At the exact midway mark of Las Vegas’ the Killers deadly set at Barclay Center Saturday night, the Las Vegas Mormons turned on the closed circuit TV for the very first time and Brandon Flowers asked the members of the band and the audience itself whether we had bought our dance shoes. before reeling off a dynamic “From Here On Out” -a kiss off to a former friend.
The song and performance are everything you might want from an Arena rock band: it swings, it has a catchy tune, a smart melody and it implies more than it actually says. Because of their baffling decision to not use close circuit TV it’s good to finally see the band: the Barclay Center has a deep incline and if you are in the cheap seats you might as well be in a different zipcode, and the bass-y acoustics, add to the frustration over the Killers decision to not use the technology at hand. It had been a frustrating evening. But here they had a song worth singing and a song so melodic it broke through the soundsystem the way “For Reasons Unknown” hadn’t a song earlier. For just a song you wondered if maybe they were being snookered by Barclays and a bad decision, even opening act the Virgins were completely devastated by the setting, and the Virgins are an actual good band . But maybe not, even on “From Here On Out” during the singalong moment what you had was an audience screaming “Friends are hard to come by”. That’s what you want your fans to say? This is Springsteen for morons, this is an American Coldplay.
The last song before the encore, “All These Things That I have Done” is a terrible, terrible singalong moment: “I have soul but I’m not a soldier”. It doesn’t mean anything. I mean, it is meaningless. It is the worst pun imaginable, it adds nothing to either word. If only soldiers had soul and everybody else didn’t, well, alright but who woulld’ve thought he was a soldier because he had a soul? They might as well be singing “I’m in tune but I l’m not a tuna”.
The entire concert was a nonstarter. Given the setting, the fans were not enthralled and Flowers is no MC. He talks in cliches and he fails to give his songs and settings any significance -he really doesn’t say anything with any significance. I left before the encore but the “dance” comment was the set highlight as far as give and take goes, maybe a witty “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Aren’t you happy that isn’t true?” as well but that’s it. I’m glad not to be lectured but there must be some way talk to us without being a plank.
Flowers is a frontman with no sex appeal on stage despite being dashingly good looking, at 31 years old he acts like he’s 52; complacent, married, middle class, Churchgoing father of three. The band are completely anonymous and Flowers can’t replace them and covering “Is This It?” -a comment on their environment (they performed “WKRP In Cincinnati” the night before) just brings up comparaison to Julian Casablancas he really doesn’t want to be making.
The stage was awful, the most boring Arena rock stage imaginable Nothing happens on it, and there is no jutting out so Brandon can get closer to the mid section of the GA, the entire band is in a cocoon a million miles away. Even the light show is a bore. This is a draggy show by complacent middle aged rock stars.
Even the setlist is off. At Prudential last week the band performed their second best song “Mr. Brightside” -a 1980s jealousy fantasy first, at Barclays they left it for the penultimate moment of the evening. At Prudential they covered Tommy James “I Think We’re Alone”, they dumped it Saturday night for Battle Born’s “Flesh And Bones” -a lousy song. Sure they have the right to fiddle with their set list, just do it on someone else dime.
But really, when maybe 20% of your songs are keepers, what can you do? When you have spent a career laying waste to “Shadowplay”, who could expect any more? When the hook of one of your better songs goes “He doesn’t look a lot like Jesus but he talks like a gentleman” you’d hope the song meant something more than this poor little lost girl stuff. The Killers keep on trying to signify but they aren’t smart enough, they keep on telling us to hear and sing with them but when we do we realize we are singing nonsense, it is shameful, they are taking advantage of their ability to write rousing choruses On “A Dustland Fairytale'” Brandon sings “just another white trash county kiss”. Can you imagine in your wildest nightmare Springsteen making that sort of tone deaf derogatory comment? Bruce wouldn’t sing it about a banker, let alone a dustbowl denizen.
If it was easy to be Bono or Springsteen everyone would do it: for such a written large occupation it is a delicate balancing act between bombast and axioms and private moments. Brandon doesn’t come close. Brandon exists to make Chris Martin look good.
This was a bad set by a bad band. The Killers are deadly.
Grade: D+