LIVE REPORT: Mia Hafrén
Album release show for “For the Brave”
Kulmasali, Korjaamo; March 8th, 2024
Helsinki Indie Live Underground
There ain’t no rest for the wicked, which meant that March 8th brought me to yet another live show… my third night in a row at gigs this week, good grief! Okay, but I was, perhaps, the most excited for this one, because I only just discovered Mia Hafrén in January and she’s released some of my favorite singles so far this year. This led me to gobble up her first English-language album, “For the Brave,” with gusto, because I love strong, empowered songs that push for the world to be a better place. Having just celebrated her 50th birthday, Mia seems to be at the top of her game, so I naturally had to be at this show to see how she does live!
This was my first time going to Korjaamo in Töölö and I always get excited to scope out new venues, especially since most of the venues I’ve known throughout my years in Finland have closed down (such as Prkl Club, Dante’s Highlight, DOM, Bäkkäri, Heavy Corner, Nosturi, Virgin Oil Co., and The Circus, to name a few). Korjaamo has been showing up on my radar more and more recently, so this doubled as a nice opportunity to see what it’s like. Unfortunately, I wasn’t immediately impressed by it at first, as I arrived to find a rather large building complex, whose doors were closed and a lot of very cranky people were standing outside. It wasn’t until the doors opened at 20.00 that I realized that I was at the wrong room (Erja Lyytinen was apparently playing in this building)… which is a bit ludicrous because there was a huge sign outside that had the show list, with Mia Hafrén right there, but there was no sign anywhere to suggest where Kulmasali was somewhere else in this complex. I was fortunate that a nice young woman found me wandering around and pointed me in the right direction, but I was scared that, by the time I found my way to the actual venue, I was late for the showtime.
Fortunately for me, the show was a few minutes later than I was. I was worried upon arrival to find that the venue was packed and I thought that I wasn’t going to be able to see the stage, but it turned out that this is still Finland and no one wants to approach the stage or be in the front row, so I was able to walk right past everyone and get a front-row viewpoint. Truly, in what other country is that possible? The Kulmasali [corner hall] hosts about 200 people and it seems to have been quite well filled by folks whom I’d say were on average about the same age as Mia, and I wondered if they’ve all been following her since long before her solo career, unlike me, a brand new fan.
The band took the stage and I’m sorry that I didn’t catch their Finnish/Swedish names, but suffice to say that they were all great and looked like they were pretty excited (the ones who were making facial expressions, of course [wink]). Mia took the stage and dang… to see a woman who just turned 50 out there, showing off her legs and ripping it up in high heels was honestly very empowering! You can tell she’s got stage experience and then some, the way she moved (and did not break her ankles)! They started the set with “Exclusively Yours,” the crowd went bananas, and I started to grin like an idiot as the guy manning the video camera was boogying away behind his gear while trying to keep it steady.
Mia warmly chatted with the crowd throughout the set in a mishmash of three languages (English, Finnish, and Swedish), with a charismatic presence that is underlined by kindness. She was often encouraging the crowd to clap and dance along, to raise our hands, and let us know when we should be singing along with (or without) her. She claimed that they took the chairs away so that no one would fall asleep, and also mentioned that the album’s inception began around the time the war in the Ukraine started. “For the Brave” is about her feelings and what’s important to her: things like courage, love, empathy, and peace.
The set followed with more familiar material from the new album, “Easy to Love”—which she said got its name because “Not Easy to Love” was less marketable, and was dedicated to those who have the courage to love—and “In Every Little Thing,” before saying that solo albums are never truly solo, and took a moment to introduce her band, which included the guys who also play on the album—Kalle Katz (keyboards), Teemu Aitoaho (guitars), Anssi Växby (bass), Tuukka Aitoaho (drums), plus two backing vocalists, Margarita Eklund and Livia Wikström, as well as the returning guest, Jasmin Afaneh, who also played on the album and showed up a few times to play flute or trumpet, first during “The Way.”
“Who We Are” stood out for the fantastic harmonization between the vocalists (Kalle was also adding vocals at times, incidentally), and then Mia began joking around that, as you get older, you stop carrying about silly things like climate change and the state of the world, and more about things like what your hair looks like and where the pillow cases can be found. She then went on to tell a story about how she’s accidentally ended up adding grey to her hair quite prematurely, but ended up keeping the same style in the end (and why not, her hair is great!).
Now, I mentioned that “For the Brave” was her fist English-language album, but it’s not her first solo album, so I was treated with some Swedish songs that I didn’t know from her earlier release, which had the same spirited spunk and flavor to them, but of course, have a bit of a different melodic cadence due to the different language. I may need to give that album a spin sometime for fun, even if I won’t know the words. Around this time, two ladies came up to the front to dance (finally!), one of whom I recognized as the reason I was at the show at the first place: Oona Kapari. I heard of her around the time of the Musamimmit vol. 2 show and started following her, and it was her shout-outs about Mia that got me to listen to her singles in the first place! So it was fun to get to meet her in real life briefly and thank her for shouting out the people she works with, so music-hunters like myself can find great shows like this!
One of the wildest moments of the night for me was during “The Phone Call,” when I realized that there’s a part towards the end that heavily pairs the vocals and pianos together, which reminds me of Sonata Arctica! It sounds like a melody off of “Reckoning Night” and what a surprise to find that at a pop show!
If you’ve heard the song “For the Brave,” you may recall the lyrics about confusing British roundabouts. This metaphor was explained during the show, as she mentioned being on tour in the UK and having to drive on the other side of the road, which wasn’t so bad until you went into a roundabout and were unable to escape, and if it wasn’t for one of her bandmates from Fork, they might still be in that roundabout today. She thought it made for a good metaphor about life and the world. Then, “I Refuse” had the best singalong of the night—what a powerful, poignant song! I want every world leader to listen to that track and take it to heart!
“Let Light In” was the final track of the main set, but she said, “You know how this goes,” with a laugh. There were big cheers when the set wrapped up and the first encore track was another one of her Swedish hits. The crowd then sang a song to her in Swedish, which I can only assume is their version of “happy birthday” (I didn’t know they had a different melody/song for that, so I learned something interesting!), before she went into “goodness (a letter to a dictator)” to finally wrap up the set! She definitely planned the set well, ending on a very high note and leaving everyone wanting more—the audience was very loud!
It’s worth mentioning that, as a birthday present to herself, she decided to celebrate four times and one of these was the afterparty for her show: a band playing her favorite songs, so for those who had more stamina to stay out (I, sadly, had hit my standing quota for my spine), there was another show to follow and from what Instagram stories suggest, it was a good time. In the interim, she came out to the merch table to say hello and sign CDs and promised to give half of the proceeds to an organization specialized in helping children. So yes, she’s just as nice in person as her lyrics would suggest, I can confirm!
Ultimately, the frustrations experienced on arrival were quickly washed away by the wonderful show full of excellent songs and a heaping ton of personality. It’s always great to get the chance to hear an album that you’ve really enjoyed come to life on stage and experience it in an all-new way with an all-new energy. I’m only sad that the Finns don’t let loose more like the ladies dancing in the front were—it was such a danceable set! If she’s playing again and you need some lovely, positive music to go out and dance to, I highly recommend checking out “For the Brave” and going to see Mia Hafrén, even if it’s just to see how well she drops it like it’s hot in fishnets and heels. What an idol!
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