Killer

The risk of anticipation is high. When you've waited to see a band so long, your fear is that they'll disappoint - or at least not match your expectations. There have long been mutterings about The Killers - not up to it live; Brandon's voice too weak; he's too twitchy and manneristic to cut it - so the fear was higher, especially in relation to the height of the anticipation. 

Well, what was to worry about. An unusually configured all-standing Hall 4 had sold out in 20 minutes and was absolutely rammed. A good vantage point was secured, dead centre and about 15 rows back, the support band Louis XIV tolerated (trying too hard boys) and the 9pm on-stage time arrived.

About 8 seconds into "Human", all fears were dispelled. This is a tight, effective, live unit (as we used to say when I were a lad) and Brandon executes the "eating out of my hand" routine perfectly. Stage set and lighting was unparalelled, palm trees everywhere and enough wattage to send Al Gore and Jim Hansen into apoplexy.

The crowd, as is often the Glasgow way, are up for it with a capital U. Even the slightly bewildered 13 year old to my right, whose last gig experience was the Manics when he was 8 (which, incidentally he stood for; but there was an official "over 14's only" policy yesterday - why?) seemed to get into the swing of things; following, it must be said, his old dad's lead.

The thing about The Killers is that they make the maximum possible impact from the minimum possible fuss. Brandon hogs the attention so much that the powerhouse of Vannucci, Stoermer and Keuning can just get on with churning out high quality, high tempo pop/rock - albeit abetted by a lurking keyboardist / second guitarist to provide depth.

The setlist has been pretty consistent for the tour, but from the Aberdeen gig on, I Can't Wait seems to have been dropped for On Top - good move. We also got Neon Tiger rather than Shadowplay, complete with it's glaringly obvious crowd manupulating line "c'mon girls and boys, everybody make some noise". Well, it would be rude not to...

One or two minor gripes about placement aside - Losing Touch seems kind of lost in the encores - it's a top top set. Not much that you'd go away thinking "I wish they hadn't played that" and little missed that you yearned for. Pleasant surprise was how well Joy Ride worked live.

Second half of the main set was just unbelievable. From Spaceman (which was, in the words of Shakespeare, fecking awesome) onwards, everything was as close to perfect as you could imagine. The "half slow, half rocky" Sam's Town was good, but oddly the key moment seemed to be the complete loss of stage power for 30 seconds in Read My Mind. Whilst we amused ourselves keeping the song going, I suspect the perfectionist streak in the band was royally pissed off, becasue when they restarted, the remained of RMM was hammered out, followed by an absolutely belting Mr Brightside and an awesome All These Things...  which has obviously become the signature-dish live, and I've You-tubed enough versions to know that this was one of the best. There was now real aggression in the playing, and the crowd responded in appropriate manner - it was nuts.

After this end to the main set, the encores seemed to drift - like the old cliche about half-time coming at the wrong time. However, a splendid When You Were Young got the tempo back up to max to finish things off in style.

Awesome gig, awesome set, awesome band.

Full Setlist:

Human

This Is Your Life  

Somebody Told Me 

For Reasons Unknown 

The World We Live In 

Joy Ride 

Neon Tiger 

Bling (Confession of a King) 

On Top 

Spaceman 

Smile Like You Mean It 

A Dustland Fairytale 

Sam's Town 

Read My Mind 

Mr. Brightside 

All These Things That I've Done

Bones 

Losing Touch 

Jenny Was a Friend of Mine  

When You Were Young