The Killers Dazzle at Boston Calling
The Las Vegas band stops at the Harvard-adjacent festival on their Rebel Diamonds tour
I’ve always thought the Killers’ choice of a band name was somewhat odd, possibly even ironic.
I mean, Jerry Lee Lewis was The Killer and he may well have lived up to the nickname (maybe not, never proven.) And Slayer wrote songs about mayhem and murder. That’s called truth in choosing a moniker.
That has never been the Killers’ game. They’re a 21st century New Wave throwback band from Las Vegas who’s rarely at a loss for the crowd-rousing anthem and optimistic cheer. If you were to drop a Killers hit into an ‘80s mixtape, you wouldn’t know the difference.
The band, fronted by singer, heartthrob and occasional bassist-keyboardist Brandon Flowers, is currently on their Rebel Diamonds tour. It’s running parallel to the Rolling Stones’ Hackney Diamonds tour. Coincidence? Probably. I dunno, maybe diamonds are in the wind right now. Don’t bet against Judas Priest playing “Diamonds and Rust” somewhere.
But Rebel Diamonds is the title of the Killers’ latest album and it’s a best-of (save for three songs from an aborted eighth studio disc), so they’re not out on the road flogging new material, but asking you to celebrate the near-quarter century of Killers music. Yep, nearly a quarter century. Feel old(er) yet?
The Killers played the headlining set on the third and final day of a multi-band festival called Boston Calling at the Harvard Athletic Complex on Sunday night, May 27th. Quipped Flowers, from the stage: “This is the closest anyone in this band has been to an Ivy League school.” Touche.
The previous night, the Killers played a last-minute pop-up gig at the 933-capacity Paradise club in Boston — $99 a ticket for those lucky in the online queue. The Killers are more or less in the launch phase of a long stretch of dates: The Governors Ball Music Festival in Queens, New York on June 8th and then they embark upon a 17-date European (mostly UK) jaunt before returning to the U.S. in August. Then, in October, they’re off to Mexico.
They haven’t put out a new studio record in three years, the last one being Pressure Machine. And I don’t know whether they’ve configured into a mostly-on-tour/playing-the-hits outfit or they’re taking an extended break from songwriting/recording grind. Or they simply realize that concerts are where the dough lives these days (and forever more) and most bands don’t really need to put out new music to get the fans out of the house.
Flowers was, as ever, a Hollywood handsome, perfectly coiffed and super energetic frontman. Boundless energy that 42-year-old kid has. The Killers crew included, as it did last time around, three female backing vocalists (Erica Canales, Nicky Egan and Miranda Jones) – surrounded by fellas that look like they could have been a Southern rock band from the ‘70s. (Mostly long-haired and bearded, albeit better groomed.)
Who’s a Killer then?
It may very well be a technicality to most fans as long as Flowers is out front and muscular Ronnie Vannucci Jr. is doing his dynamo thing behind the drum kit, and I’m not suggesting it’s of paramount concern, but it’s a curious situation at the least. Guitarist Dave Keening (who played on the last album) and bassist Mark Stoermer (who did not, COVID-19) are officially still in the band, but once again not on this tour. They are being replaced (once again) by guitarist Ted Sabaly and bassist Jake Blanton. Guitarist-keyboardists Robbie Connolly and Taylor Milne, the latter who is also in Vannucci’s side project Big Talk, are also on board again as well.
The 95-minute show kicked off with “All These Things That I’ve Done” with its incessant “I got soul but I’m not a soldier!” line repeated 10,000 times for emphasis of what I’m not certain. It was followed by the even-greater-uplift of “Spaceman,” where the star-maker tells the star that life ain’t so bad and the dream-maker cautions it’s gonna make you mad, but the spaceman counsels: “Everybody look down/It’s all in your mind.”
I would posit that the Killers may just be a 21st century Journey. Hipper than Journey, certainly, but maybe in the way Elvis was hipper than Wayne Newton. And, it’s worth noting, while we’re name-dropping Elvis, the Killers did a straight-up version of “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” after “A Dustland Fairytale.” It was the night’s only tender ballad.
I know Pressure Machine, has some downers on it and tinges of heartland Americana/folk-rock, but the Killers did not one song from it. Here, at least, the Killers went to their sweet spot: anthemic, upbeat pop/rock, the kind of songs where the packed crowd – and we were like sardines in a can out there in the open air — sings along to most everything. Guitars and keyboards built to sure-shot climaxes; major chord bombast is the Killers best friend.
If that’s not people-pleasing/Journey-esque enough for you, I don’t know what is. Hey, don’t stop believin’.
As with any festival show, the big screen video shots of the band are important to presentation and the Killers video team did an ace job of keying on Flowers, but also shifting camera attention around the stage, giving everybody some time to glow in the dark, show off their work on the fretboard. The video switched between color and black and white shots, leading me to think of yet another Killers influence, Cheap Trick, and their In Color front-and-back album covers from 1977. (Yeah, I’m that old.)
I was disappointed there wasn’t a choice cover or two. At their club show the previous night, they played Erasure’s “A Little Respect,” and the last time I saw them in Boston six years ago, they did the Cars’ “Just What I Needed.” Roots music, y’know.
There’s a relentlessness about the Killers – we’re going to entertain you if it kills us: 19 songs, all in the key of infectious, with a bunch of big-bang-for-the-buck rockers like “Somebody Told Me, “Runaways,” “Read My Mind” and “When You Were Young.”
Now, we can dump on the existential question-cum-chorus in “Human” – “Are we human? /Or are we dancer?” all we want and trust me, I have, but I ask you: Is it any stupider or sillier than Men Without Hats doing “Safety Dance” from my new wave era of the 20th century?
The show closed – natch – with the obsessive, helter-skelter “Mr. Brightside,” the song that has crossed over to multiple generations: X, Millennial, Z, Boomer II, probably even Alpha, those born in 2010 or later. I’m guessing babies in their cribs bang their heads to “Mr. Brightside,” even if the situation depicted is a little beyond their reach.
As a member of Boomer II (1955-1964), I feel compelled to note the fast tempo and wordplay is not unlike David Bowie’s “Queen Bitch,” which is really just a compliment. You know the old saw: Amateurs borrow, professionals steal, attributed either to Lennon (John) or Elliot (T.S.).
Flowers rips through a set-up – “It started out with a kiss/How did it end up like this? /It was only a kiss; it was only a kiss/Now I’m falling asleep/And she’s calling a cab” – and winds up drowning in a sea of jealousy. Reportedly drawn from a true story about Flowers walking into a Vegas bar and finding his girlfriend cheating on him. So, his thoughts are manic and frantic, but this is Killers-ville and there was not a moment of doubt that this song wouldn’t leave you high as a kite.
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