Poets of the Fall & Flight Brigade – bi nuu, Berlin; December 15th, 2016
For Poets of the Fall going to Berlin is always a little bit of a homecoming. It was the first city they played at in Germany for a headline gig and the only German city they kept coming back to long before they toured this country. Back in those days it was the one gig where everyone met. All the people who could not or would not travel to Finland for a concert made the treck to Berlin every other year to celebrate their favorite band. Still today, the Berlin concerts are always gigs with many international guests, i.e. fans from all over Europe joining the fun.
The trip from Munich had started early and after the long night out and hardly any sleep on the train I was already tired and cold when I arrived. There was not much time to rest though, I met up with G. and A. and checked out the venue pretty soon. Luckily we were the first to arrive so we had a chance to get some food first. We ate, then went back and debated which door was the correct one. I consulted my pictures from April and we found the right one. On the way to the restaurant we had seen Marko was doing an interview in the café/bar area of the venue, but when we returned they were gone. M. and her boyfriend arrived and more waiting ensued. Do I hate the waiting? You bet I do. It’s mostly a boring waste of time, but always worth it in the end.
Even though the Christmas concert in Helsinki was on the horizon only a few days away, this felt like the end of the tour. It also felt as if we were saying goodbye to Flight Brigade even though they had been confirmed as support for the UK gigs. Either way it was a night of meeting old friends and funny moments. Despite lots of people at the meet & greet it was relaxed and I felt like I had more than enough time to talk to everyone and tease the guys. At times I just stood by and listened in on the conversations they had with other fans like Marko telling someone how he deals with people interpreting his songs differently from what he wanted to say. He explained that all the different explanations people come up with were like “a basket of meanings” that he could take pieces from an look at from time to time and some he kept while others he threw out. It liked that analogy. <3 Had some fun when they took pictures too, because they kept moving left and Jari was no longer in front of the backdrop so I told them to move right which resulted in Jari hiding behind the backdrop for a moment and Marko pointing left and asking if they should move to that side. “Yep, my right, your left” – no, I had not meant “the other right”, just said it from my perspective. 😀
Before the concert I had told everyone how awesome Flight Brigade are and they delivered a great set for us. I decided then and their that if they play in my area in the future, I’ll go and see them. A headline gig must be fun! For now though, the seven song set had to suffice. Night after night they put everything they had into those 30 minutes and night after night they won over the audience. Well done! Not also do they play really well, they are just nice people too. Being a support act is a bit of an ungrateful role for anyone, but if you do it right, it is also a chance to win new fans. Flight Brigade used their time well and deserved all the cheers they got. Every night I happily watched people buying their CDs after the show. 🙂
They kept the setlist order from Munich, powering through their set. I had lots of fun and shared some smiles with most of them that night. Their energy lifted some of my tiredness and they looked as if they were enjoying it just as much as I did. By now their music is already connected to many good memories and I loved every minute they were on stage. The rest of the audience seemed to agree with me and cheered them on. When they left, Dorrie high fived me on the way out. 😀 This was great, can’t wait to see you again in the UK!
Setlist:
Hurricane Season
House Fire
Where Eagles dare
U kill me
Tearaway
Streets of Tokyo
Excited chatter filled the air as long as the houselights were up, but immediately died down when it got dark. The noise level increased when the guys walked on stage, cheers this time. The lights, sadly, stayed pretty dark and were generally bad for taking pictures. Well, at least the sound was good and a lot louder than I had expected. in the end, none of that mattered. I saw more than enough to keep me entertained and I had plenty of pictures from the previous gigs already. Such minor things cannot keep me from enjoying the concert. 🙂
Already during ‘Daze’ Jaska and Marko were jumping up and down so I joined right in. No idea if many others did the same, but it’s always fun for me to do. Go to a gig, get your exercise. 😀 They certainly wanted us to join in (when do they ever not? ;)) and pretty soon Ollie was pointing to us to cue us in on singing along. Of course we did. Interactions with the audience were pretty good all night. Most people either knew what to do or got the hang of it pretty soon. As always I waited for the moments where I know it’s time for a certain gesture, a specific move, but it comes natural, subconsciously. At the same time I can get totally lost in the music. It’s a kind of magic. 😉
I know all my blog post must sound similar to you, but what can I say? Poets of the Fall are amazing and each of their shows is great! Not exaggerating either! If I am not already happy before going there, they instantly lift my mood, always. That’s one of the reasons I keep coming back. Is there anything I have not said about the setlist yet? I must have written about each song from the previous albums a gazillion times already. 🙂 Anyway, with ‘Clearview’ their selection has made the songs grow on me. I loved ‘Drama for Life’ the first time I heard it and the same goes for ‘The Game’ which is still my favorite of the album songs they are playing. Yet I’ve fallen in love with ‘The Child in me’, Children of the Sun’ and especially ‘Once upon a Playground rainy’ as well. So much that it has become difficult to rank them. 😉 Not that I find that necessary anyway…
It was a night where the band members lean on to each other, figuratively and literally. When Ollie went behind the keyboards to play with Captain, he leaned on to his shoulder and later on, Jani was leaning on to Marko’s shoulder. I didn’t see much of Jari from where I stood, but had a good view of everyone else and Marko right in front of me all the time. Sadly (or luckily, depending on how you look at it), I can never bring myself to lift my camera and take a picture when he is right in front of me. I always feel I might miss the moment if I try to capture it so I choose not to. Thus, I have quite a few pictures of almost everyone else posing for me and looking directly at my camera and next to none of Marko. Just the way it goes…
The evening is a bit of a blur because I had slept so little. Time seemed to go extra fast and soon ‘Stay’ had started already. When it was time for us to switch on the lights on our mobiles, Marko took someone’s phone and showed us how to lift it up and move it around. At the end of the song he sat down on the drum raiser and watched Ollie for a while, then walked over for a closer look. Quickly this turned into a duel between his voice and Ollie’s guitar. Both did so well in copying the other there was no winner this time. 🙂
Jani stood with Captain for a while, bathed in mysterious light, but i can’t remember which song that was. Someone through a balloon on stage. Marko grabbed it and held it for some time, then dropped it eventually so Glen came to pick it up and get it out of the way. Too quickly they were at the end of the encores already. Captain played air guitar with Ollie, just before they all got together and took a final bow. I was way too close to capture that, but liked it that they all stayed this time. It was hard to believe that this had been the last show of the European tour. I wanted to have another one right away!
The guys were gone, the houselights were up and it was time to gather our group. A. came and said hello, we chatted and most of us went for a drink and – again – some late night food. We had fun, it was a good way to end the night. Most of us were staying at the same hotel, so we walked A. to the S-Bahn before going back there. A final hug, goodnight, see you soon!
Setlist:
Intro: Shadow Play
Drama for Life
Daze
The Child in Me
Dreaming Wide Awake
Diamonds for Tears
The Game
Stay
Someone Special
Sleep
Running Out of Time
Once Upon a Playground Rainy
Locking Up the Sun
Carnival of Rust
Encore
War
Lift
Children of the Sun
Clearview tour 2016/17: 19 gigs down, 5 to go, next stop: Helsinki