by Brian Hickey
This could very well have been the week the music died for me.
It’s safe to publicly admit this now, since the paper I used to work for included the humiliating detail in their December story about how a hit-and-run driver nearly offed me. They wrote that I played my iTunes loudly, regularly, and with no compunction about letting the shuffle stop off in the Top 40 range.
Had they been able to waltz into my coma for an interview, I’d have defended myself with the shields of Metallica and Public Enemy. But, journalists ain’t no scientists with control of the time-space continuum, so why bother whining?
I offer that explanation to both give me shelter for saying I watch American Idol regularly, and to explain how it barely averted literally becoming a music assassin.
Every last member of the remaining quartet was just a little off on “Rock Week.” Danny, more so than even Allison, who Texting Americana eliminated. That shrieking was unbearable. But he was my pick from the moment he auditioned on, despite Adam’s remarkably talented run. But Adam’s idolization will end in with a final-week loss. Some of middle and southern America are ready for a black President, but there’s no way that the ignorant will vote for a guy who posted pictures of himself kissing another guy.
But even Danny’s Elm Street nightmare rendition isn’t what hurt my musical soul most. Gwen Stefani and Paula Adbul did that all by themselves. Gwen lost every last blonde streak of credibility by with a spastic, vocally sour version of how she’s just a girl, oh little old her.
And Paula, I don’t even know where to begin with what she did while debuting her insufferable single, “I’m Just Here For the Music.” One thing that came to mind was that a circus performer had slid his pet Monchichi into a silver bustier, black stockings and heels with the command of “Do whatever it takes to make people despise music in all its forms.” The other thought was, “I despise music in all its forms, and I refuse to listen to another song. Ever.”
Thankfully, that lasted all of two days. And, ironically, music was resuscitated by four dudes from Vegas called The Killers.
The first time I heard their first single, "Somebody Told Me," I was hooked. Went out and bought their debut album Hot Fuss five years ago. I followed up two years later with their second album Sam’s Town, named after a locals’ off-Strip casino I visited one Vegas trip a long, long time ago. Skipping 2007’s Sawdust – just downloaded a couple of the songs I liked, a friend brought Day & Age by the hospital to complete my trilogy.
What struck me most about them was how they could glide in and out of different identities seamlessly. One song, say, "Mr. Brightside" they sound like synth pop. The next, "When You Were Young" was anthem rock right into "Read My Mind", which has a summer dance-party feel. On the albums, you don’t know what the feel is going to be one track to the next.
And the live performances, like Friday night’s show at the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden, does nothing short of magnify that. This marks the fourth time I’ve seen them, but the first time since the latest album was released. I figured a few of the new songs would make this the best show of the lot. And, I was right. But I quickly noticed that when they did the mainstays – the aforementioned hits, "Smile Like You Mean It," "Spaceman" and "For Reasons Unknown and All These Things That I’ve Done" – lead singer Brandon Flowers seemed to be in much closer synch with the rest of the band than at previous shows. (By band, I mean bassist Mark Stoermer, lead guitarist Dave Keuning and drummer Ronnie Vannucci.) And man, can he rile the audience up by marching around the stage, thrusting the mic stand in the air while standing on the speakers at the front of the stage.
It’s almost as if I’ve witnessed a band growing together over the course of three or four years, enabling them to take great albums and pump them up at the live performances that leave much of the crowd overwhelmed. (Not that I can define what a Killers crowd looks like. I mean, to my right was a pair of kids, probably teenagers, with their parents. And their parents seemed to dig the show more than the kids, which made my first sober concert ever all the more odd.)
The Killers have clearly grown not only into their talented potential, but are moving toward a place where Flowers’ seemingly hard-to-achieve confidence in interviews might actually come to fruition.
Sure, I’m clearly a fan, but I’d be hard-pressed to objectively claim someone could find much fault in what the band brings to the stage. But since I’d seen them, I sought one song that, when performed live before mine eyes for the first time, would be the take-away from the show. Well, I found two: a rollicking take on the slow-then-fast-then-medium-paced "A Dustland Fairytale," and the Caribbean-influenced "I Can’t Stay."
The only criticism I’d levy is that the show was too short, at a shade under an hour-and-a-half. But hey, who am I to question a band that saved music from going unheard to my ears forever, right?
