The Killers returned home to Las Vegas on Jan. 25 for the last of their Caesars Palace residency shows – the rockers provided a glitzy, glamorous ode to Sin City’s history, and a rocket straight into its future.
“The desert is mysterious,” The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers once said, and it’s a setting that has become a precious lyrical touchstone for the Las Vegas-based band.
The desert’s enigmatic allure is painted across everything from 2004’s Hot Fuss all the way to 2021’s Pressure Machine, not just byway of vivid, imaginative lyrics, but of their own upbringings in Nevada.
Courage. Desolation. Heat. Romance. Running away. Placing bets.
These themes were bound to constitute The Killers’ motifs, given the band was formed in and its members largely call Las Vegas home. As guitarist Dave Keunig put it, “A lot of people think Vegas is so crazy, because they love to watch The Hangover or something and think that’s what Vegas is like… but our interpretation of Vegas is entirely different.”
“Someone is calling my name from the back of the restaurant,” Flowers sang in “Smile Like You Mean It,” a nod to his time working as a busboy at Caesars Palace after moving to the city from Utah at the age of 16. Even in his solo work, he references Humboldt County and sagebrush highways and the house always winning.
The Killers are often mistaken for a British band, but pay any mind to their catalogue beyond UK-coded solos, and you’ll find the Mojave’s lipstick print all over.
Having traveled the world many times over in support of their seven studio albums, the group returned home to Las Vegas recently (the very hotel and casino Flowers worked at upon his arrival, no less) for a sold-out residency at Caesars Palace, with their final show landing on January 25. Just past merch stands selling Killers playing cards and tote bags, the band set up shop inside the hotel’s grand theatre for a bundle of shows to remember.
“All it takes is just one coin and a little luck,” a voice echoed, a golden coin falling down into a glowing stageside jukebox. The Colosseum’s main room erupted in applause. Silhouettes of the band – frontman Flowers, guitarist Keuning, bassist Mark Stoermer, and drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr. – appeared on a spotlighted curtain, and as the opening refrain of “Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine” reverberated through the room, the four-piece washed away any preconceived notions of what a residency is supposed to be.
“A lot of people come to Vegas to gamble. I am no exception,” Flowers said, taking a beat right away to engage the crowd. “I bet my life on three men who I hardly knew. Some people come to Vegas and lose everything they have. That’s just the way it goes. But let tonight serve as a reminder that sometimes, it’s the other way around.”
“Mr. Brightside” came next. It was one of the first songs the band ever wrote, and one they would sneak into the University of Nevada’s band room to practice in the band’s infancy. It’s since become the UK’s third biggest selling and longest-charting single, having spent over 408 weeks on the chart, not to mention clinching the title of most-streamed song on Spotify from the 2000’s – with a resume that impressive, it got the whole venue up and moving.
The Caesars Palace shows were booked in celebration of Hot Fuss’ 20th anniversary, so the next first 12 songs were exactly that: the album played in order, instrumentals closely reflecting those of the studio recordings. I’ve always thought this about The Killers – they get better with age. I wholeheartedly believe this version of them, 20+ years into performing together, is the best they’ve ever been. And when Flowers jumped up onto the stage setup to pound out the pre-chorus of “All These Things That I’ve Done,” that was an irrefutable fact.
Another head aches, another heart breaks
I’m so much older than I can take
And my affection, well it comes and goes
I need direction to perfection
No, no, no, no, help me out
– “All These Things That I’ve Done,” The Killers
So many of The Killers’ greatest songs boil down to the themes explored in “All These Things That I’ve Done.” Direction, purpose, anxiety, identity, and the fear of missing out on the person you’re supposed to be, to name a few. After the room independently kickstarted the “I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier” line, another few words crept up behind them: “Time, truth, and hearts.” The words are drowned out by thunderous drums and a plethora of voices on the studio recording, but they manage to abridge the track’s lyrics flawlessly – time, truth, and hearts being the three things in life we seem to have no control over.
“On Top” was another highlight in the Hot Fuss runthrough. Its tempo and duration helped keep the audience engaged, holding them over with high-energy choruses and unfailing stage presence from each member as the album reached and surpassed its halfway point. Its vibrancy grew and grew until the arrival of “Everything Will Be Alright,” the record’s last song and the first song Flowers wrote for his wife. “Her upbringing in this city was not as fortunate as mine,” he said, “so what does a 21-year-old Mr. Brightside say to a girl leary of the world, searching for shelter? Everything will be alright.”
As for Hot Fuss bonus track “Glamorous Indie Rock & Roll,” Flowers explained that its meaning has morphed through the years, maturing to reflect fans’ interpretations more so than his own. “Somewhere in this desert between our longing to be loved and the musical snobbery we were experiencing, I reached down deep and wrote a sneery, satirical song. Not everybody got it,” he said. “Some people heard a joyful song celebrating the spirit of indie rock n’ roll, and it may have taken me 20 years to realize it, but they were right… so let’s not argue over semantics. Let’s celebrate.”
Stay if you want to love me, stay
Oh, don’t be shy, let’s cause a scene
Like lovers do on silver screens
Let’s make it, yeah, we’ll cause a scene
It’s indie rock and roll for me
– “Glamorous Indie Rock & Roll,” The Killers
After a brief intermission, Flowers, Keuning, Stoermer, and Vannucci Jr. returned to the stage for a handful of encore tracks hand-picked to keep the crowd magnetized.
“The Man” was a powerful first choice – “Baby, I’m gifted / You see what I mean? / USDA certified lean,” Flowers smirked, enjoying the crowd’s pointed fingers and word-for-word singalongs, all the way from the general admission pit to the seated balcony.
“Runaways” was another hard-hitting encore choice, plucked from the band’s 2012 album Battle Born yet resonating thematically with their entire career. While it doesn’t explicitly mention Las Vegas, it talks of “sand” and “summer wind,” and how the song’s lovers have time, but that ain’t much. “Let’s take a chance, baby / We can’t lose,” he begs. 2022’s “Runaway Horses” shared the same courageous sentiment: “Every step is a silver prayer / In the face of a hard wind.”
You gotta know that this is real
Baby, why you wanna fight it?
It’s the one thing you can choose
Let’s take a chance, baby, we can’t lose
Ain’t we all just runaways?
– “Runaways,” The Killers
Zane Lowe once referred to “When You Were Young,” the set’s very last song, as a wild horse. An untamed entity bound to kick its own way through, whether or not it was chosen as Sam’s Town’s lead single. It was, narrowly beating out “Bling (Confessions Of A King)” for the position, but it’s hard to overstate how much power the song has with or without the title. As Flowers thundered through the first verse, the crowd screamed the lyrics back to him: “You play forgiveness / Watch it now, here he comes / He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus, but he talks like a gentleman / Like you imagine when you were young.”
“I just remember this song being a turning point for us,” Vannucci Jr. said. “We were making up stories about murder and nightclubs and girlfriends looking like a boyfriend, and this all of a sudden felt deeply personal.” Built on a relatively simple bassline and a guitar riff that originated as a keyboard part, the song manages to feel both gritty and almost shockingly exposed. “He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus” applies to so many things — wanting something and realizing it’s nothing like you thought once you get it, or wanting someone and knowing they’ve got skeletons in their closet just like you do. On the flip side, Flowers has implied the song was written partially about himself, and wanting to be a better man.
The line resolves on an upward tilt with “but he talks like a gentleman.” Some have theorized the track to be about a smooth-talker who’s just that — all talk, with charisma used to conceal a more sinister set of intentions. I see “When You Were Young” as a shedding of unrealistic expectations come adulthood. None of us are perfect, none of us “look a thing like Jesus,” but we try “more than you’ll ever know.” I see it as a call to accept ourselves and each other as we are, because we all have flaws and mental blockages to work through.
Can we climb this mountain?
I don’t know
Higher now than ever before
I know we can make it if we take it slow
Let’s take it easy, easy now, watch it go
We’re burning down the highway skyline
On the back of a hurricane
That started turning when you were young
– “When You Were Young,” The Killers
Really, Hot Fuss was a magnificent bluff of an album.
Not that the band didn’t have the skill or work ethic to see a lasting career out, but there was no way to foresee what would come of their reception in the industry, nor how to navigate the pressures of fame until they were thrust into it. Like Vannucci Jr. expressed of its lyrics, the record was built on grand, fictional stories of real-life adjacent people, truths always veiled by “he said, she said” stories. They were trying on a costume that wouldn’t fully fit until Sam’s Town came around and proved it wasn’t a fluke.
Their catalogue is bittersweet, tasting of both innocence and the corrosion of it, love and the loss of it, and purpose and flailing to find it. I find myself questioning everything when I listen to a song like “Read My Mind,” mostly because it’s so contradictory. “I’ve got the green light, I’ve got a little fight / I’m gonna turn this thing around,” Flowers assures, but his voice shakes with uncertainty through the promise, like he doesn’t fully believe himself capable of fulfilling it.
The lights and buzz of Las Vegas can feel suffocating at times, but the city that The Killers describe is much less about fame and fortune, and more about the dusty open roads on the outskirts of town.
The overlook points where you can see the whole world from the hood of a beat-up car. The neon signs left to decay once something bigger and brighter is built just across the way. Their lyrics are the highways between destinations, and proof that while songs can be vehicles to positive change, they won’t turn the key for you.
For all the tumbleweeds forming ten miles down the road, for all the devastating implosions come and gone, and for all the times the odds have proven it nearly impossible, The Killers made me believe that you have to sit there at the table with the cards you’re dealt, put on your best poker face, and “find the faith to fill the gap one more time,” even – no, especially – if your voice trembles as you bet it all on the back of a broken hand.
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© Chris Phelps
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