The Killers 4/28/07 Madison Square Garden Review

Last night my friends and I spontaneously purchased tickets to see The Killers. The tickets obviously weren't great getting them last minute; they were directly to the side of the stage but we weren't too far back which was good. The Killers had two opening bands, the first of which was Red Romance, they had a sound which resembled that of The Killers. Their songs were catchy and upbeat and it was a good choice of a band to open up the show. The second opening band was quite arguably the greatest opening band I have ever seen, there name is The Silver Beats. They are a Beatles cover band out of Japan. The Killers saw them in a club ironically called "The Cavern Club" while filming their video for "Read My Mind" in Tokyo and asked them to join the tour. They played around ten Beatles songs ranging from the early "Please Please Me" days to the later "Let It Be" days. When they first started playing I would have sworn that they were lip synching, they sounded too dead on to be real. After the band fumbled a little bit on the lyrics in "Drive My Car" it was clear that they most definitely weren't lip synching. They also had a great stage presence cracking jokes with their limited amount of English. The guitarist who was playing John Lennon not only sounded just like him but actually looked similar to him in a Japanese kind of way. Here is a link to a video of them performing "She Loves You." The crowd was in to them, all of MSG was on their feet dancing to the sound of The Beatles and for a moment I told myself there was no possible way The Killers could live up to their performance.

This is actually my third time seeing The Killers and what is funny about that is the first time I saw them I labeled it as "The Worst Concert I Have Ever Seen." They played for a minimal 45 minutes. Granted they only had one album out but they could have at least given us the album in its entirety. The second time I saw them was at Virgin Fest and they put on a good show but at that time I was too dehydrated from the overwhelming heat to really get into them. This time they were simply phenomenal. They opened up in dramatic fashion with a giant white sheet covering the stage with black and white videos projected on to the sheet. After around two minutes of that the sheet dropped and there was lead singer Brandon Flowers standing on top of the speakers and confetti red, white and blue confetti shooting out from all sides of the stage. The band was full of energy and were all over the stage and were also very gratious to be playing in "The Worlds Most Famous Arena." They played for an hour and thirty minutes in total. They also gave the fans exactly what they wanted by playing every single they've released. Before they went into an encore they played for an hour and came back on stage to give us not one, not two, not even three but five and half songs for an encore. Right when they played "techinically" their final song "Exitlude" Brandon Flowers claimed that they reallly had to give us a show to remember because this they're playing at the Garden. Right after that they went into the final half of "When You Were Young" which they already performed earlier in their set.

All I really have to say about the show is it was much greater than I anticipated. They have really improved their performances, and while Brandon Flowers isn't the most beloved of artists around because of his critical statements of musicians, he has a fantastic stage presence. The Killers show on April 28th, 2007 at Madison Square Garden New York was a concert to be remembered.

Here is there setlist:

Sam's Town
Enterlude
When You Were Young
Bones
Somebody Told Me
Smile Like You Mean It
Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine
Uncle Johnny
This River Is Wild
Read My Mind
On Top
Andy, You're A Star
Bling (Confessions of a King)
Mr. Brightside

ENCORE:
My List
Shadowplay (Joy Division Cover)
For Reasons Unknown
All These Things That I've Done
Exitlude
Final Half of When You Were Young