Like the ratio in an Aperol Spritz, one’s opinion of the alchemy that makes for the best summer festival ever differs from person to person. Some people actually like the smell of nightclub sweat and nicotine breath. (And honestly? I don’t mind it.) But for many — most? — a summer’s hedonistic utopia features some balanced combination of extraordinary fun and excellent conveniences. I’m in Helsinki for Flow Festival, finding it impressively — and, as a Brit, even suspiciously — easy to filter out of the festival grounds, catch the shiny, clean metro, the perfect sound system of the last set I caught still ringing in my ears. Just half an hour ago, we were jumping up and down to Disclosure. Now, I’m strolling through the black and golden lights of Helsinki at midnight.
The air is balmy; my cigarette lights perfectly. Night one of Flow Festival is over. I muse to myself that I’ve had the time of my life.
As stylish as it is practical, Flow Festival is Nordic Europe at its most excellent — and efficient. Located in Suvilahti, the city’s former power plant, this is an urban festival that leans into its metropolitan aesthetics for a magical — yet never manic — ambience. Industrial buildings loom above, jutting into the sky, looking magical in the sun and somewhat cinematically spooky in the dark. Artwork is purposeful: graffiti on old shipping containers, silver creations for smaller techno stages. It’s all very European — think Berlin grunge, Copenhagen minimalism, against long days and cool nights — when I remember there’s a Europe outside of the Mediterranean.
But this is a particularly exciting time for Nordic European music, and Flow knows exactly how to celebrate it. As do its billed musicians. “I think culturally, within the music industry, it’s extremely Anglo-centric,” Phoebe from Lambrini Girls says. “Post-Brexit, it’s really important to go out and get out to Europe because there’s so much out there for us to learn and grow.” I ask what music she’s enjoying from the Nordic sphere at the moment. “There’s a band called Wizard who are really cool. Girl Group, who I think are Norwegian…”
Well, perhaps the biggest European act of the moment, Anglo or not, is Scandi Queen Zara Larsson. Headlining Flow on Friday, her set promises to illuminate the environment with her world-famous neon girlhood — glitter, dolphins, sunsets, you know the drill, you’re reading PAPER Magazine, darling! — on the main stage.
Getting the stage warmed up was Wales’ very own MARINA, playing just an hour before. (Wales isn’t necessarily Nordic, but cold weather in Europe is cold weather in Europe, right?) In a corset with flowing raven locks, looking somewhere between Alexa Demie and Kylie Jenner, MARINA successfully reminded the troops why she is the godmother of hyper-pop as we know it today. Starting with “Are You Satisfied,” there’s a near martyrdom in MARINA’s artistry finally hitting the zeitgeist while MARINA herself is still being relegated to the opening sets.
She’s been doing this for ages but has all the youthful vigour of a teenage TikToker. Closing with — what else? — “Primadonna,” she had the sprawling crowds dancing and singing under a rapidly darkening, cloudy sky as they waited patiently for Zara. For many of the Finnish girls and gays, glammed and gussied up in the Hawaiian skirts and shiny bodysuits so ubiquitous in the pop singer’s visual language, this was the aforementioned perfect summer moment. Standing on tiptoes with big beams, one got the feeling that their summer had been leading up to this.
The one thing about Zara — kidding, there are so many things about Zara — is that our girl’s going to be prompt and personal. No waiting games, no diva timings. Now, the crowd didn’t necessarily go wild; as I learnt over the weekend, the Finnish are peaceful to the point of being demure. (Or are us Brits and Americans just total asshole wreckheads? Flow had noticeably no litter or rubbish — I urge you to believe me here, the metro was so clean it looked like North Korean propaganda…) No viral sea of human dolphins. Instead, there was nonstop hand-clapping and hip-swaying, everyone happily basking in the glitz and dazzle, especially — climactically — when Zara brought out a drag queen impersonator. “Trans rights are human rights!” the pair proclaimed. The applause was thunderous.
The other definitive musicians of our time, Geese, played on the last day. It seemed like Cameron Winter had also noticed the initially bashful sensibilities of the crowd. “Are you guys having a good time?” he asked the predominantly young men and women, all dressed really cool. What you need to know is that if Finnish women look like Zara Larsson, Finnish men look like Prince Charming from Shrek in rave shades. “Sorry, haha,” Cameron drawled when the crowd reiterated that they were, in fact, having a good time. “Just fishing.” So fair, bestie. “Trinidad” got the cool kids moshing, the plaid-shirt dads nodding in approval. Filtering out of the dark stage, some sort of repurposed metallic barn, the group ahead of me was steaming full pace ahead to catch James K.
“I always love playing in Helsinki,” James K tells me after her set. “The crowds are very present and sweet.” I think of the Finnish teenagers who offered to lend me their portable charger just from overhearing me complain about my low phone battery, and I nod profusely in agreement. “I have been coming to play in Finland over the past four summers so it’s become a bit of a tradition for me now and holds meaning for me,” she continues. “I have some friends there who run the club Post Bar and Solstice Festival, who have brought me out a few times, so there’s a community there I feel connected with.”
Florence & The Machine headlines Saturday, delivering the kind of live music experience you feel pulse in your soul and vibrate in your bone marrow. She tells the audience to put our phones away for her finale rendition of “Dog Days Are Over.” We jump, we bounce, strangers and friends alike linking arms and hugging shoulders. Every night of Flow Festival concludes with tear-stained cheeks, big beaming smiles, aching feet, as we trudge slowly — and reluctantly — back to reality through Helsinki’s perfectly clean subway.
Photography by Konstantin Kondrukhov
