ERJA LYYTINEN * 50th BIRTHDAY LIVE 2026
Release Date: October 9, 2026
Available as Double CD/DVD and Double VINYL
Erja’s Lyytinen ‘50th Birthday Live’ and ‘Smell the Roses Live’ double set (DVD and CD, also double LP available) is the perfect celebratory showcase of a career which has always been inspired by being adventurous. Having originally learned her craft in her parent’s band, she established her solo career on the Euro blues circuit, while earning the mantel of ‘The Queen of Slide Guitar’, revelling in an exhilarating combination of intense guitar playing and deep grooves. Each of her 13-studio album have seemingly expanded her musical boundaries, albeit for a solo artist who first recorded in 2002, it’s perhaps surprising that it wasn’t until 2008’s ‘Grip of The Blues’ that she was really happy with a recording. That leap in confidence found her polishing her song craft, as she went on to add Americana style, storytelling elements.
On this her 5th live album, she unveils a rockier approach full of intense playing, comprising searing riffs, blistering slide and muscular solos. There are also notably more proggy elements, framed by wide ranging arrangements which gives her music more substance and wider possibilities. Then there also the change in image; where once there was the enthusiastic, but slightly introverted blues artist, she has blossomed into a sassy experienced rock chick with occasional biting lyrics, who has both the music business experience and vibrant musical excellence to back it all up.
This double set is the work of a fiercely independent musician with a clear vision of where she wants to be, and there’s no better place to be than playing to 2 separate home crowds who supports her the whole way. The 2 recordings come from the 2025’s live recording of the 'Smell the Roses' album, while the significant 50th anniversary show was cut at Helsinki’s House of Culture (which boasts such musical historical antecedents as Hendrix, Zeppelin, Queen and Slayer). She’s a flamboyant performer who makes an essential connection with the crowd, which she maintains all the way through the two concerts with a mix of whoops and exclamatory shouts of ‘Helsinki!” And aside from her dazzling playing it’s her riff driven songs which garner our attention. She’s a storyteller who is equally good with imagery and effortlessly lead us into angular proggy breaks, balanced by lingering melodies with her road-tested band, in a hard driven set.
The opening 'The Road Leading Home' is a beautiful, nuanced slide motif that serves as a marker for much of the excellence to follow, while the big power chord opening of ‘Ball & Chain’ might surprise older fans, as she revels playing with her boisterous rhythm section, before settling into an arc of descending slide riffs. She extends the heaviness on the much later 'Cherry Overdrive' into a maelstrom of a slide-driven wall of sound.
The rhythmically strong 'Smell the Roses' is inevitably a key song, carried by an uplifting hook and proggy infusions. The biting lyrics are further emphasized by a guitar avalanche of nicely distorted tones. She also makes subtle use of a wide-ranging tonal array, as on the lovely opening jangly riff and slick tempo changes of ‘Going To Hell’, on which her intricately woven guitar work offsets her band’s natural bluster.
Then there’s more melodic guitar and bass interplay of ‘Bird’, as well as the sharply contrasting, almost sleazy ‘One Thing I Won’t Change’, which features celebrated Finnish glam-punk rocker Sami Yaffa, from bands such as Joan Jett, Hanoi Rocks and New York Dolls. And while ‘Another World’ is a powerful whirl of animated vocals, jingle-jangle and a climactic guitar solo resolution, she then illustrates her versatility on the shimmering harmonies of ‘Torn’, a quite magnificent evocative ballad that makes the most of the talents of Baskery, a Swedish banjo punk band.
The album ebbs and flows, mirroring her stylistic diversity, musical ebullience and onstage confidence. She’s a performer who readily engages the crowd and never let’s go. She illuminates ‘Don’t Let a Good Woman Down’ with some deeply wrought slide playing, while the grainy toned ‘Stoney Creek’ is a distant reminder of Hendrix’s presence in the very same room all those years ago! She finishes with ‘The Ring’ which features a veritable slide-led guitar blizzard on which her band does her proud. The accompanying ‘Smell the Roses Live’ is essentially a bonus CD, being chronologically speaking back to front. There’s real zest in her playing, though some of the set is a duplicate of above tracks, but she adds the heavy ‘Dragonfly’, the riff of which reminds of Peter Green’ ‘Green Manalishi’.
There’s also the very heavy ‘Abyss’ which is an exercise in the music reflecting lyrical meaning, while ‘Empty Hours’ is a more restrained gem of a track on which her guitar playing is beyond intuitive. In many ways ‘Smell the Roses’ was the album on which Erja Lyytinen tore up all her fans expectation, as she jumped into the musical ether without a safety net, save for her innate musical abilities.
The fact she pulled it off – in this case in a full-blown live context – tells you all you need to know about one of Europe’s leading rock-blues musicians. And as if to seal the deal she reaches for the heights on the big sounding ‘Wings to Fly’, which climaxes with more searing slide, leaving a mere 13 minutes plus, in which to whip things up to a frenzy on the big toned, breathtaking and boogie induced ‘Wedding Day’, full of ripping guitar playing with a belated Sabbath reference.
To have come so far so soon in the first 50 years of her career, begs the question whatever next?
Erja Lyytinen – 50th Birthday Live 2026 album is a great package showing that this firecracker lady continues to enjoy playing live and isn´t anywhere near ready to stop making music and developing herself as a musician, songwriter and entertainer. This live album is a must for all, who enjoy unique hard rock and blues music played with an attitude.
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