VOLT Festival warmly welcomed the American rock band back to touring
By Isti Miskolczy
Around half past ten in the evening on a Wednesday with some light rain and breeze surrounding the stage, Brandon Flowers slowly emerges and starts singing ‘My Own Soul’s Warning’, the opening song of The Killers’ 2020 release Imploding the Mirage. The audience goes crazy, phones are in the air, and after a big bag of confetti, the “boys from the fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada” open their show at the VOLT festival in Hungary.
The show then continued with some all-time popular hits: ‘When You Were Young’, from album Sam’s Town, and ‘Jenny Was a Friend of Mine’ and ‘Smile Like You Mean It’ from their debut album Hot Fuss, to name a few.
The Killers seemed to have found the right balance between not only playing songs from across their many different and popular albums, but also heating up and slowing down the show—and with that, the audience.
‘Somebody Told Me’, which seems to be one of the band’s most well-known songs (at least, was most definitely chanted by some fans even before the concert) came relatively early with being 8th in the setlist. However, its reception was impeccable. So was lead singer Brandon Flowers’ interaction with the audience throughout the entire show, inasmuch as, during ‘For Reasons Unknown’, a fan from the audience was invited to play the drums instead of Ronnie Vannucci Jr. who joined the track on a guitar.
To my personal delight, less-known songs like ‘Rut’ from their 2017 album Wonderful Wonderful
and ‘Dying Breed’ from their 2020 album were also played before the band caught a quick break following ‘All These Things That I’ve Done”, where the band let the crowd repeatedly chant the song’s iconic line, “I got soul but I’m not a soldier”. Thus far, this was the peak of the Photo is an illustration, and not taken at VOLT Festival show.
Returning for four more songs, The Killers created a small “end show” of their show when ‘The Man’ and ‘Human’ were played before ending the show on a high note with, at first, the rare version of ‘Mr. Brightside’ and then its classic version: the song this band is probably the most known for.
In general, The Killers’ VOLT Festival show in Hungary was undoubtedly a blast, especially at moments such as when Brandon Flowers spoke a few sentences in Hungarian to the fans just to make them feel even more special. The stage was also very well designed, with lights, lasers, smoke, and confetti cannons, completing the show that was certainly an unforgettable experience for those who had been waiting through the entirety of lockdown to see them.
