Music on the 'Brightside': The Killers rock Seminole

By Leslie Gray Streeter

Palm Beach Post

Saturday, April 21, 2007

At the risk of coming off like the grizzled old prospector in a Gunsmoke rerun: You young'uns don't know how good you have it

The young'uns of which I specifically speak are those who happily danced to the insanely infectious pop-rock beats of the Killers on the floor of the sold-out Hard Rock Live at the Seminole Hard Rock on Thursday night. Man, was it ever good.

I'm not sure if you understand how crazy lucky you are to have come of concert-going age at a time when, for the first time in ages, musical legitimacy doesn't prohibit a band from smiling or appearing to have a good time. And how awesome is it that a group responsible for such lushly catchy anthems as Mr. Brightside and Read My Mind can visibly enjoy being rock stars, with all of the confetti, black leather and endearingly gaudy flashing lights that entails?

I'll answer that: very awesome. So much so that at the end of the second encore, nobody - chief among them slickly charismatic lead singer Brandon Flowers - wanted to go home.

"They're telling us they're going to fine us if we stay on any longer," Flowers explained to the unyielding crowd, before relenting and doing a passionate reprise of When You Were Young anyway.

"These people came to ... hear some music!" he concluded.

And they weren't disappointed. After an excellent opening set by the Howling Bells and an even more excellent set by The Rapture, the bright bulbs of a giant sign reading Sam's Town (the name of the Killers' most recent album) began to glow. The band members were gauzily visible behind a giant curtain, which fell - BAM! - to the chanted refrain from the title song - "I see London/I see Sam's Town" and an explosive "whoosh!" of excitement from the crowd.

And that continued, through the chorus of When You Were Young ("He doesn't look a thing like Je-sus") sung loudly in unison, the nutty stomp of Somebody Told Me and the lovely, earnest Read My Mind, the chorus of which Flowers reprised a few songs later, slowly and melodramatically, on the organ.

The melodrama is one of the best things the Killers bring to their songs, which have a sort of neo-Wall of Sound quality to them with a layering of strong percussive elements by drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr., harmonious "oohs" and soaring lyrics. This was most audible during Mr. Brightside, my vote for the best kick-butt rock song of the Millennium, and All These Things That I've Done. That's the one with the chant "I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier," which done live erupts into an electric, hair-raising thump.

There's no telling what else Flowers and the boys would have done if they hadn't been compelled to leave the stage, but it no doubt would have been delicious

Songs filled with heartbreak, but the Killers are live and kicking

By Sean Piccoli
Pop Music Writer
Posted April 21 2007

sun-sentinal

 

The Killers thrive on what sounds like inconsolable anguish, a condition that registers in singer Brandon Flowers' fluttering, urgent voice and in the rest of the band's jittery, pummeling arrangements.

The Las Vegas band's sold-out performance on Thursday, for 5,500 people at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, was an almost theatrical affair. With minimal staging, the Killers conjured up characters full of worry and restlessness in drama-soaked songs that also had a touch of the operatic.

They concentrated on material from Sam's Town, their second album and the follow-up to 2004's millions-selling Hot Fuss. Sam's Town takes the updated new-wave soundscapes of Hot Fuss and blends in an earthier feel that Flowers has attributed to his admiration of Bruce Springsteen.

That experiment has met with some disappointment from fans and critics who adored Hot Fuss. But on Thursday, the Killers pulled off this unlikely fusion of high-strung `80s Brit-rock and Americana. The Killers' debt to Springsteen came through strongest in the lyrics - critiques of modern life, with its nagging sense that somewhere, somebody else got a better deal on the American dream.

The new album's title track, which opened the show, was an anthem of anxiety and resignation: "Nobody ever had a dream `round here/But I don't really mind that it's starting to get to me."

A quiet piano interlude followed and then the band crashed into When You Were Young, about a woman still waiting on her savior: "He doesn't look a thing like Jesus/But he talks like a gentleman." The band set this tale of a life slipping away to soaring, exalted hooks, turning an intimate portrait of despair into a rousing, universal call to arms. The song practically screamed: Wake up and start living before it's too late.

Sometimes the band strained for that feeling of pain, universally shared: Uncle Jonny, about a cocaine addict, refused to rise above its dismal subject matter, partly because of a tedious guitar riff that sounded stuck in one place. Not all of the whooshing synthesizer lines or Flowers' agitated vocal could save poor Uncle Jonny.

Where the band excelled was in a moment of surprising warmth and compassion: Read My Mind, from Sam's Town, was an unsparingly tender love song -- laced with sadness but not defined by it. Flowers sang with empathy and care, and for good measure he reprised Read My Mind as a plaintive, voice-and-piano piece.

As the show progressed, the band retreated toward the more familiar, better-liked material from Hot Fuss: bleak Jenny Was a Friend of Mine and the cynical Mr. Brightside. But the Killers were right to place a good amount of faith, and set time, in a second album that proved their willingness to do more than create another Hot Fuss.

 

 

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