The Killers

The Killers, by Neil McCormick - come out all guns blazing in their show at the O2 Arena.
Relentless in their ambition to land the knock-out blow: The Killers
If The Killers really lived up to their name, they would make particularly brutal hitmen. Despite their sleek, sci-fi look and expressionless faces, their set exhibits little of the studied cool of professional assassins.
This is more like a full-frontal assault, with one rocket-propelled hit after another, a sonic battering ram pummelling your ears into submission. Just when you are picking yourself up from a devastating hookline, here comes another, with no respite and no mercy. Even with a line up augmented by sax, percussion and extra keyboards, the default setting for their cheesy, synth-driven pop rock is still full-on, everything turned up to 11. They are pop’s Terminators, relentless in their ambition to land the knock-out blow.
Featherweight frontman Brandon Flowers has the sensibility of a rock nerd: he has studied all the moves but has no natural grace. At times his body language is so constricted, he is like Mr Bean impersonating Bono. Yet this comical intensity is part of his everyman charm. As crescendos build, he cannot contain his excitement, hopping around like a hyperactive geek.
The 20,000-strong audience prove lambs to the sonic slaughter, singing along to lyrics that are effectively indiscernible unless you already know them by heart. There is a sense that everyone is willingly suspending disbelief to participate in much loved rock rituals. In the middle of Neon Tiger, Flowers stands on a sound monitor like a little dictator, commanding “Come on girls and boys, everybody make some noise!”. And, of course, they do, roaring their approval and punching the air in a blaze of exploding lights.
It would be an effective climax to most shows but it is not even the climax to this song, just another mini-crescendo. Flowers packs his songs so full of incident that some of the most stirring passages (like the singalong “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier” in All These Things I’ve Done) suddenly blow up and self-extinguish like flash fires. The same model serves for a Killers gig, which detonates like a series of climaxes, and finally ends with backlights blazing and cannons firing confetti.
At some point, if the Killers want to achieve their ambition of shooting down U2, they are going to have to factor in subtlety and nuance, a little more soul, a little less storm trooper. But just three albums into a thrilling career, The Killers come out all guns blazing, determined to knock everybody dead.