In much the same way The Killers reach for the epic on their new album, "Sam's Town," the band's packed concert at The Saltair Saturday was largely an effort to seem larger than life. From the massive, flashing "Sam's Town" sign overhead to the extra musician tucked behind an amplifier to singer Brandon Flowers' emotive stage presence, this was a performance that will serve the band well even in much larger arenas.
The Killers might not be far from playing those bigger rooms, either, considering "Sam's Town" just debuted at No. 2 on Billboard's album-sales charts, and the band's debut has sold more than three million copies in the United States. Good thing the band filled "Sam's Town" with anthems on par with the hits from that first album, 2004's "Hot Fuss."
The Killers opened the show with three straight songs from "Sam's Town:" the title track, "enterlude" and the new single, "When You Were Young," a song that featured some nice guitar work from Dave Keuning and that sounded far better than when the band played it on "Saturday Night Live" a few weeks back.
The band followed that troika with the song that first gained them radio and TV attention, and "Somebody Told Me" turned the Saltair's floor into a roiling mass of dancers and amateur photographers trying to capture Flowers and Co. on their camera phones.
"Somebody Told Me" is the kind of potent dance-rock that The Killers do best, and too few of the new songs matched the energy, or hooks, of the songs from "Hot Fuss" that made their way into the set. They followed with another "Hot Fuss" song, with the swelling synthesizers introducing "Smile Like You Mean It" being met with almost as raucous a roar as "Somebody Told Me."
The show was a little heavy on new songs in the middle, but Flowers worked the crowd and stage in an appropriately flamboyant style, helping the new tunes get over. "Bones" was accompanied by some interpretive dance from Flowers and came across as more guitar-oriented than most of The Killers material. "Bling (Confession of a King)" had some of the more inane lyrics of the night ("Higher and higher/we're going to take it to the wire"), but Flowers had the crowd fist-pumping along with him through the chorus nonetheless.
"Jenny Was a Friend of Mine" from "Hot Fuss" was a highlight, and "Uncle Jonny" from "Sam's Town" offered the rhythm section of bassist Mark Stoermer and drummer Ronnie Vanucci a chance to shine. "Mr. Brightside," arguably the band's biggest song to date, was an ideal set-closer before the band launched into an encore just more than an hour after starting the show.
Much has been made of The Killers aspirations to be the next massive rock act, something in the line of U2 or Bruce Springsteen. They're nowhere close to that yet in the songwriting department, but they've got a good start in creating a live show that's big, big, BIG.
Who: The Killers When: Saturday Where: The Great Saltair The Bottom Line: The Las Vegas quartet provided a bombastic headlining set on one of the first dates of their new tour.