Hold on to your memories of sundogs and rainbows

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Poets of the Fall, Forum, Bielefeld; October 17th, 2013

The concert in Bielefeld was the only one in my area this year. Why they didn’t play in Cologne or Dortmund again is beyond me, especially since both concerts had to be moved to bigger venues due to high ticket demand. Not to mention they were really amazing and surely would have drawn people back. However, it wasn’t meant to be and Bielefeld was it. Finally Marko’s sun dance had worked and I arrived to beautiful weather. Met up with B., S. and her son and had a pretty good lunch together. At the venue we met up with J. and H., who had been in Dortmund last year and once again H. was majorly excited. 🙂 We had lots of fun joking and sharing stories. It was all very relaxed, because we had benches to sit on and most people arrived quite late. Since I was returning home that night, I had brought my vinyl of ‘Signs of Life’ to sign and the photograph M. had given me got signed as well. As usual I chatted with everyone a little bit. Got a really nice picture with Marko and Petri too. 😀

The show kicked of nicely with an enthusiastic audience clapping and singing along from the start. The guys visibly enjoyed being received so well and often asked us to participate for the rest of the night. I enjoyed watching the audience as much as the guys. The place may not have been sold out, but those who were there easily made up for that. 🙂

A day off and a night in my own bed had done wonders for me. Batteries recharged, it didn’t take much to get lost in the music. The band seemed very relaxed as well after the break. It was one of those concerts with so many little nice and fun moments like the guys watching each other playing or leaning on to each other to do so. Jani and Ollie visited Captain, playing beside the keyboards for a while. 🙂 At this concert Marko and later Jaska stood up on the barstools they used during the acoustic set.

During ‘Late Goodbye’ Marko did not only play Ollie’s guitar, he also pretended to paly the flute on his microphone. While mock fighting with Jani, he tickled him under the chin. Jaska, Jani and Ollie played together a lot, smiling all the time. At one point Ollie was posing for me when I was taking a picture. There was a lot of jumping going on as well.

For the acoustic set the guys played ‘You’re still here’ and ‘Roses’. The former was just Marko and Ollie. Before they started they improvised something, with Marko joking about having half the sideburns of James Hetfield. The song was beautiful, I was quite happy to hear it again. ‘Roses’ ended in improvisation with Marko retreating to the side of the stage watching while the others played on. The melody they played seemed quite familiar, but I have no clue which song it might have been.

Somewhere during the show Marko leaned down to a fan on the floor and sang to it. He might have done it to cool down or just for fun. Either way, it made me smile. Pretty much everything made me smile that night like Jani raising the bass high in the air, Jaska and Ollie dueling on guitars, Captain coming to the front to raise his glass to us or Jari taking a bow in the end. All in all a fun show that ended too soon as they always do.

Setlist:

Dreaming Wide Awake
Show Me This Life
Cradled In Love
Kamikaze Love
Temple Of Thought
Rogue
Locking Up The Sun
Illusion & Dream
Diamonds For Tears
The Distance
Late Goodbye

unplugged
You’re still here
Roses

Running Out Of Time
Carnival Of Rust
Lift

Soon it was time to say goodbye to my friends. B. accompanied me to the train station before going back to her hotel. All the way back to Dortmund I chatted with another fan who was still very excited about having seen the Poets.

pictures of this concert

Poets of the Fall Switzerland/Austria/Germany tour: 8 gigs down, 2 to go. Next stop: Hamburg

Why do we sacrifice the beautiful ones?

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Poets of the Fall – Backstage, Munich; October 15th, 2013

Munich brought us long walks, shitty weather, hard to find food and a beautiful setlist that made up for anything that might have bothered us. 😀 B., C. and I traveled from Frankfurt around noon. The train was delayed, but we got there eventually. For two of us, the venue was familiar from last year. We had chosen a different hotel, however, hoping it would be closer – it wasn’t. Remembering there was no food to be had anywhere near the venue we asked if there was anything on the way. The girl at our hostel had mentioned two places – alas, both were closed. Luckily, we found a bakery, but that was not what we had had in mind. Either way, after a rather long walk we arrived at the venue, just in time for soundcheck. We were lucky to find all doors open so we gathered in the vestibule and kept quiet, afraid they’d close the door on us if they knew we were there. We were much rewarded – they soundchecked ‘The beautiful ones’ <3 three or four times. It was indescribable. Unfortunately, D., G. and C. arrived only after it was over. We listened to the remainder of the soundcheck and had quite a fun time wondering and joking about what might be going on, especially when somebody let out a scream that can only be described as weird. 😀

More people arrived, we lined up, waited. The usual. For D., G. and C. this was the last concert of the tour so we all hoped for something special. From previous experience I had learned that a song being soundchecked does not necessarily mean it will be played the same night (or even anywhere in the near future), but there was hope. 🙂 I can’t remember much from the meet and greet other than C. and me telling Marko he had to stop that rain dance. Seriously, once he had started it, it had rained after pretty much every concert. 😐 Instead of taking my usual spot on the left, I opted for one on the right for a change, because I wanted to have that perspective for once. It felt really strange too.

Once the show started I enjoyed the different perspective though. The only one I could hardly see all night was Jari, always hidden behind the cymbals, but I hade a nice close-up view of Jaska most of the time and the other guys played to us quite often as well.  😀 The concert was full of wonderful moments, from Marko singing to all of us “I’ll never be alone, ‘cause you’re right there” during ‘Cradled in Love’ and pointing at several people in the audience to the lovely sing along for ‘Carnival of Rust’ towards the end.

My friends an I kept exchanging smiles. This was a good one and we all knew it from the beginning. At the beginning of ‘Locking up the Sun’ Marko yelled “Sun dance!” before turning around and around in circles. It made me smile that he had taken up my suggestion. As usual the guys joked with each other a lot and at one point Jaska and Ollie were exchanging high-fives after a perfect guitar duel. Jani and Marko were chasing each other across stage. First Marko tried to whip Jani with a towel while Jani kicked in defense and later he ran away from him. It was quite amusing to watch. During ‘Late Goodbye, Captain came to the front to conduct our sing along and some other time Ollie stood in front of the drums and conducted us as well. He was also running and skipping back and forth across the stage together with Marko.

The highlight of the night was the acoustic set. Before it started Marko joked about guitarists and bass players always sticking together and moved over so they could be in a group. Then he announced a song the he and Ollie had only played once before: “This is called ‘The beautiful ones’” – the announcement alone elicited a great response. The song has been a fan favorite for years. The performance was flawless and quite moving. Never in a million years did I think I’d get to hear this song live.  :’D The second song in the set was ‘Stay’ which they had not played in a while. It was great as well!

For the last three songs the guys kicked it up a notch and the audience was moving with it. The room had already been warm, but now it got positively hot. Rather than passing out from the heat I stripped down to my bra for the remainder of the show. I could not shake the funny feeling the guys were all moving away from me, but that might have just been my imagination. 😉 Either way, I jumped and danced along, enjoying every moment. As the last notes of ‘Lift’ rang out I was soaked with sweat and very happy. What a show!

Setlist:

Dreaming Wide Awake
Show Me This Life
Cradled In Love
Kamikaze Love
Temple Of Thought
Rogue
Locking Up The Sun
Illusion & Dream
Diamonds For Tears
The Distance
Late Goodbye

unplugged
The Beautiful Ones
Stay

Running Out Of Time
Carnival of Rust
Lift

Since it was the last night for D., G. and C. we did not want to go home right away and despite heavy rain – so much for the sun dance – we set off to find some food. This proved harder than we had imagined as most places we tried were already closing down. Even though it was a weeknight, I had expected better from a city as big as Munich. Eventually we ended up at the “Ratskeller” where they gladly served us food and some really good wine too. It was a lovely way to say goodbye to our friends. 🙂

pictures of this concert

Poets of the Fall Switzerland/Austria/Germany tour: 7 gigs down, 3 to go. Next stop: Bielefeld