The Killers (2025)

One Liner: Massively popular alternative dance rock in the Oughts, even with no new music they ought to be fun.

Wikipedia Genre: Alternative rock, indie rock, post-punk revival, new wave, heartland rock
Home: Las Vegas, NV

Poster Position: Headliner!
Sunday at AmEx Stage at 8:30

Both Weekends.

(another headliner who can only give us an hour and a half?  What has happened to the glory days of a 2 hour set?)

Thoughts:  I am honestly shocked that they were last here all the way back in 2017.  Eight years ago feels like a really long time - I could have sworn they were here more recently than that.  If my memory serves me correctly, they showed up on that 2017 lineup because someone dropped out of the lineup back then too?  Not sure.  But I have to say that replacing Doja Cat with these dudes is a MASSIVE win for yours truly.  I know my daughters are disappointed, but the old man is happy!

Have these dudes put out any new music?  The only things released in 2025 on their Spotify are three live songs with Bruce Springsteen (that sound pretty sweet) and two weird songs featuring someone named Bruce Woolley.  I am guessing they are just doing a favor for C3, and not coming here to feature their new tunes.  Let's get into the review of the band then...

I know these guys weren't the first to make dance rock a thing, but I feel like they were one of the first to do a good job of taking the guitars and crunch of the alternative rock/grunge scene and adding heavy synths to turn alternative rock into a dance party.  Their debut, 2004's Hot Fuss, was the soundtrack to quite a bit of those years when I lived in Waco, and the rest of the world loved it as well, making it a multi-platinum smash worldwide.  The Wikipedia page on the album describes all of the accolades it has received since - top ten greatest debut albums of all time, top 100 albums of the 2000's, 500 greatest albums of all time, etc.  So, all that to say that this band is massively popular.  However, in the music world, its all about what have you done for me lately.  Hot Fuss was in 2004, then Sam's Town was 2006 (which was very popular, but not as hot as the debut).  After that, you had Day and Age (2008) and Battle Born (2012), and neither of those two albums caught on with the public in any significant way.  They've kept at it, with 2017's Wonderful Wonderful, 2020's Imploding the Mirage, and 2021's Pressure Machine.  But nothing since.  I guess my hope is that we hear the hits, and if that is the case, then this is going to be a great show.  Let's run through those hits.

From Hot Fuss, you've got four huge hits (and the rest of the album is damn good as well) led by "Mr. Brightside" at 2.7 Billion streams, then "Somebody Told Me" at 1.0 Billion, "All These Things That I've Done" at 425.7 million, and "Smile Like You Mean It" at 220.9 million.  It's amazing to see those hits remain insanely popular - you still hear kids yelling along to Brightside at football games and whatnot to this day.  I'll give you two of those. First, the disco-fied dance rock of "Somebody Told Me."

So, this one starts with a pretty straight-forward rock groove, but then when the chorus hits is when you realize that this isn't just another mid-oughts rock band.  It's the hooo-hooooh's and the disco drums, and synth scrim at the end. I don't think anyone was doing that sort of thing at this time (although a bunch of bands were doing it as soon as they heard this track).
And then "All These Things That I've Done," which is a different tone, but has the great chanting bit in the middle that will probably fun to yell along to in the park in October.  Really, the entirety of this song, even before the Soul/Soldier bit, it very singable.  This would be a good karaoke song, now that I think of it.

You gotta watch out for those KillerSluts with their boomerangs, man.  They will take you down. And I always love anything filmed in the neon graveyard of Vegas.  I know I said I'd give you two, but it just feels wrong to move along without including Brightside.

 

Straight-up an amazing song.  Apparently about Brandon Flowers true-life experience of finding that his girlfriend was cheating on him at a pub in Las Vegas.  He was still a teenager when he wrote the lyrics, raw from finding out that his lady friend was nasty.

Sam's Town kicked out two big singles - "When You Were Young" at 765.7 million and "Read My Mind" at 306.6 million.  I'll give you the first one.

The Killers do pretty solid video work.  And that song is a good one - more like a massive U2/Springsteen arena-rock jam than the stuff from Hot Fuss.  Definitely lower streams for this album, and just in general it was not as popular.

Day & Age just had the supremely weird "Human" as its big single.  650.2 million streams:

I say supremely weird because of the chorus - "are we human, or are we dancer?"  WTF does that mean?  "my sign is vital, my hands are cold."  Uh, what?  But if you just go with it, you get a snappy rock song that is pretty fun.  But I still want to know, why can't I be both? Why?  I AM A HUMAN DANCER, DAMMIT!  The album also had a relatively big hit with "Spaceman" at 148.7 million streams.  

2012's Battle Born feels like when the shine of Hot Fuss had worn off and now people were kind of like, "eh, not sure if I care that they were great last decade?"  No songs from this album make the top ten most popular tracks on Spotify for the band, and the top track has 116.8 million streams.  Here that one is, "Runaways."

I seriously don't remember ever having heard that song.  Brandon Flowers makes it pretty obvious that its a Killers track, but literally that doesn't ring any bells at all.  Sounds like a good 80's rock jam, "Heat of the Moment" mixed with Bryan Adams with a sprinkling of Journey - or something like that.  I'd say the album isn't bad (I just ran through it a few times) but it just sounds like they are still trying to recapture the excitement of ten years ago when the world has moved on to new sounds.  Except for "From Here on Out," which sounds like some weird Oak Ridge Boys/Eagles attempted countrification of their sound.  Not OK.

But let's think about the music world in these two different decades.  In 2004, the Billboard top song was Usher/Lil' Jon's "Yeah!" and the top rock-ish songs were Hoobastank's "The Reason" and 3 Doors Down's "Here Without You."  [as an aside, interesting how rap heavy 2004 was, I didn't recall that]  Those rock songs are extremely earnest, sappy ass rockers about love, using violins but mainly being driven by modern rock-style drums, guitar, and bass.  And then The Killers came along with the synth-y blast of "Mr. Brightside" and made a real shift in the next few years of alternative rock music. But when Battle Born came out in 2012, you've got "Somebody I Used to Know" by Gotye as the top track and a bunch of electronic-heavy songs up top in the Billboard charts, with the top "rock" tracks honestly non-existent. You could try to count things like Fun's "We Are Young" or The Wanted's "Glad You Came," or One Direction's "What Makes You Beautiful," but I wouldn't count any of that as rock.  Maybe 60-something songs down the list when you get to The Lumineers' "Ho Hey," but certainly no songs that I would consider to be the classic style of rock.  So now these guys were trying to do the same old thing in 2012 that was successful in 2004, and it obviously is just missing the mark for most people.

But that did not stop our heroes from keeping at it.  2017's Wonderful Wonderful is funny, in that beyond the top single, it is very good.  But my God that lead single is awful.  Back when I published my 2017 review, my friend and frequent reader Joseph alerted me to the fact that "The Man" had been released.  But when Joseph told me to go hear it, he was not complimentary, saying the following two nuggets of commentary: (1) "Remember Hot Fuss? Remember how Sam’s Town wasn’t as good but was still interesting?  Now go listen to their new single…it is GARBAGE.  I hate it with the power of my entire soul" and (2) "It's three+ minutes of the worst."

And yet over 200 million streams.  The world is just dumb, I guess.  Or, these guys still command an audience. So, here are my thoughts.  The tune starts out pretty promisingly, funky beat and sweet sound.  I am fully ready to like it.  AND THEN THE LYRICS START AND JOSEPH WAS RIGHT AND HOLY SHIT THAT IS AWFUL, SO AWFUL.  A sampling:

• The Chorus: "I got gas in the tank, I got money in the bank, I got news for you baby, you're looking at the man, I got skin in the game, I got a household name, I got news for you baby, you're looking at the man."
• It's like all of the worst things about current music and rap distilled into that one chorus. I don't know if he is trying to be ironic or be funny, if he is, it misses the mark entirely.
• Verse Two: "When it comes to Friday, I always earn, Don't try to teach me, I got nothing to learn, 'Cause baby I'm gifted, You see what I mean?, USDA certified lean"
• Oh, God, if I have to hear a big group of 20 year olds sing the words "USDA certified lean" at this show, I'm going to have to gouge my eardrums out.
• The Breakdown: "Who's the man? Who's the man? I'm the man, I'm the man Who's the man with the plan? I'm the man."
• Oh, and after this, there are samples of a cork popping and a cash register cha-chinging.

UGH.  BUT, what I find is that the music on the disc is surprisingly good.  There are some other tracks on here where the lyrics are likewise pretty terrible ("Tyson v. Douglas" being the glaring example), but the music itself is mostly really fun, driving rock and roll soaked in 80's synths.  Very fun.  "The Man" has a great tune to it (you just have to ignore those lyrics).  "Run for Cover" should be used on road trip mix tapes.  Love the sound of the opener, "Wonderful Wonderful," with this slinky, ominous bass line that sounds like something from Joshua Tree era U2.  But on the other end of the album, "Money on Straight" leaves both the good music and the good lyrics idea in the dirt, for a real bummer of an album closer.  The album feels short, at only 43 minutes, it goes away quickly.  The top track (when ignoring The Man) is "Run for Cover," so here you go.  142.2 million streams.

I mean, WTF is up with those lyrics?

What have you gathered to report to your progenitors?
Are your excuses any better than your senator's?
He held a conference and his wife was standing by his side
He did her dirty but no-one died
I saw Sonny Liston on the street last night
Black-fisted and strong singing Redemption Song
He motioned me to the sky
I heard heaven and thunder cry

What are we even talking about there?  Trying really hard to be deep or something, but I don't see that anything in there is actually deep.  Weird.  The rest of the song doesn't do much better, just like random phrases patched together by Google translate or something.  I think, while I enjoy the tunes as background fodder, each time I really listen to them I'm left confused or wanting.

2020's Imploding the Mirage never got a lot of streaming love - no song cracks 50 million streams.  But, like a moth to the flame, I still go back each time they fire up a new album.  This one has some good stuff on it - I wouldn't say the whole thing is great - but several tracks get me moving and jamming out.  Some of them strain too hard to be arena rockers, but it also has enough Springsteen fan-boy sound to make me happy anyway.  "Dying Breed" absolutely sounds to me like something The Boss would have created and performed many years ago - driving beat, huge chorus, lyrics about a girl in love, and that one riff that very much sounds like a "Born to Run" bit.  "Caution" was the lead single I've been listening to for months, and it's also got a good, driving beat that lends itself to some Molly Ringwald dancing.  Cheesy lyrics, but still, exceedingly danceable.  "Lightning Fields" also sounds highly cheesy - don't love that one. "My Soul's Own Warning" sounds like a Strand of Oaks song.  "Fire in Bone" was another early single, but I don't much care for that one.  "Caution" has the most streams, at 49.8 million.

All the synths.  All the weird little noises that kind of remind me of a seagull.  All the nostalgia.  But also a very triumphantly joyful song that matches its lyrics very well.  Enjoyable album - nothing particularly special.

Finally, you get 2021's Pressure Machine.  I don't think I have ever seen this before, but they also released a version called Pressure Machine (Abridged), where it still has 11 songs, but each track is shorter?  Like, they finalized the disc and the producer was like, "yeah, man, no one is going to want to hear all five minutes of "The Getting By," so let's release a three minute version to catch the ADHD kids."  Odd.  Anyway, very cool album, not only in that the music and lyrics are good, but also because it tracks a story/feel in here, tied together with some spoken word interview bits, of a small town struggling to get its head around modern life.  "Quiet Town" is the hit and several other songs sound deceptively upbeat, but the rest hits like when Bruce Springsteen dialed back the arena rock power for the dusty melancholy of Nebraska.  The same goes here, with them turning off the disco drum machine for an album about junkies and dusty roads and dead kids and a train that sounds like a real jerk.  "Quiet Town" is a good song.  Most streams at 10.9 million (which is actually surprisingly low).

The track does a good job of juxtaposing an upbeat chorus about how nice the town is (they don't have to deadbolt their doors!  they believe in Jesus!) with some painful realities in the verses (some kids got killed by the train!  Everyone is dying of opioids!).  Some of these songs are just low-key acoustic guitar numbers without much to them.  "Runaway Horses" has a high stream count for where it is on the album, likely because it features Phoebe Bridgers, and it is a good quiet tune.  But others still bop like you would expect from the killers, like "In The Car Outside" or "Sleepwalker."  I like the disc.

I also liked their set in 2017.  I went back and found my review of it: 

Overall, I'd say that they put on a really good show.  From yet another solid Petty tribute, to some of their best hits, they sound really solid.  The start was very promising, from "American Girl" right into "Mr. Brightside," but then they went right into "Spaceman," a mediocre song from 2008's Day and Age.  Ended up that we got about 4 or 5 songs from Hot Fuss, and a few from Sam's Town, but almost equal representation from the new albums (and other covers).  Here is my thing - the band sounded excellent, and Flowers voice is still wonderful, but I just felt like the crowd just lost all interest in tracks like "Bling" or "Runaways" or "Spaceman."  Although, I'm sure there were people in the crowd who couldn't wait for some tracks from Battle Born, so I'm sure they can't please everyone.  But in my opinion, you play the best songs from the two albums that are universally lauded as being amazing, then a few Petty covers, and a few tracks from your new album, and then you bail.  Anyway, I'm glad I got to see them and croak along to "Mr. Brightside" and "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine."

I am definitely down to see them again.  Excited to have a real reason to stay for Sunday night!