The Killers review: Brandon Flowers and company killin’ it at Adelaide Entertainment Centre

DIRECT from fabulous Las Vegas via a world encompassing world tour, The Killers brought all their best tricks to Adelaide: lasers, a massive stage and enough confetti to cater for a year of weddings.

• Go Tim! Adelaide drummer rocks out on stage with The Killers
• Inside story on how Tim got to drum with The Killers

THE music of The Killers is everywhere. Their songs spout from radios, accompany TV commercials, soundtrack the election of South Australia’s new premier and are an agonisingly popular karaoke choice.

But while the thousands of fans who packed into the Adelaide Entertainment Centre came for the catchy rock-pop tunes, they more than likely left talking about the stage show.

The crowd was pelted with streamers and confetti, blinded by lasers and stunned by a lighting rig more complicated than most power plants.

When written down it doesn’t sound like fun, but it was and The Killers really are one of the best live music performances doing the rounds.

They roll out every trick and effect that can fit into the back of a fleet of semi-trailers all to make the audience’s experience something special. And they succeed.

Opening for the Las Vegas stars is Sydney crooner and Nick Cave sound-a-like Jack Ladder.

He describes his small backing band as “some” of the Dream Landers, his normal ensemble which has been making waves in Sydney and Melbourne.

The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers strikes a pose at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. Picture: @robloud, Rob Loud

He performed to a largely unappreciative crowd, finishing with songs “Susan” and the slow burning brilliance of “Cold Feet”.

Alex Cameron, next up, is one of Australian music’s most bizarre transformations. One of the last times he was in Adelaide he was playing Laneway Festival with his first band Seekae. The trio of three Sydney friends who indulged in their passion for video games and weird instruments created incredibly influential electronic music and were a bastion of the indie scene.

Now Cameron, who co-wrote several songs on The Killers’ new album with Flowers after being invited to hang out with him in Vegas, is more Motown soul than Autechre or Aphex Twin.

On stage with hornsman Roy Molloy and singer Holiday Sidewinder, Cameron is a perfect opening act for the Killers because he is styled off Flowers himself.

Cameron and co finish with “Marlon Brando”off latest album Forced Witness.

By the time The Killers take to the stage the crowd is at fever pitch. A massive screen shifts around the stage and the sheer scale of the design is revealed.

The Killers’ mindblowing light show kept surprises coming throughout the show. Picture: @robloud, Rob Loud

A water tower with Adelaide scrawled on the side accompanied a stage made up of intricate risers and stairs all in the shadow of wraparound screens.

Flowers begins by launching into “Wonderful Wonderful” to start the night off but ramps up into a trio of big hitters with “The Man”, “Somebody Told Me” and “Spaceman” all in quick succession.

During “The Man” confetti and streamers exploded into the crowd while an enormous neon cowboy waved to the audience during “Somebody Told Me”.

One fan was invited on stage to drum during “For Reasons Unknown” (see the video above) and a cover of INXS’s “Don’t Change” was dedicated to the Australian audience.

The song list spanned the career of The Killers from “A Dustland Fairytale” off their 2008 album Day & Age to “Tyson vs. Douglas” from their 2017 album Wonderful Wonderful.

The crowd was once again showered with what was probably a semi-trailer worth of confetti during “All These Things I Have Done”.

Flowers, the ultimate show man, told the crowd he remembered performing the song, one of their first from 2005, in front of small club audiences with only a few hundred in attendance. He said he had faith in the song and from there The Killers grew to new heights.

For encore The Killers smashed through the slinky desert rock and biblical references of “The Calling”.

The Killers brought Australian support artists including Alex Cameron (right) on to the stage during one song. Picture: @robloud, Rob Loud

Alex Cameron joined his friend and mentor Flowers on stage for a cover of Cameron’s “Runnin Outta Luck”.

But, saving the best for last, Flowers brought the house down with the one-two punch of “When You Were Young” and “Mr Brightside”.

For a song that Jack Riewoldt tried to single-handedly kill for every single Adelaide Crows fan, the local crowd still screams back every word of Mr Brightside.

For the last show on a long Australia tour, the every charming Flowers as well as Ronnie Vannucci Jr, the only two original Killers members still on the road, provided an incredibly upbeat and tightly co-ordinated live show.

The Killers are, whether you like their music or not, the pinnacle of live music performances and should be seen for both the spectacle and showmanship of the band.

SET LIST

Wonderful Wonderful

The Man

Somebody Told Me

Spaceman

The Way It Was

Shot at Night

Run For Cover

I Can’t Stay

Smile Like You Mean It

For Reasons Unknown ft Tim from Adelaide on drums

Don’t Change (INXS cover)

Human

Tyson vs. Douglas

A Dustland Fairytale

Runaways

Read My Mind

All These Things That I Have Done

ENCORE

The Calling

Runnin’ Outta Luck (Alex Cameron cover) ft. Alex Cameron, Holiday Sidewinder and Roy Molloy)

When You Were Young

Mr Brightside