The Killers Honor Material Issue at Lollapalooza
Brandon Flowers pays homage with quick version of great song
Last night in Chicago’s Grant Park, Lollapalooza headliners The Killers took a brief break from playing hit after freaking hit.
“When we were first starting and kind of kicking it around the streets of Las Vegas, Nevada,” singer Brandon Flowers told the crowd, “there was a band that had a big influence on me and they were from Chicago. I feel like we haven’t paid them enough respect so I thought we do a little bit of that tonight. If you don’t know about them, they’re called Material Issue and they have some superb records. We’re going to do a little bit of one of their tunes. It’s called ‘Very First Lie.’”
Guitarist Ted Sablay began strumming the C over C9 intro to one of the greatest ballads in power pop history. And Flowers, his distinctive and amazing voice, started crooning some of the most beautiful lyrics Jim Ellison ever wrote:
“I’d like to wake up with you early in the morning / Stay up late just playing records on your phonograph
I’d like to get to know your mother and your father / Maybe just pretend to be somebody’s better half
And I would like to tell the very first lie.”
I wasn’t there. But almost immediately, friends who know how much Jim Ellison meant to me — and they knew it because he meant the same to them — started blowing up my phone with video of this astonishing tribute to an artist whose career was cut short by his tragic suicide nearly 30 years ago.
Jim would have gone absolutely mental to hear a band of The Killers’ stature — and excellence — honor his music so respectfully.
That wasn’t an entirely novel occurrence, actually. YouTube has some gems like Courtney Love covering “Valerie Loves Me,” and the Stereo Fuse version of “Everything” is probably better known than the Material Issue song that birthed it.
But approbation by The Killers, a band that actually achieved the pop superstardom many thought was awaiting Material Issue when Mercury signed them in the early ’90s and landed them everywhere from the Dennis Miller Show to MTV Spring Break—and did so with the tuneful hooks and musicianship that Jim valued most—would have just knocked Jim out.
I’ve gone on at length about how much Jim’s friendship meant to me personally, as well as how much his mentorship meant to my band. Jim named our group The Lilacs and produced our first record, plus sang on it and played a little guitar. No need to replay that history. (And if you really wanna know, set aside an hour to watch Balin Schneider’s A+ documentary about the band, which is streaming on Amazon and available as a Blu-ray; Balin is one of the people who texted me footage of last night’s Killers miracle.)
But what I will share is what Jeff Kwatinetz, who discovered Material Issue and as their manager helped break the band, told me years later when we discussed the crushing loss of our mutual friend. Jeff told me that Jim could absolutely have built a successful career as a songwriter for other acts. As the manager of tons of bands from Korn to Five Finger Death Punch to Limp Bizkit to Backstreet Boys to Enrique Iglesias, Kwatinetz knows this stuff. He told me that most rock stars, even the good songwriters, can’t write for other artists because their songs are so tied to their own persona or point of view. If someone covers a Jagger/Richards song, they might produce a really interesting version, but it’ll always feel like a Stones cover. But Jim’s songs work for other artists because they were just plain good songs. You can kind of hear that even in the one-minute clip of The Killers here.
I wrote the liner notes for Material Issue’s final album, Telecommando Americano, released in 1997 after Jim’s death. Even then, you could almost hear how perfectly songs like “Satellite” and “Carousel” would have worked for other acts.
I wish The Killers had played the whole song and covered it on a record and earned it the billion streams it deserves. But more than that, I wish my friend was still around to stand in Grant Park on a beautiful night in our hometown and appreciate that his music is still moving people more than 30 years after he created it.
Mike Zelenko, drummer of Material Issue, put it even more succinctly. “One of Jimmy’s best.”
VIDEO: The Killers perform Material Issue’s “Very First Lie” at Lollapalooza 2024
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