The Killers surprise, delivering a glittering set
Star-telegram
GRAND PRAIRIE -- There I sat, in the half-light of the Nokia Theatre Thursday night, waiting for The Killers to emerge from behind the stage-obscuring scrim, composing a few different venomous screeds in my head, based entirely on the Las Vegas quartet's previous North Texas appearance at EdgeFest earlier this year.

Put kindly, it wasn't a performance that captured my heart -- I felt the band was entirely too wrapped up in the still-fresh sophomore disc Sam's Town, content to stride onstage and ram it down the audience's throat -- and I wasn't sure if seeing the group again, in a more intimate setting, would change my mind.

After all, it's all too easy to earn the enmity of this critic, at least, when you make bold proclamations about your highly anticipated second record ("the best album of the last 20 years") before anyone's really had a chance to hear it. I can stomach hubris when it's earned, but The Killers have yet to turn out a front-to-back masterpiece, their numerous hit singles notwithstanding.

Yet frontman Brandon Flowers and his efficient, confident bandmates took the stage, proceeding to spend some time demolishing my preconceptions as to exactly what The Killers can do in a live setting. Many of my doubts melted a bit in the face of such an exuberant, ferocious showing.

The comfortably full room exploded when the quintet (augmented with a touring guitarist) appeared, tearing into the title track of its second album -- in a glimmering explosion of glitter and confetti, heightened by a rapid-fire light show, Flowers and the rest of The Killers looked infinitely more comfortable and engaged with the surging, screaming crowd.

Racing through most of Sam's Town and sprinkling the set with a helping of hits from multi-platinum debut Hot Fuss, The Killers did underscore how completely they've dominated Top 40 radio in the last few years; the insistent energy of Somebody Told Me still sounds as fresh as it did before it was played into the ground. The towering Sam's Town anthem Read My Mind suggests even now, as this particular single is grabbing hold, it too will still feel vital in two or three years' time.

Maybe all the art-directed drama and theatrical gestures simply play better in a room that's not also home to a soccer team. The Killers embrace their flashy presentation, wrapping their desperate, hopeful love songs in the warm glow of a dozen spotlights -- perhaps these guys just have some life to live, giving their catalog some heft and resonance. I'm still not entirely convinced, but neither am I completely discouraged.