Kilroy, glass stacking and leg stroking

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Poets of the Fall – Bar ‘N’ Night Vaakuna, Mikkeli; December 2nd 2011

The first concert of four, the last Poets of the Fall mini-tour for this year, started with quite a long trip (not that this is anything I’m not used to by now). Flew in from Germany in the morning, met my friend G. at the airport, hopped on the bus to Tikkurila and got on a train to Mikkeli. Everything went smoothly and we arrived around 5:00 p.m. in the darkness. The walk to the hotel was a short one and as we were just checking in we met Ollie and Marko who were on their way to the soundcheck.

Got our room, had a bite to eat and met Marko in the lobby again, this time taking the chance to give him our birthday presents. There was still a lot of time before the gig, some of which we spent at the bar connected to the nightclub. Just before the doors opened we met M. from the forum and spent some time chatting. When we finally got in and saw the stage we felt that someone might be pulling a joke on us. Now I have seen many strange stages so far, but never one where the railing in front was so high I could hardly look over the top of it. G. and I got some laughs out of putting our noses and hands on top of the railing trying to look like Kilroy. The top of the railing was wood, while the rest of it was iron wrought. It would have been possible to look and even take pictures through there, but that would have meant spending all night with my back bent, so I decided not to.

The ticket said showtime would be at 11:00p.m. but it took until 12:30 a.m. before the show started. By that time the club was filled with people, many of them already rather drunk. Still, the atmosphere was charged with happiness, everyone was in a good mood and eagerly awaiting the concert.

When it finally started it made the waiting worthwhile. The club was packed, the audience was a good one and the guys instantly reacted to that. Especially Ollie and Jani were on fire that night. Everyone else was really into it too and the smiles on their faces showed how much they enjoyed being there.

They started with the faster songs, ‘Dreaming wide awake’, ‘The ultimate Fing’ and ‘Can you hear me’, then slowed down with ‘No end, no beginning’, ‘Stay’ and ‘Sleep’. The stage did not leave much room to move so it did not take long for Marko to climb up on the wooden railing. The ceiling was too low for him to stand there, but that did not keep him from sitting on the railing right in front of us or lying down there during ‘Sleep’.

‘War’ was special for me that night and ‘Roses’ as well as ‘Given and denied’ were beautiful. At one point a drunk guy tried stacking a few glasses on stage. He needed quite a few tries to actually manage the task, while Jani was watching him, highly amused. ‘Diamonds for Tears’ and ‘Illusion & Dream’ were the last two songs of the main set.

Encores were ‘Late Goodbye’, ‘Carnival of Rust’ and ‘Lift’. Three or four women in the audience had spent most of the night, repeatedly touching or stroking Marko’s legs. I’m not entirely sure if he was more amused or annoyed by that, but the only reaction he showed was when one of the women grabbed a hold of his feather boa. He pulled it out of her hands with a look that said “Oh no you don’t!” Funny. Even funnier was when during the encores the women seemed to decide that touching Marko was not enough and did it to Jani and Ollie as well. Their reactions were just priceless. Jani stepped back about 1 meter so they could not reach him any more and Ollie just gave them a really confused “Wtf?” – look. This made me laugh more than anything else that night.

All in all a fun concert with a fun audience and pretty good sound too. I really loved it and it looked as if the guys did too.

Afterwards, G., M. and I sat in the hotel lobby chatting for a while. Ollie dropped by, beer in hand, asking us how we liked the concert. Jani, Jari and Marko also walked by and Ollie called them back so we got to chat with all of them for a bit, before we all went our separate ways, tired, but happy.

Setlist

Dreaming wide awake
The ultimate Fling
Can you hear me
No End, no Beginning
Stay
Sleep
Locking up the Sun
Diamonds for Tears
Roses
Given and Denied
War
Illusion & Dream

Encore:
Late goodbye
Carnival of Rust
Lift

Two doctors, legendary potf stringies… and you will Sleep!

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Poets of the Fall – Nightclub Tähti, Oulu; November 26th 2011

Operating on barely two hours of sleep is not something I do well, but enough pre-gig excitement and adrenaline do wonders for me and Coke (the brown liquid in the bottle, not the white powdery stuff some snort up their noses) did the rest. It was a nightclub gig so I knew it would not start before midnight.

Met my friends in the bar across from Tähti around 6:30 p.m. and had a good time just hanging out and chatting. K. and I had decided to go to the gig dressed up as our favorite Doctor Who, even though we were fairly sure the guys would not get what we were up to. Still, there was a chance one of them might understand and get a laugh out of it. Besides, we had a bunch of fun picking our costumes and getting ready. Katja even had the tenth doctor’s 3 D glasses and with my hair grown out, I do a pretty good impression of the 11th doctor’s hairdo. Without having agreed to do that, K. was wearing a button that read “Trust me, I’m the Doctor” and I had a sign saying “The Doctor, here to help”. We also brought, but never used, our respective sonic screwdrivers. The only effect all of this had was people staring at us, but we got a kick out of it nonetheless.

The stage was triangular and small; the guys wouldn’t have much room to move. The place filled up slowly, but by the time they hit the stage at midnight there was a pretty good crowd gathered. People moved in much closer than the previous night, they were more excited, wilder and louder too. This was going to be a good one.

The intro called the guys to stage one by one. They looked happy and very much at home – being on a break since summer seemed to have given them lots of energy that still lasted. It immediately spilled over to the audience everyone was rocking along from the start.

The setlist was the same as in Seinäjoki, but the mood was more relaxed than the previous night. The mixture of rocking songs and slower ones is just about perfect and it worked well. When ‘No End, no Beginning’ started, K. took hold of my hand and pretty soon the entire front row held hands. During ‘Sleep’, Marko almost hypnotized me. When he ended the song with “And you will sleep” in a low voice I was ready to fall alsleep right there. Luckily that didn’t last long and ‘Locking up the sun’ woke me up again. 😉

The whole concert was brilliant and so much fun. I spent much of the night just laughing at the silly things the guys did. I remember at one point Jari cracked up out of the blue. I wish I knew what was so funny, but seeing him laugh was totally contagious. Also they kept posing for someone. I still want to see these pictures. 😀

During ‘Illusion & Dream’ I was toasting to Jani and he toasted right back to me. For the encores, some of the legendary POTF G-strings were thrown on stage. Jaska picked up the trophies and decided to use the first one to decorate Marko’s top hat. The second one was hung on to Jaska’s guitar. Everyone was laughing at that, especially when Marko tried to grab it from there and Jaska would not let him. Later Ollie got the G-string to decorate his guitar. His and Jaska’s guitar duell during ‘Lift’ was amazing and brought the gig to a fitting close. The guys waved goodbye to everyone as they left the stage and Jari was even giving out drumsticks.

We stayed and talked for a bit after the gig, then I left for me hotel, trying to get a little sleep finally. At 6 the next morning it was time to leave. Oulu was still in the dark when I boarded my train. I didn’t notice anything outside the windows or see any daylight until I woke up again four hours later. I smiled at the memonries all the way home.

Setlist

Dreaming wide awake
The ultimate Fling
Can you hear me
No End, no Beginning
Stay
Sleep
Locking up the Sun
Diamonds for Tears
Roses
Given and Denied
War
Illusion & Dream

Encore:
Late goodbye
Carnival of Rust
Lift

pictures of this concert