LIVE REPORT: Helmi Ada, Miia Junes, & Saarisalo
“Mikä meitä vaivaa” Album Release Show
Semifinal, Helsinki; April 5th, 2024
Helsinki Indie Live Underground
If you’ve been following along with me at all, you may have noticed that I like to lurk around the Helsinki indie scene these days, finding all of the unusual, unique, and talented artists that aren’t as well-sung as they should be. As such, when the artists I follow start shouting out other artists, I tend to follow along. This is ultimately how I ended up checking out three fully new acts on April 5th, as Salla Saarisalo (aka Saarisalo) was celebrating the release of her latest album, “Mikä meitä vaivaa,” which came out on March 22nd, 2024. Alongside her were Miia Junes and Helmi Ada, so this was an evening full of all-new acts for me!
It’s been a good long while since I’ve been over to Semifinal, with my last trip there being, I believe, the last live show I saw before pandemic restrictions set in (Trio de Facto). I was in a vague panic about getting to town on time because I had a lot of stops to make and the weather had taken a turn for the melty-snowy-icy, so driving was a bit more sketchy than usual. Fortunately, we made it and found a good parking spot and had some time to spare when we got there.
First on the roster of the night was Helmi Ada, who had a great outfit that I really loved, paired with her band who all looked like wonderful, colorful ‘70s hippies. A nice little crowd showed up for this pop-rock mixed with some hippy/psych flavor. She had extremely fun stage energy and was bouncing about the whole time. There was one story in there about how the bassist had to sit down for a song, which was a very groovy, beachy, psychedelic track that I really enjoyed. Afterwards, everything got fun and peppy again—she used an acoustic guitar for a little while, with the music taking a hard turn into rock ‘n’ roll, and at the end of their set, the drummer came out to the front of the stage bashing a cymbal as everyone cheered. This was a very lively set and I had a lot of fun!
Next was Mia Junes, whose outfit immediately invoked Alice in Wonderland. She has an astoundingly wonderful voice and really put herself to work with it, adding a lot of little vocal flourishes and flare to her songs for extra texture and flavor. The venue started to really fill up and the band showed off some fantastic rockin’ grooves. There was a really good balance of quality between the vocals and the instruments—Miia is fantastic, but so is her band… she is at the forefront of everything, but nothing backing her up is slacking off. One of her songs, “Sumea maisema,” got a very emotional response from the crowd! I really enjoyed this set, it was really delightful!
Now, what can I say about Saarisalo? First of all, she’s an absolute firecracker on stage. I loved her pom-poms and tutu, looking like a circus princess porcelain doll wild-child as she bounced all over the stage. She’s got a lot of flare and personality as a performer, chatting with the crowd and being very cheeky! The venue had absolutely gotten packed by this point and I noticed another local singer in her band, Awa (who is surely one potential source of how I found out about this show), who I’ve also been hoping to see live sometime. Unfortunately, I don’t think this time counts because she was blended into the mix, but it was fun to see her on stage as well. I also caught Emmy June watching as well! I just love how mutually supportive all these local artists are!
As their show started, there was some sort of technical issue because Salla’s mic wasn’t working at all. She handled it like a total professional, still singing even if no one could hear her, and grabbing the guitarist’s microphone. She was singing as she unraveled it… didn’t miss a beat! She started doing some funny “yeah yeah yeah” vocal tests for the new mic and the crowd was getting into it because she’s really very funny, goofy, and entertaining.
It’s worth shouting out her band, as well, because there were some really fantastic guitar lines and everyone seemed to be really having fun up there. Since this was an album release show, they did play the entire album from start to finish and she shared some stories about the tracks along the way. I made a conscious choice not to listen to any of these artists before the show because I wanted to let the live music make its mark on me first, but I’ve been having fun listening to it ever since—“Tyrmäys x3” was an absolute banger, for example, where she got the whole crowd riled up and singing along. At some point she was asking for more and dropped into a surprisingly proficient little death metal growl, which of course tickled me just right as an old metalhead (you can even find that moment in a video on her Instagram, funnily enough). It was also delightful to see Helmi Ada in the front row going bananas, singing and dancing along—I love seeing this sort of mutual love and support between artists at shows!
By the time her album set had ended, the crowd nigh forced her to stay on stage—she had no chance to even leave. The first encore track hasn’t been recorded yet but was probably my favorite song of the night, called “Sudet” [wolves], because of its awesome stompin’ beat. Finally, they wrapped up the show with her first-ever-released single, “Päästän irti,” which elicited an enormous response from the crowd.
Ultimately, this was a fantastic night of vibrant, wonderful performances from extremely lovely artists. Shows like this are exactly what make the indie scene so enrapturing for me. Go check out Saarisalo’s new album, “Mitä meitä vaivaa,” spin Miia Junes 2022 “Sadekuuroja” release, or try Helmi Ada’s most recent single from 2023, “Muille pojille” and get on board with all this indie underground awesomeness!
Tracklist
Kotiin
Valssi Antikristuken pojasta
Koita jaksaa vaan
27
Sydänvaras
Toinen Jumala
Sarjakuvia
Tyrmäys x3
Kakkosluokan Jeesus
~encore~
Sudet
Päästän irti
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Image by Miia Kilpiö
