In the singer’s recent biography, we return to the events of summer 2018.
In the summer of 2018, Katri Helena was afraid that her midsummer concert in Kauhavan’s PowerPark would be the last of her career.
– Let’s put a plug in the wall, I said to the band, as I usually say before we go on stage. No matter how tired, sad or restless I am, when I walk in front of an audience, it feels like an electric current runs through me, says Katri Helena in her recent biography.
That time, however, something was broken. Katri Helena could sing the first songs. Then I started getting dizzy.
– I couldn’t continue. I put the microphone on the stand in the middle of the song. I felt like I couldn’t stand up. I tried to get out of the crowd before I collapsed.
The ambulance came quickly. Paramedics measured blood pressure and did other tests. The singer was sedated.
– I was shocked, terrified – and disappointed in myself. I had collapsed in the middle of a song that people had come to hear. Before that, I had never thought that this could happen. Even if I had a cold, tired or sad, singing had been a healing moment for me. How could this happen? Now what was different? Katri Helena remembers her pain.
Falling down in the middle of the gig scared Katri Helena badly. INKA SOVERI
For more than fifty years, he had always managed. The singer had toured Finnish summer stages since 1963.
– Fainting in the middle of a song was a terrible experience and changed things more than I could even think at that moment.
– At first I thought I would return to performing after a short rest. I couldn’t do it. I stayed in my own situation and went through stages of grief, Katri Helena says in her biography.
At first, he also feared for my health.
– The fear subsided when I rested and over time my health returned to as good as it can be with these kilometers. The bigger question was what would change and what would happen to me with it. How could I let go of someone who had filled even the darkest moments of my life with light? What would I be if I couldn’t sing anymore?
Recovery took longer than Katri Helena imagined.
– It felt terrible. I was used to going to gigs with my head in my arms.
– Now that time was over. I canceled the late summer, autumn and winter gigs. I rested and mourned.
Katri Helena says that she had not understood her own condition, her deep fatigue.
– I was so tired that my thyroid couldn’t take it anymore. It dropped me. The condition collapsed.
However, after a thorough rest, Katri Helena returned to gigs. He was scared, but everything went well.
This year he celebrates the 60th anniversary of his career.
Elina Hirvonen: Katri Helena, singer (Johnny Kniga) appeared on April 13.