Saturday night at Helsinki’s Kaapelitehdas was built around one of the most recognizable names in British electronic music. FAITHLESS returned to Finland on September 12th, 2026, after a 13-year gap, with the Helsinki date being the group’s only Nordic appearance on the current tour. The concert was sold out, with an estimated 2,500 people making their way to the venue.
The evening was already well underway before the headliner appeared. Finnish electronic music artist ORKIDEA opened the event, and the audience had filled most of the hall during his (unusually) long opening set, which had started right after the doors opened 3 hours earlier. The crowd stood out from the typical demographic of a contemporary electronic music event: many appeared to have a long history with Faithless, dating back to the group’s breakthrough years in the 1990s. The atmosphere was nevertheless far from that of a purely nostalgic reunion, with the audience remaining active throughout the evening.
FAITHLESS approached the material as a concert rather than a conventional electronic club set. Sister Bliss led the performance from the keyboards, backed by a multi-member band and vocalists. The live instrumentation gave the music a considerable amount of room to breathe. At times, the interplay between the musicians even moved surprisingly close to the feeling of a progressive rock jam session, with extended instrumental passages and a less rigid approach to the electronic foundations of the songs. On a positive note, it was an unexpected side of a band more commonly associated with the club floor.
The absence of Maxi Jazz was inevitably part of the evening’s context. His voice and image were, however, incorporated well into the production, allowing his contribution to the band’s history to remain visible without attempting to recreate the original lineup.
Inside the Kaapelitehdas, the conditions became increasingly noticeable as the night progressed. Despite the considerable size of the venue, the temperature and humidity on the dancefloor reached nearly an uncomfortable level. That seemed to have little to no apparent effect on the crowd’s willingness to keep moving, however.
The concert formed part of an unusually electronic weekend at Kaapelitehdas, following the previous night’s Helzinki Hardstyle Festival. The FAITHLESS concert itself was followed by an afterparty in the same venue, where ORKIDEA returned to the decks, followed by MAX RAD & NATHAN BALL, CHICANE and MILLA LEHTO.
Rather than attempting to reproduce the past exactly, FAITHLESS’ Helsinki appearance brought together material from the band’s established catalogue with a distinctly live-oriented interpretation. For a crowd that had followed the group since the 1990s, the evening connected that history with a contemporary stage production, while the unusually physical live arrangement gave the familiar material a somewhat different character.
Photos and text by Janne Puronen
