When frontman Brandon Flowers says thank you for being there for The Killers – he’s talking about much more than the packed crowd at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday night.
London, and more specifically the Dublin Castle pub three miles down the road in Camden, is where The Killers finally got their break in 2003 – and the rest is history.
“We knew we were good, but we couldn’t understand why America didn’t get it,” Flowers says during The Killers’ powerful and joyous set. “We hoped you would get it. You got it and it changed our lives. Thank you so much.”
Nearly 20 years on and Britain still gets it.
The Imploding the Mirage Tour was delayed because of Covid and the band have released two albums since they were last here – Imploding the Mirage in 2020 and Pressure Machine in 2021 – and already their songs are welcomed like old classics.
A burst of confetti and a roar from the crowd greets the band as they open with My Own Soul’s Warning before taking the noise levels higher with the poignant When You Were Young.
This is a playlist to please and you can literally feel the stand we’re in shaking during Spaceman then Somebody Told Me.
The backdrop of star-lit Nevada skies – the band are from Las Vegas – contrast to the cold, grey cloud hanging over north London, but consummate showman Flowers never lets the temperature drop.
His broad smile suggests he is enjoying this as much as the rest of us but even he is upstaged momentarily when he picks a fan from the crowd to take Ronald Vannucci Jr’s place on the drums for Reasons Unknown.
If anything, Josh somehow manages to quicken the tempo before returning to his place to a deafening cheer.
All the classics are here – Runaways, Read My Mind and finally All These Things That I’ve Done to close the set as the band pump out the full anthemic repertoire. But The Killers have always been about one song in particular and the best is saved for last.
A truly brilliant encore opens with The Man, followed by Human – complete with a stunning video wall of dancers – then the moment we’ve all been waiting for, Mr Brightside.
The sound of the vast crowd singing every word of Flowers’ raw description of relationship break up almost drowns out the frontman himself.
The song holds the record of 317 consecutive weeks and counting in the British Top 100 since it was first released on the little-known British label Lizard King on 5 June 2004. But seeing it performed live accompanied by a spectacular light show is something else again.
It’s over two years since tickets for this gig first went on sale and so much has happened in between.
But in these uncertain times there is one thing you can rely on – a knockout show from the Killers.
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