Flow 2017

Flowfestival 2017, Friday August 11

Twice before have I been to the Flowfestival both times as an accredited photographer. Now it was my first time as a paying guest and yet I couldn’t help myself and brought my small action camera along – once a photographer always a photographer.
I was attending the festival together with my spouse and since our children were staying over at my parents’ for the night we were free to come and go as we pleased. My day had started at 6 a.m. and after work I went home, had a snack after which we brought the children to my parents’ and went to get the wristbands (in exchange for the tickets) and entered the festival area.

The area has grown considerably and is taking up a large portion of Suvilahti. Public bike lanes and pedestrian walkways have been rerouted as the festival area has swallowed them. It was a beautiful and warm afternoon and the weather forecast for the evening was very promising.

Security check was quick and audience profiling for the security check seemed to be concentrating on males as none of the female guests seemed to be body searched upon entering. It was rather spacious when we got in, moving around was easy.

The big masses were still somewhere else.

We started off with food, from all the several dozens of food vendors we chose one that served seitan curry which was delicious, grabbed free samples of Oatley’s Cold brew latte and treated ourselves to ice cream in the Backyard, a lovely tucked away zone under a huge tree.

The acts

on our to enjoy list we had Joshua Redman, Litku Klemetti, Beth Ditto, Aphex Twin and Lana del Rey. But due to Beth Ditto’s last minute cancellation Reino Nordin was filling in.

Joshua Redman was performing in the Bright Balloon 360 Stage, pure jazz, lovely atmosphere in a gorgeous venue. Listen to the 2 min sample (media player in the top of the next photograph). I had never heard of Litku Klemetti before but there are still hipsters around as apparently Litku Klemetti are the hype in Finland right now, they play a mix of Finnish humppa and punk spiced up with post hipsterism. Reino Nordin, what a gig it was! I loved it. First I didn’t recognise the songs as the latest album didn’t make much impression on me, but alas seeing and experiencing him live made the difference, he just killed it and most of the songs were truly enjoyable. My feet kept constantly dancing ?? Aphex Twin brought me back to my rave times in Switzerland. Namely a gig in the Kongresshaus in Zurich (1995) together with my high school buddy DT we were attending a rave featuring an upcoming punk rave band which later would rise to fame – the Prodigy. I most likely have not attended a rave after that, but remember the feeling and atmosphere all too well. The audience faces the stage and is jamming, the light show keeps the audience staring in the same direction. It’s a church like setting. Everybody is just watching the dj preach. People fall into trance. The audience merges into one entity – – –  I had no expectations whatsoever concerning Lana del Rey‘s gig. Usually I like live performances much better than the studio recordings. But in this case it was not quite like that. I like her music very much and now after the gig I know that I like her studio recordings much better. I am sure had I been placed better and actually seen it all closer I would have been able to experience the whole performance and get a different picture. The autograph session amidst the concert was very strange and even somehow boring. It’s not like her show is exhausting and she and the audience would have needed a break. Anyhow I wasn’t disappointed, how could I have been. An interesting thing happened though. After the autograph session a guy ran onto the stage and hugged her and wouldn’t let go. Only security was able to get him off of her. This episode had quite an effect on her as she seemed to have lost control for a moment. She was out of her super cool demeanour, where everything is controlled and hyper slow – visibly flabbergasted.

Between the Reino Nordin and Aphex Twin gigs we had some time to hang around. We headed out to find some snack and refreshments and found nokipotut ja villiyrttiä kaurafraîchella (sooty potatoes with wild herbs and oat fraîche, see the photo below).

In the mean time the crowds had arrived. According to the official press release some 25 000 people were attending the festival on the opening day and indeed moving around had gotten more difficult.

and so a long but lovely day came to an end. Hopping into the metro, riding the snake east and twenty minutes later we were home. How easy and convenient, 10 points for HRT, Helsinki Regional Transportation. Another beautiful evening and Helsinki once again showed herself from her best side #myhelsinki