Anssi Kela – Nummela 25th anniversary tour

Released in 2001, Anssi Kela’s debut album, Nummela, quickly became a generational experience and defined the Finnish music scene of the early 2000s. This year, Kela is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the album with a tour that will kick off during Helsinki Festival, after which he will take a longer break from touring for the first time in his career.

Anssi Kela will start his tour celebrating the Nummela album at the Huvila tent at Helsinki Festival on Thursday 27 August. The tour will continue on Saturday 3 October, when Kela and his band will deliver a concert at Vihdin Kultsa, the cultural centre of Vihti. From there, the tour will continue through October and November, travelling around Finland and concluding at the Savoy Theatre in Helsinki on Wednesday 2 December.

Kela will perform all songs from the album on the tour. The concert programme includes hits that have been part of people’s lives for decades, such as Puistossa, Milla, Mikan faijan BMW and Nummela, as well as songs that Kela has not performed live for years. The crew will build props for the concerts that will transport the audience to the world of the Nummela album. Kela has promised to tell stories about the songs between songs.

“Back in the day, Nummela was an album that united generations. For me as the author, it’s been a real joy to see how important Nummela’s songs have been to so many people, and how they have remained part of people’s lives. Their significance becomes tangible at concerts. The purpose of this tour is to take us back to 2001. To the time when these songs were new – and we might have been a little younger ourselves,” Anssi Kela says.

The concerts are divided into two halves. After the intermission, Kela will perform hits from his other albums.

Following the concert at the Savoy Theatre, Kela will hold a concert at Krapin paja in Tuusula between Christmas and New Year’s, which has become a tradition for him. After that he will take a longer break from touring for the first time in his career. The length of this break is currently undecided.

Nummela
Anssi Kela released his first album, Nummela, in March 2001. It debuted at number 14 on the album chart, spent several weeks in the top ten, and finally, in June, fifteen weeks after its release, it climbed to number one on the Finnish album chart. Nummela ultimately stayed on the chart for 57 weeks, of which it was number one for 16 weeks. The album has reached five-times platinum status, having sold a total of around 160,000 copies. Of its nine songs, four became big hits: the first single Mikan faijan BMW, Kaksi sisarta, Puistossa and the title track Nummela.

To celebrate the triple-platinum release of the album, Anssi Kela released the single Milla in November 2001. It became the biggest hit of Kela’s career up to that point. The single was released both as a standalone single and as a bonus track in the new edition of Nummela. Milla is considered to be the best-selling single in Finnish recording history: it sold 10,000 copies as a standalone single and almost 50,000 copies as part of Nummela.

Anssi Kela also published a sheet music book that included a studio diary and short essays about the songs.

The hits from the Nummela album are still playing on the radio, and on Spotify alone they have amassed almost 40 million streams. Anssi Kela wrote the songs on the album by himself, and he also produced most of the album on his own.

The floor: R18 alcohol serving area. The gallery: no age restrictions, no alcohol serving.