Last week, Vola passed through Finland on their ‘Friend of a Phantom’ tour with Charlotte Wessels and Feather Mountain.

The gig started with Feather Mountain giving the most unspectacular entrance I have seen in a long while. No dimmed lights or any intro, as I’d never seen Feather Mountain before, it took me a moment to realise that this time the people walking around the stage were the actual band and not stagehands trying to get things ready. Their show itself though was rather nice, and I very much enjoyed how much emotion singer Mikkel managed to convey with his voice.

It stayed very emotional with Charlotte Wessels performance, especially when she talked about the story behind the song ‘The Crying Room‘ and how hard it was to perform a song about stage fright when you’re dealing with stage fright. To make the situation easier on herself, she put on a comfy t-shirt and then got some snacks from her cargo pants, that she shared with the fans. The set ended in a strong combo of ‘Soft Revolution‘ and ‘The Exorcism‘.

Vola blinded us with all of their light effects. Lasers, big LEDs, plus the normal stage lights, it was a bit too overwhelming in my opinion. And while the light show was very well executed, it was overshadowing the well-thought-out, soft and on point songs a bit. Overall though, the fans seemed to very much enjoy the gig and happily sang along when prompted to. In the middle of their set, Vola looked back at their humble beginnings and told us about how they recorded their first album in their improvised, self-made studio, aka their dorm room. This was followed by the song ‘Gutter Moon‘ from this first album. After about one and a half hours, the show came to an end, and we were sent on our way home with ‘Stray the Skies‘.