Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff
Mon 5 Nov
★★★★☆
words MEGAN CAMPBELL
Ever since shoddy sound and a genuine fear of meeting a swampy death scuppered my plans to see The Killers live at Glastonbury 2007, I’ve been keen for another chance to find out if the Las Vegas showboys are as, well, killer live as everybody keeps telling me they are. So it is that I find myself part of a 7,500-strong crowd at the band’s Cardiff stop-off, hyped up on Jäger shots (the other 7,499, not me) and the promise of a good howl-along to some of the last few years’ most recognisable anthems.
Despite having a new album to show off, the Killers kick things off in shamelessly crowd-pleasing style with the venue lights kept on for the entirety of Mr Brightside. It’s always tricky for a band to balance the tightrope between dependence on the favourites and pushing new material, but the set is a satisfying mix of both, with the likes of Smile Like You Mean It, Human and Bones rubbing shoulders with recent profferings Runaways and Miss Atomic Bomb. Future single Here With Me, co-written by Travis’s Fran Healy (he of the mini-fauxhawk and plaintive musings about being rained on), is an unusually mellow mid-set moment, especially following the boisterous Somebody Told Me. Otherwise, the mood is playful and energetic, with reciprocal delight evident between the band and the fans.
Singer Brandon Flowers is on good form, jerkily body-popping about and announcing, preacher-style, “You may have experienced a new sensation… in unmentionable parts of your body. It’s nothing to be ashamed of – I too have felt these sensations. I notice that they happen when Mark Stoermer’s playing the bass.” A self-indulgent excess of fireworks, flame bursts and glitterfalls adds to the showy, stadium feel of the whole gig, which ends with the new album’s title track, Battle Born, a somewhat unusual finale after the more obvious encore choices of Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine and All These Things That I’ve Done.
After their four-year break, The Killers seem ready for a new chapter and this gig proves it’s going to be worth the wait. Welcome back boys, we missed you.