The Date: 2.8.2012
The Place: Helsinki, Assembly
The Album: Temple of Thought
I
had really big expectations about this gig. Ridiculously big. Nerds and
geeks are my people, I am one of them. And in Finland Assembly is one
of the biggest gamer geek festivals. It has been orgnized since 1992 and
it's audience has grown from 700 to about 5000. Just before the gig one
of the organizers told the audience why Poets of the Fall was
performing there. That in addition to liking Poets of the Fall's music
there is also a demoscene connection. Captain has been involved with the
demoscene for a long time and is known for such hits as Space Debris
and Beyond Music. And of course Poets of the Fall has made music to
several video games.
I have been to Assembly once before, in
2007. Then I had the privilege to hang out with some of the Byterapers
and Energia crew. The former is one of the oldest demoscene groups in
Finland and they were one of the organizers of the first Assembly. The
latter is a production company behind Star Wreck and Iron Sky and I
participated Star Wreck roleplaying game run by them in the middle of
the night. Needless to say I had a blast!
This year I had to go
to work on Friday but I took the day off from work on Thursday and came
to Helsinki all by myself, since Mikko couldn't get a day off.
This
was Assembly's 20th birthday and I was expecting non-stop geekgasms. I
mean, this was the perfect opportunity to play songs that don't fit into
normal tours, to really retrofit the show according to the audience. My
dream set list would have consisted of Old Gods of Asgard songs, Late
Goodbye, War, Dreaming Wide Awake, Grinders Blues, the Happy Song and
Space Debris. But I would have been happy with just the Happy Song. I
know, that it would have required rehearsing but it was Assembly's 20th
birthday which is kind of a big thing. Wouldn't it have been worth it?
Now,
I have to admit, that the special intro was übercool. I have been
racking my brain over it, and the best I can come up with is that it is a
remix of Beyond Music with a bit of Space Debris thrown into the mix. I
might be completely wrong about that, but it was awesome nonetheless.
Otherwise than that, the setlist was the same one with what they have
been touring earlier this year. I have never ever been disappointed by a
PotF-gig, until now.
But even a disappointing gig from PotfF is a
great gig. It was a solid performance and I did have fun. At first it
was difficult to get into the mood because of the mixing. I was in the
first row where the view was perfect but the sound was anything but. I
hardly could make out any of the words and the sounds were just
porridge. I tried putting on earplugs, taking them off and putting only
the other one on. Nothing worked. So about half way through the gig I
abandoned the first row and moved several rows back where the sound was
immensely better.
It was a rare and fun treat that the audience
consisted mainly of guys that were sober to boot. It was fun to observe
different type of an audience, for example during Carnival of Rust
chorus there were a lot of fist pumping the air and I joined the crowd.
There were no shoving or rude behaviour and there was plenty of room in
front of the stage. My water bottle was on the floor in front of me and
nobody came even close to knocking it over. At first the audience was a
bit sluggish and most of the people just stood stoically and listened.
But as the gig progressed, people started to participate more by
clapping and fist pumping and whatnot. There was this group of 4-5 young
blokes near me that were really stoked about the gig. I do hope they
didn't think I was laughing at them, I was so happy that they had such a
great time that I couldn't help but laugh. They moshed in a row and
during Lift they danced and jumped around by locking their arms together
from elbows.
After the gig I watched the game development compo
with my friends, ate expensive vegetarian pizza and made my way to the
nearby hotel where I spent my night before going back to Tampere and to
work.
