Killers put on grand show at Fox

May 10, 2007

 

By BRIAN McCOLLUM

 

When the Killers slipped onto the scene in 2004, the band helped reintroduce something long missing from alt-rock: a sense of grand theater, and a knack for the big.

 

Before a charged-up audience of about 5,000 at a sold-out Fox Theatre Wednesday night -- a crowd coated in confetti two minutes in -- the Las Vegas quartet played a briskly paced set of towering synth-rock drawn from its pair of best-selling albums.

 

Artistic pretense in recent years has been marked by a kind of minimalist restraint; for the Killers, it’s marked by an almost reactionary embrace of bombast. Vocalist Brandon Flowers and company hark back to a time when holding back, musically and otherwise, was decidedly not cool, and that quality was on full display at the Fox: Augmented by a brazen, speckled light show, the Killers whipped through glitzy anthems such as “When You Were Young” and “Smile Like You Mean It” to deposit a 90-minute set that unashamedly rejected rock minimalism.

 

Orchestral swells and synthesizer sweeps set the tone as the band emerged in front of a casually clad audience of 20- and 30-somethings. Flowers, crisply bedecked in tie and vest, was a focal point from the outset, his pealing vocals and geek-rock-star poses dominating the attention.

 

The Killers’ musical trick is layering the robotic, minor-chord textures of postpunk over a thick, roiling rock ‘n’ roll foundation. It was executed nimbly by the band Wednesday, applied to songs such as the opener “Sam’s Town” and an encore cover of Joy Division’s “Shadow Play.” Alas, the unorthodox approach proved a tricky sound mix at the normally impeccable Fox, producing a tinny top and a hollow bottom that often made for frustrating listening.

 

Material from the new album “Sam’s Town” provided the bulk of highlights: a jagged “Bones,” a swaggering “This River is Wild,” a tense “Uncle Jonny” with its brief bursts of relief in the choruses.

 

With drummer Ronnie Vannucci piloting the band, the performance was taut and compact -- but that was also a problem. Despite an adrenalized encore, you got the feeling this is a band hemmed in by its material and its own limitations, incapable of exploding onto a different plane at any time the way the best live bands can.

 

Still, it was quite the encore -- one of those few worthy of the name, a celebratory finale that provided the show’s most exhilirating songs, “For Reasons Unknown” and “All These Things That I’ve Done.” As Flowers perched atop a stage monitor, leaning his mic out to hear the crowd sing his lyrics in unison, it was the triumphant picture of a young band very much in its moment.

 

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excellent!!

 

they are always great in live ^_^

I agree, I wish they'd come to Argentina so I can see them live!!!