The surviving members of Finland’s influential melodic death metal group, Children Of Bodom, have announced they will reunite for a special one-night-only performance to honor the legacy of their late frontman, Alexi Laiho.
The event, titled A Celebration Of Music, is scheduled for February 26, 2026, at the legendary Tavastia club in Helsinki. This will be the first time the members have performed together since Children Of Bodom‘s farewell show in 2019.
The lineup for the tribute will feature original members Henkka Seppälä (bass), Janne Wirman (keyboards), and Jaska Raatikainen (drums). They will be joined by former guitarist Alexander Kuoppala and Samy Elbanna of Lost Society, who will handle the formidable guitar and vocal duties of Laiho.
In a collective statement, the band explained their motivation for the reunion:
“We want to celebrate the life’s work of our band and at the same time the musical legacy of our friend and bandmate Alexi. The gig will be played at the Tavastia club, which is important to Children Of Bodom, and at the same time, we will fulfill the long-standing wish of our fans.”
Children Of Bodom played their final concert on December 15, 2019, at the Helsinki Ice Hall. That performance was later released as the live album, A Chapter Called… Children Of Bodom (Final Show In Helsinki Ice Hall 2019).
Alexi Laiho, who co-founded the band with Jaska Raatikainen in 1993, passed away in late 2020. Before his death, he had formed a new group, Bodom After Midnight, which released a posthumous EP in 2021.
Nearly five years later, keyboardist Janne Wirman has provided a candid, heartbreaking account of Laiho‘s struggles with addiction and the agonizing final years of the band, emphasizing the helplessness felt by those closest to him.
In a recent interview, Wirman painfully recalled the period from 2016 onwards as a precipitous decline for Laiho. “In 2016, everything just went to hell with Alexi,” Janne stated, describing the grim reality faced by the remaining bandmates. “And the remaining timing in the band is you know that you’re watching your friend commit a slow s*icide. You know, with his addictions, that he shouldn’t drink, he shouldn’t do this and this, and he keeps doing it daily, and you’re, like, ‘F**k! This is not gonna end well.’ So that is not fun.”
Laiho‘s cause of death was later revealed as alcohol-induced degeneration of the liver and pancreas connective tissue.
