Poets of the Fall – Batschkapp, Frankfurt; October 14th, 2013
On previous tours I had learned that a day off often brings out the best in Poets of the Fall, because they are just more relaxed after a good night’s sleep and a day without travel. Yet I could not imagine anything even close to the show in Freiburg. They proved me wrong – again! Frankfurt got an amazing show full of laughs and a crazy happy band. It did not beat my favorite show of the tour, but it did come close. 🙂
Most of our group met up at our hotel, had lunch and went to the venue, where we met with the others. After the previous show we had made plans to do something nice for the guys to show our appreciation and decided on paper signs with “Thank you” written in all the languages we could cover in our group. D. brought pens, I brought paper and we spent the waiting time drawing and writing signs. We made a few spare ones too and involved people who arrived after us. Apart from German and English we had Swiss German, Norwegian, Italian, Russian, Finnish and Icelandic (for me 😉 ). We agreed to hold them up once the full band was back on stage after the acoustic set.
When Nina picked us up for the meet and greet there was much laughter and a few comments about her instructions. “You can ask all the questions! You can do everything you want” – are you sure about that? 😉 S., A. and E. took the chance to say goodbye to the Poets, since this was their last show before returning home. Since the venue is quite well known, we talked about all the people who had played there before them. I also hugged all the guys, thanking them for the great show in Freiburg. They agreed that it was pretty amazing. Marko asked if we liked ‘The Wind that shakes the Barley’ – oh yes!
The venue was nice, inside and out with a stage just the right size. There was a barrier, but it was close enough for the guys to stand on and reach out to us – so many opportunities and they used them too. 😀 Maybe it was the location, maybe it was the audience, maybe it was my own happiness to see them again or maybe the guys just had an especially good day, but the whole concert felt great from the beginning. Everyone’s mood seemed just great, as if the spirit of the last show had somehow been saved and carried along.
It turned out to be an amazing night full of laughs and good moments for our group. Early on, Marko leaned out to S., holding her hand and singing to her. Later, he stepped of stage and leaned on to G. to reach out for a baseball cap he had spotted a few rows back. We got a lot of attention from the others too. I particularly remember Ollie standing right in front of me, smiling. The guys were not only communicating with us a lot, they also had a lot of fun interacting with each other. They often stepped closer to watch each other play (and sometimes played each other’s instruments), they stuck out their tongues at each other and they hugged too. <3
The best part of the night might have been the acoustic set. It started with Marko alone, taking out his earpiece to hear us and himself better. He told us that it was his favorite part of the show, because “I get to come out here alone. It’s just me… and my sixpack.” He kept talking about all the things he does not eat or drink. With every other thing he also admitted “that’s a lie!” – it was just hilarious. He ended with “Anyway, I worked hard for my sixpack”, rubbing his belly. That lead to D. yelling “Well then show us!” and some other comments. I was laughing already, but totally lost it when Marko grabbed his earpiece and announced: “I’m putting my earplugs on. I’m hearing way too much… distortion.” The banter went on a little longer, before he treated us to ‘The Wind that shakes the Barley’ once again. <3 He called Ollie back to the stage for ‘Desire’. Afterwards Ollie left and Marko called out far Jaska. Rocking back and forth on the barstool he was sitting on he decided to get a rocking chair next time. “I have a great job, because I get to come up on stage, make people happy and a fool out of myself – who could ask for more?” We cheered for that one. Jaska randomly started playing Eric Clapton’s ‘Tears in Heaven’. Marko started singing then joked that it was a Guns ‘n’ Roses song and proceeded to sing the first lines Guns ‘n’ Roses – style. Together they played ‘Roses’, again with the rest of the band joining them one by one. It must have been as hot on stage as it was in front, because Jani was shirtless now.
Once the song ended, we held up our multi-lingual thank you notes. The guys smiled and Marko walked along front row, reading each one out loud. He did a good job with all the languages too, even with Swiss German. 😀 Other than that, I don’t remember much that happened during specific songs, but I do remember Jani whispering to Ollie at one point and both of them laughing – sometimes I really want to know what they are saying to each other. 😉 I remember Jaska singing (!) and Jani wearing the feather boa and later wrapping it around Marko’s neck. When Marko played Ollie’s guitar he didn’t only use his hands this time, but turned around and played it with his butt! 😀 It must have been during ‘Carnival of Rust’ when he tied a scarf over his eyes and sang blindfolded. During ‘Lift’ Captain played the keyboards on his knees again and Jani got on his knees in front of Ollie. 😀 The instrumental improvisation in the end went completely out of hand. The guys were on fire, they just would not stop playing. When Ollie played his solo, Jaska decided he needed cooling off, picked up a fan from the side of the stage and carried it over. Unfortunately he unplugged it in the process and it stopped running. 😀 It took him a little bit to realize that, the look on his face was priceless. He then plugged it in somewhere between Ollie’s gear and held it up to cool Ollie down for as long as he played. Funny!
When the concert was over we all agreed it had been awesome. Outside we spent some time chatting and grouphugged before some of us had to leave. The remaining people celebrated the show together with drinks in a pub near our hotel. It was a good way to say goodbye to those of our group who were leaving. :’)
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 Wind that shakes the Barley (Marko solo)
Desire (Marko and Ollie)
Roses (Marko and Jaska into full band)
Running Out Of Time
Carnival Of Rust
Lift
Poets of the Fall Switzerland/Austria/Germany tour: 6 gigs down, 4 to go. Next stop: Munich