The Killes are starting to look a bit like Vegas

San Francisco April 7,2007

examiner

The band’s onstage look has changed from the gleaming metallic costumes and sets used on tour for their 2004 debut album, “Hot Fuss,” to something evoking a midway, complete with oversized light bulbs, circus flags and lead singer Brandon Flowers as a carnival barker with slicked back hair. The sound on their current album, “Sam’s Town,” likewise, has also shifted from the jittery, uneasy disco of hits “Mr. Brightside” and “Somebody Told Me” to something more bombastic and keyboard-heavy.

What hasn’t changed, however, are the insistent pop hooks, showmanship and slick production values of the Killers’ live show. They may sing about “Glamorous Indie Rock and Roll,” but the effect is pure Vegas. This was evident at Saturday’s sold-out show at the Bill Graham Civic Center Auditorium, from the powerful polished sound to the blasts of glittering confetti that punctuated the performance as regularly as the Killers’ hits.

There is nothing subtle about the Killers, and nothing improvisational, either. The band maintained an efficient, relentless pace from the opening drumbeat, with no extended jams and barely any pauses between songs. Flowers, an intense yet oddly stiff performer whose melodramatic voice easily filled the barn-like auditorium, spoke little during the set, aside from one yelp of “San Francisco!”

Live, the songs remained faithful to the recorded versions, with a stronger rock sound that added an anthemic edge to mid-tempo singles such as “Can You Read My Mind?” and “When You Were Young.” During the slower numbers, Flowers emerged from behind his keyboard to jump on to a platform and pump his fist or brandish a microphone.

Although their Britpop influences, including Blur and Oasis, have been widely noted, the Killers owe their most obvious musical debt to ’80s synthesizer pop. They channeled a darker side of the ’80s in an encore version of Joy Division’s “Shadowplay.”

With characteristic confidence, the Killers burned through their biggest hits rapidly, saving only “All These Things That I’ve Done” from “Hot Fuss” for their show-stopping finale. The audience sang along enthusiastically, as they had all night, to the song’s cathartic chorus of “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier.” But not even that moment was allowed to build or linger long before the band hit its final drumbeat and quickly left the stage, pausing only to toss drumsticks into the crowd. Time for the carnival to pack up and leave town.

Live Review: The Killers at Bill Graham Civic, 04/07/07

sfgate

It's incredible to think that just last year The Killers launched their latest album, Sam's Town, with an intimate Popscene show at 330 Ritch in front of a few hundred kids in the know.

On Saturday, the stubbly Las Vegas outfit graduated into a proper arena band with an extremely sold out show at the Bill Graham Civic that left no grand rock 'n' roll cliche unturned: Confetti cannons? Check. Massive audience singalongs? Check. A big gong, silver-shirted guitarist and wind machines? Check, check and check.

Even it felt a bit like seeing Bon Jovi in 1987, it was still an awesome show. The quartet played every song from Sam's Town and most of the good bits from its synth-heavy 2004 debut, Hot Fuss, plus some b-sides and covers. The highlights were obvious - gargantuan teen drama anthems like "Somebody Told Me," "Mr. Brightside" and "Bones. "

A couple of the more ponderous songs from the new disc, like "This River Is Wild" and the truly dreadful "Uncle Jonny" (sample lyric: "When everybody else refrained/ My uncle Johnny did cocaine"), temporarily cleared the floor in the middle of the set but, like a block of brie, the tunes from Sam's Town have only gotten better with age. In fact, "Read My Mind" is one of the best things they've done.

But even as The Killers become the domain of backwards cap-wearing, beer-swilling dudes that high-five each other after every drum roll, singer Brandon Flowers still looks completely out of his league as the band's frontman.

With stiff shoulders and darting eyes, he had no problem delivering the words with the arch theatricality that they require but seemed at a complete loss whenever the music stopped. Unlike his heroes Bono and Morrissey, there were no flashes of wit, no filthy jokes, not even a smile to suggest he wouldn't rather be at home with his wife watching "You've Got Mail."

Then again, he was probably the only person in the room that didn't have a good time.

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