yesterday because apparently Air Berlin had cancelled all their flights. Good thing I was flying SAS then. He mentioned that he had not expected much from the Pori gig, because there were so few people at the club when they arrived and how surprising it was towalk n stage to a full house. 🙂 Jaska and Jari were busy so I went back to Jani and Captain and we somehow got into a conversation about language when Jaska joined us and spoke German. It was really fun and interesting discussing language intonation and other things. Later on Ollie joined in too. Jani and Jaska were both tired and I said that of course they had to pack after the gig and could not go straight to bed, but Jani corrected me and said that most importantly they had to party. 😉 We also talked about me understanding much of the stuff Marko says on stage only because I know what is being said and Jani suggested he could say everything in German for once. 😀 Finally I got to ask Jari what was going on in Rauma and he told me they had fun making little changes to teh music and goofing off there, unnoticeable to us. Will have to listen more closely from now on. 😀 Everything was very nice and relaxed and so much fun!

We had an hour before the support act, Unzyme, started and spent it chatting with the people around us. P. showed up and we realized we had not seen each other since the Pressa gig last year. She had not even heard any of the new songs live yet. I told her she’d love it and once again started to wonder if this tour is really so much better than the last one or if I am just being biased. The support act, played on a different stage and we did not move over there, but they provided pretty nice background music.

Finally we heard the first notes of the intro and time changed from a slow crawl to ludicrous speed in the blink of an eye. How can a good concert always go by so fast? Right from the start it was clear the band was enjoying the big stage. After having very little room to move in Pori it must have felt great to have so much space. S. and I were dead center and right there they had a small platform leading out towards the audience that the guys made much use of during the night. 😀 The crowd reaction was great from the very beginning too with loud cheers greeting the guys.

After not seeing much of him in Pori the previous night, I had a great view of Captain and watched him playing keyboards in the air a lot. That’s the only way I can describe when I see him raise one hand and playing invisible notes with it. 🙂 ‘Shadow Play’ already brought Marko out on the platform in front of us and I do admit it was difficult peeling my eyes away from him while he was there. Still, he was there all the time and I needed to see the others too. The one disadvantage of the big stage is that I end up moving my head back and forth as if I were watching a tennis match, trying to watch all of the guys. 🙂 For the first time since the start of this tour I actually heard Marko sing “Love portrays Ms Take” instead of “Love becomes Ms Take”, but it is possible that I just never paid such close attention before. 😉

The crowd went nuts with ‘Daze’, singing along loudly. They just never stopped going along with the songs after that, cheering, clapping and moving with the music, but also being quiet when it was needed. All of the songs seemed really powerful that night as if playing there gave the guys an extra kick. Ollie stood by Captain and they got really into playing together, both leaning back at their instruments, enjoying the moment. Later he was playing at the front and Jaska joined him. Marko, not having noticed Jaska standing there, moved back and bumped into him. The both laughed. 🙂

During ‘Dreaming wide awake’ Ollie jumped so high and landed so smoothly without ever losing hold of his guitar or stride that I gave him a thumbs up. He was also playing back to back with Jani and tried the same with Jaska, but Jaska had already moved and he leaned back into the air. I had so much fun watching them I was constantly smiling. Marko sang to us a lot and pretended to play guitar on his mic stand all the time, turning it round and round.  Jani was always on the move, playing with Captain or watching Jari, standing on the platform in front of us a lot too. Jari was the only one I could not see well as he was once again blocked by the cymbals.

I loved ‘Diamonds 4 Tears’ and ‘The Game’ that night. They seemed so much more powerful than usual. Must have been the amazing sound overall that made all the songs feel special. For ‘Diamonds 4 Tears’ Marko was at the platform again and I kinda expected him to reach out during the “I will hold out my hands” line, but he did not. When Jaska’s solo came on for ‘The Game’ he stood just behind the platform to play it. I motioned for him to come forward, but he didn’t even see it and it wasn’t until ‘Rogue’ that he took the extra steps and stood right in front of us. Jani and Ollie had no such reservations and stood there a lot. 😀

Just before ‘The Labyrinth’ Marko stepped out in front and sang two high notes like “hi hi”. We immediately sang them back to him and he looked like he had not expected it. He tried it again and we did it again. Then he just had to do it one more time. After that he shushed us and sang beautifully. The song just took my breath away. I did not get much of a chance to get it back either, because ‘Temple of Thought’ was just as stunning. <3 He left the stage for ‘Rogue’ to make room for the others and they were on fire, totally nailing it. Jani, Jaska and Ollie were chasing each other around, pointing their instruments at each other like weapons, just having fun with it.

‘Drama for Life’ felt like a force of nature and Marko seemed to go especially crazy for this one. During the “just one chance to kill it dead” line he pointed two fingers at his temple like a gun and he ended the spoken part on “Who the fuck would that serve?” Ollie was playing with Jani, Jaska soon joined them and they were all posing, instruments raised, looking like they had the times of their lives. While Ollie was at the front platform for a solo, Marko jokingly karate kicked at Jani. 🙂 The whole concert was really emotional for me and ‘Everything fades’ once again got to me. At one point during the song Captain walked to the front and played air guitar next to Ollie, then had to hurry back to play the next notes on the keyboards. 🙂

An amazing version of ‘Locking up the sun’ followed with a longer intro and so much going on that I’m sure I did not see half of it. Jaska beating the drums, then throwing the stick into the audience and looking apologetically at someone who hadn’t caught it. Marko was twirling his mic stand and moving all over the place, Ollie’s playing was brilliant, Jani made sure we clapped along and when it was over I felt slightly overwhelmed and could not believe we had reached ‘Carnival of Rust’ already. It started differently this time with Marko singing a new intro, but sadly I have no clue what he was actually singing. I did not understand it. The song was beautiful though and when they left the stage, everyone in the room yelled for more.

They actually ran back to the stage and launched straight into ‘War’ with Jaska still catching his breath. That song still gets to me and I loved everything about it. ‘Lift’ started and Jaska was singing along, making me smile. I jumped one last time, trying to take a good look at each one of them before the final song of the night. They said goodbye and left us with a beautiful version of ‘Children of the sun’. Ollie joined Marko on the platform and Marko walked over, blowing into his hair at one point. The women to my left lifted up their phones with the lights on that started a movement spreading from front row to the back. It must have looked great from the stage. As the final notes rang out and Marko had already left the stage, the other guys walked out on the platform taking a final bow together. They did it in smaller groups, until everyone had arrived and when Jari got there, Jani kissed him on the cheek. One last wave, one last happy smile and they were gone.

S. and I turned to each other, declaring it a brilliant show. P. was over the moon with happiness and said it was the best show in ages. H. and S. came over and we all hugged, happy we had been allowed to witness this. How lucky we are! I think it was Jari who told me before the show he had the feeling this one was going to be great and he was right! I wanted to thank the light and sound guy for their amazing work, but they were nowhere to be found. Will have to do that next time. I can’t possibly get any better than this!

Setlist

Shadow Play
Daze
Dreaming Wide Awake
Diamonds 4 Tears
The Game
The Labyrinth
Temple of Thought
Rogue
Drama for Life
Everything fades
Locking up the sun
Carnival of Rust

War
Lift
Children of the Sun

Clearview Finland tour: 6 gigs down, 9 to go. Next stop: Tampere