Comment|In recent years, Flow has seen mainly domestic artists of the general public and foreign artists who deviate from the mainstream.
A year popilmiö is coming to Finland.
The Flow festival announced on Thursday that the British artist Charli XCX is one of their performers next summer. This is an exceptionally tough attachment in Finland.
The festival published a mysterious hint about the artist on its Instagram already on Wednesday evening. The mirrored image read “Flow and it’s completely different but also still Flow”. The message is a reference to the artist’s album Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat.
The mere hint got people to the ticket offices, at least if social media and discussion boards are to be believed. The festival’s Jodel channel immediately speculated whether Flow would sell out in record time.
That can happen, because Charli XCX has become a pop music superstar this year. His summer published Bratsongs from his album have been streamed hundreds of millions of times and the artist is nominated in nine Grammy categories.
But even bigger has been the brat phenomenon created by the artist around the album, which colored some lime green last summer.
Far has come since the time when Charli XCX was last seen in Finland.
Even 11 years ago, the British artist performed at Tavastia with his colleague Ellie Gouldingin as a warm-up. At that time, Charli XCX was mostly known for the Swedish band Icona Pop I love it – as a song lyricist.
The British singer also toured in Finland in 2013, 2014 and 2015, the latter of which was at Hartwall Arena, now Helsinki Hall.
Charli XCX also performed in Finland German with in Ruisrock in the summer of 2017. The appearance of the British artist on the beach stage with his friend Alma was a surprise for the festival audience.
Brat time Charli XCX is a historically strong artist attraction for the Flow festival.
First, it’s a change from previous years. In the 2020s, Flow’s stages have seen more domestic artists appealing to the general public than before. It is logical, because domestic music is more popular in Finland than in many other European countries anyway.
On the other hand, Valtavirtapop’s foreign engagements have been quite few, if you don’t count the headliner on Saturday in summer 2023, Lordea.
Also at other festivals in Finland, foreign anchors are increasingly rare. International giant artists only rarely travel from Sweden to Finland, when the journey cannot be continued to Moscow or St. Petersburg. The costs of festival productions are also grown up.
Charli XCX is like a big, lime-green gift package for the Flow festival and its audience, disciplined by the corona pandemic. The artist has played during the fall five stars pop concerts in his home country and in the United States. Next year you can hear one without traveling to Sweden.