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Flow Festival. Helsinki,
13th–15th Aug. 2010
Flow Festival, the favorite gathering place of
Helsinki hipsters, was first organized already in 2004, but this
year was the first time I was able to join the fun. Flow’s
varied and interesting programs that usually are somewhere in
between mainstream and alternative and focus on rhythm and
electronic music have not been totally according to my musical
taste, but they have had a fair number of artists I’m
interested in like Aavikko, Pepe Deluxé, Shokun Kunitoki, Op:l
Bastards, Rättö ja Lehtisalo, Low Life Rock’n’Roll
Philosophers, Eleonoora Rosenholm, Kuusumun Profeetta, Hidria
Spacefolk and Astro Can Caravan. You can tell that their foreign
bands have been a bit more unfamilar to me or just not that
interesting, although I really should have seen for example
Kraftwerk that played at last year’s opening club.
This year the warm-up club featured Chemical
Brothers, and I surely would have enjoyed them as well. Due to time
restrictions I was only able to make it there on Friday, the first
actual festival day. The festival had grown a bit bigger again
since last year, and they had about 50 000 people there
altogether during the four days which was just what was expected.
Everything worked very well for such a massive happening and the
audience was asked to use ecological means to get there for example
with a big parking lot for bicycles. What comes to the place
itself, the old power plant area of Suvilahti offers an excellent
opportunity to organize festivals like this. There is enough space
in front of the main stage for huge masses and the smaller venues
are very suitable too, although fully packed at times.
Ulver
Personally,
I arrived just in time to see Ulver from Norway, and the Voimala
hall was getting crowded. A minus side was that although the place
opened already at 18:30 there was no service until 22:00. A very
friendly crew member gave me a bottle of water, anyway, since if I
had popped out to get something to drink I might not have been able
to get back in due to the limited capacity of the building. Ulver
originally started as a black metal band and I had not really heard
their music until just before the festival, but I knew we were in
for something interesting. The gig started slowly and peacefully in
almost ambient moods. Then they started to rock in a bit industrial
style and it got so loud that my left ear was hurting for days
afterwards... The band’s music was gloomy, dark,
experimental and metallic, but also included great, psychedelic
elements. The excellent video projections (that included for
example vintage soft porn and pin-up girls!) were well suited for
the atmopshere, and the audience was in ecstasy. The heat (and
volume level) in the hall forced some of the audience out before
the gig ended, though.
Ulver
Ulver
After that it was time to go to the beer tent for
some Heineken and at the same time it was possible to check out the
US band Broken Bells whose harmless, melodic pop seemed
surprisingly powerless considering that there were as many as seven
guys on stage. There was still one hour to go before
Finland’s best band Circle was to perform, so there was
plenty of time for a few beers since it didn’t take too long
to cue up for one. Circle played in a big tent next to Voimala and
it was totally packed right away and I was not able to get that
close to the band. The Jääskeläinen brothers who are known for
example from Circle guitarist Janne Westerlund’s band Plain
Ride seem to be standard members nowadays and with three guitarists
Circle really is able to make quite a blast. They played both live
favorites that have been in the set list for years and some
brand-new, not yet recorded material. The going was wild and pretty
metal-oriented for most of the time, but we also got some hypnotic
kraut rock and a bit of more gentle noodling. What an amazing and
energetic show, once again. It’s really nice that the Pori
scene has been so well presented at Flow for a long time now. Too
bad I missed the encore number “Point” since Air
was already starting their gig at the main stage.
Circle
Circle
Circle
Circle
Circle
Circle
I’ve been digging Air’s
synthesizer-driven prog pop since Moon Safari, but I had not seen
them live before. The duo was enforced with a drummer, but it might
have also been a good idea to get a separate guitarist so even the
more rockier stuff from the new album Love Songs Vol. 2 could
really have shown its power. The band still played a superb gig,
and their wonderfully mellow, beautiful music seemed t go down well
with the festival audience. With hits like “Sexy Boy”
and “Cherry Blossom Girl” an
entertaining live experience is guaranteed. This was a very nice
way to spend a summery Friday evening!
Air
Air
Air
Air
Air
Air
After the Air performance my
“obligatory” schedule was finished so I had some time
to explore the rest of the festival area that included for example
a wine bar, a chill-out area, better than normal festival food, a
short film theatre etc. There were plenty of DJ’s all over
the place during the whole weekend as well. Finally I listened to
the electronic sounds of Four Tet for a while and liked what I
heard. The party continued until 3 AM and I heard that the festival
crowd danced like crazy until the end but I had to leave after
midnight. I really enjoyed this festival and will be happy to go
there again. On Saturday I would have liked to see especially the
kraut/electro group K-X-P that features two Op:l Bastards guys and
the living metronome Toni Leppänen, drummer of Aavikko, Circle and
many other bands. One of the other interesting acts would have been
Syrian, somewhat psychedelic Omar Souleyman, and Toni Leppänen was
also playing drums in his band since their drum machine broke down
just before the gig. I also totally missed The Other Sound of
Finland, a sort of mini festival curated by Juuso Paaso that took
place in a smaller place called Tiivistämö during the weekend and
featured more marginal, experimental and a bit weirder Finnish acts
like Islaja, Sami Kukka, Lau Nau, Pekko Käppi, Kiila and
Tomutonttu. So there would have been very interesting stuff in
there as well! On Sunday, the entrance was free for children under
ten years of age with a paying grownup. I must say that Flow
Festival didn’t get this year’s Helsinki
hauskemmaksi acknowledgement from Art Goes Kapakka for
nothing. I can warmly recommend this festival!
www.flowfestival.com
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