It’s 20:50, ten minutes to show time, as a loud announcement kindly lets us know. What follows are 10 minutes of supporting calming meditations, that stress me out to an extreme. Luckily, once the show starts, I can actually relax.

Right from the start we go strong with one of my favourites ‘Locking Up the Sun‘ as the second song of the evening. And it’s only getting better from there. They’re certainly not scarce with their hits. From ‘Temple of Thought‘,’War‘ and  ‘Daze‘, all the way to ‘Choice Millionaire‘. There’s not much more a long time fan could ask for.

But of course there’s also some more current songs like ‘Revelations‘ from their newest album ‘Ghostlight‘.

Poets of the Fall scores by keeping things simple, there’s no big spectacular stage production, there isn’t even a huge backdrop banner (just a small one behind the drummer with just the name on it), but they also don’t really need any of these. What makes their shows special are all the emotions that their songs and especially Marko Saarestos voice convey.

At some of the higher notes, you can tell that his voice isn’t Markos voice isn’t quite the same anymore as when the songs were written, but whose voice is after 20 years? And it’s just some small things, nothing that would destroy the beauty of the song. I’m honestly still very impressed by his vocal range.

I’m pretty sure everyone at the venue, including the band, is having a great time. The smiles on everybody’s faces couldn’t be much bigger. I’m guessing some of the fans there have been around since the early beginnings of the band. It’s absolutely adorable to see these grown men and women act like teenagers again.

After about an hour, the band gives us a not so ‘Late Goodbye‘ and leaves the stage, but of course they come back shortly after for a few encores. There’s just no way they could end the show without playing ‘Lift‘ and the iconic ‘Carnival of Rust‘. And so after just one hour and 15 minutes the ride is over, and the 20th anniversary tour has come to an end. But I’m sure there are many more years to come for this band, and I hope to be back for the 25th anniversary.