Stars'n'gripes
They’ve embraced the big sound of America but The Killers still aren’t fully comfortable with the burdens of stardom, reveals frontman Brandon Flowers.
The Hot Press Newsdesk, 29 May 2007
The Killers finally got to play their long-awaited shows in Dublin at the end of February, following the cancellation of a Point Theatre date in November, when Brandon Flowers was unable to perform due to a severe bout of the ‘flu. During the first of two concerts at the RDS Main Hall – which, leaving aside their performance at Oxegen in 2005, were actually The Killers’ first Irish dates in two and a half years – the band seemed intent on making up for lost time.
They performed scintillating versions of tracks from their classic debut, Hot Fuss, while also delivering the widescreen epics of the follow-up, Sam’s Town, with impressive style and panache. Sam’s Town, it has to be acknowledged, is probably a less instantly lovable record than its predecessor, and reviews varied wildly upon its release last September, from a dismissive appraisal in Rolling Stone to a five-star rave in The Observer.
To date, Sam’s Town has reached just over half of the five million sales achieved by Hot Fuss, although, admittedly, the album has only been on release for six months. The record is most definitely a grower, with the likes of ‘When You Were Young’, ‘Read My Mind’ and ‘Uncle Jonny’ offering fresh musical and lyrical rewards with each listen.
hotpress encounters Flowers on the day following the first RDS show, at a meeting room at the Morrison Hotel. Dressed in a hoodie, jacket and jeans, he comes across as a slightly shy character, and he intermittently fidgets with, of all things, a yo-yo. Nonetheless, he quite clearly has huge belief in The Killers’ musical abilities, and is happy to discuss all aspects of their intriguing career to date.
But first things first. Was he happy with how the show went last night?
“Yeah, it’s been a while since we played in Dublin,” he says. “I’ve definitely noticed in certain parts of the show that the Sam’s Town material has been better received this time around. Our best gigs have been in Ireland, whether at Oxegen or in the Olympia, which was a pretty memorable show. But obviously we had to cancel before Christmas because I was sick, so we didn’t get to see how these songs would go down live, now that the album’s been released. When we played them before, maybe we didn’t deliver, I don’t know, but I really think that there’s a difference in people’s reactions second time around.”
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