Flow Festival review: Helsinki bash is a hidden jewel in the festival season crown

Ask most people what they think Finland is like and they’ll probably respond with tales of deep snow, hot saunas, and Moomins. That’s not an inaccurate picture, with the country’s sauna culture taking pride of place on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List and half the shops in the capital selling some kind of moomin memorabilia. There’s another side to the country though, with the summer months seeing balmy temperatures, al fresco dining, and the jewel in capital city Helsinki’s cultural crown – Flow Festival.

Now in its 21st year, Flow is an environmentally friendly, atmospheric festival situated in the brutalist dreamland of the Suvilahti power station. Sound boutique? In a lot of ways it is, with a compact site and manageable crowd sizes which ensure you’re never too far from the stage. In other ways, most notably the lineup, it punches far above its weight, with this year’s edition seeing Charli XCX, FKA Twigs and Burna Boy taking prime position above an impressive support roster which includes Fontaines D.C., Lola Young, Amaarae, Kneecap, and a slew of homegrown Finnish acts who can more than hold their own against the big hitters.

Among these Finnish performers is a healthy rap scene, with Turisti, Finland’s most streamed artist of 2024, drawing an absolutely giant crowd to his main stage slot. He proceeds to jump between Drake-esque vocals and Travis-Scott style bangers, all the while surrounded by one of the most extravagant stage shows we’ve seen in quite a while – think smashing up a car with a baseball bat, inviting two boxers on stage for a mock fight, and even integrating a dance routine with treadmills at one point. Finland’s other big hip-hop attraction is Sexmane, who eschews the stage theatrics in favour of almost continuous pyro and fireworks and a full live band. Trust us, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a virtuoso guitar solo in the middle of a Finnish trap banger.

Back on more standard festival ground, FKA Twigs headlines the Friday night with her moody, theatrical ‘Eusexua’ live show. The stagecraft is astounding and the dancing wouldn’t look out of place at Sadler’s Wells, captivating the crowd from opener ‘Perfect Stranger’ right through to the emotional climax of ‘Cellophane’.

Little Simz flies the flag for North London on day two, delivering a punchy set with more than one singalong moment. Newer tracks like ‘Lion’ get a raucous reception, but it’s when she throws it back to 2021’s ‘I Love You, I Hate You’ that things really get going. Helsinki might not be the obvious backdrop for British rap, but Simz makes the place feel like a hometown show. 

By the time headliner Burna Boy comes on stage, the crowd are more than warmed up and ready to go. Bounding around with infectious enthusiasm, he’s one of the few international acts on the bill who aren’t visiting Helsinki for the first time, sub-headlining Flow’s 2022 edition. Since then he’s gone from rising artist to superstar, with the stage show and confidence to match. He’s starting mosh pits and getting the audience to wave their shirts in the air between verses, all the while grinning from ear to ear. He even includes a reference to Flow Festival in ‘Tested, Approved & Trusted’, to an understandably huge response.

A little closer to home, Yung Lean & Bladee bring Swedish cloud rap to the festival’s second stage. Over ten years since breakthrough hit ‘Ginseng Strip 2002’, Lean has proved his staying power time and time again, with both his and Bladee’s music shifting effortlessly between hip-hop, indie, and everything in between.

Closing day two are every newspaper’s favourite story right now, Kneecap. Any fears that hyper-specific music about drug-taking and the liberation of the North of Ireland might not translate too well in Finland are swiftly allayed by the presence of security closing off the area due to overcrowding before the trio are even on stage. Their bass-heavy party rap causes mosh pits which take up the entire tent – no small feat at a festival where the crowd is often hard to whip up into a fervour. As expected, the group’s pro-Palestinian message is frontlined, with audience members waving Palestinian flags and chanting ‘Free Palestine’ at every opportunity. This isn’t an isolated flashpoint though – Turistii waves a Palestinian flag at one point, and Yung Lean pointedly walks out wearing a Keffiyah, symbolic of the Palestinian liberation movement, during his set.

Fontaines D.C. also display messages of Palestinian solidarity during their flawless hour-long set on Flow’s second stage, urging the crowd to use their voice while overlaying the colours of the Palestinian flag on the stage screen’s video feed. A well-oiled machine at this point, they’re far enough removed from the release of fourth album ‘Romance’ that it feels like a victory lap. ‘Here’s The Thing’ and ‘Starburster’ are so massive they basically blow a hole in the roof of the tent, while slower-paced cuts like ‘Bug’ are given ample room to breathe without getting lost in the maelstrom. With their huge Dublin and London shows earlier this year, they truly conquered the UK and Ireland, and after today, it feels like Finland are just as on board.

Closing the festival is the 365 partygirl herself, Charli XCX. An entire summer removed from the Brat green explosion of her sixth album, there’s little that hasn’t been written about Charli’s global dominance. Needless to say, Helsinki turns out in force and ready to absolutely lose their minds. People are screaming as soon as she steps on stage and every single crowd member seems to know the words to all the songs. “This is my last one of these shows in Europe for a while,” she says at one point, autotune still active on her mic, before a “how you doing Helsinki” leads to crowdwide hysteria which can probably be heard all the way across the Baltic sea. It’s not exactly a set full of surprises, but when the show is this good, it doesn’t have to be.

21 years in, Flow knows exactly what it’s doing. Ultra-cool international artists rub shoulders with homegrown talent, but the real joy is in seeing an equally enthusiastic crowd response to both. So when you think of Finland, remember it isn’t just snow and saunas – it’s Brat summer, too.