Knocking ‘em dead: The Killers deliver exultant hometown show
His voice cut through the darkness of the arena like the spotlight shining upon him.
“The decades disappear like sinking ships,” Brandon Flowers sang with arms open, slingshotting his heart to the rafters. “But we persevere.”
The song was “A Dustland Fairytale,” a stirring slice of heartland rock via the Southern Nevada desert that’s about finding a way to carry on in the face of what may seem like unbearable challenges in the moment.
And then that moment passes.
This was the theme of the night as The Killers returned home for a hero’s welcome at T-Mobile Arena on Friday almost two years to the day that the band was originally scheduled to play Las Vegas in support of their sixth album “Imploding the Mirage” before the pandemic shelved their touring plans. (That gig was slated for MGM Grand Garden Arena.)
“It’s been a tough couple of years,” Flowers noted early in the show.
But those years are gone.
“This is a super-spreader event,” he then boomed. “We’re spreading love, we’re spreading peace and we’re spreading rock ‘n’ roll. Come and get it!”
Coming from another man’s mouth, lines like that might register as just a tad overwrought, but for Flowers — a true believer’s true believer — emotions are like choruses: the bigger, the better.
He even quoted Helen Keller at one point to underscore where he was coming from.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it,” Flowers said, echoing the words of the blind author and activist. “There is a light.”
And this band aims to be that light — in song, at least.
On Friday, they intercut a portion of Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me” with “Read My Mind” and voiced sentiments that veered toward the biblical.
“Give me the hands that I may lift / The weight of another who’s starting to drift,” Flowers sang on “Running Towards A Place,” a tune heavy on both synth and longing that was one of five songs they played from “Imploding.”
This band is skilled at finding the silver lining in even the darkest of clouds, and if there was one during the pandemic, it’s that it afforded The Killers time to make yet another new album, the homespun yet haunting “Pressure Machine,” represented on Friday with its title track, a plaintively sung reflection on life’s left hooks.
“Life’ll grow you a big red rose,” Flowers sang. “Then rip it from beneath your nose.”
It was the first time the band ever played the song in Vegas, same for anthemic new single “Boy” with its oscillating synth lines and fist-in-the-air chorus, delivered with Flowers bouncing around the stage on the balls of his feet like a boxer working the ring, looking to land that knock-out blow.
His bandmates proved to be equally energized, from Ronnie Vannucci Jr.’s Phil Collins-worthy drum fills on “Shot in the Dark” to guitarist Dave Keuning’s hair-on-fire solo during “Caution,” played from the back of his heels as sparks rained down from the rafters.
Midway through the show, the band paused to highlight the enduring impact that their hometown continues to have on them.
“It’s become part of our identity. We’ve been waving the flag for years now,” Flowers said. “These are our people and we want to do them right. The reason we walk the way we do, talk the way we do, it’s all from here, you know?”
If there’s anything that Las Vegas teaches you, it’s how to come back from a losing hand.
And, ultimately, that’s what this show felt like: a reversal of fortune after two years of collective tough luck.
During the encore, The Killers were joined by show-opener and ex-The Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr for a cover of his former band’s “There is a Light That Never Goes Out.”
“Take me out tonight,” Flowers sang. “Because I want to see people. And I want to see life.”
He got an eyeful on this night.
Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @jbracelin76 on Instagram
