As Brandon Flowers and his band took the stage at Emirates Palace last night, while many of us were still queuing at the bar, it seemed like the three-hour schlep at least half of the crowd had made from Dubai might not have been entirely worth it.
His voice was shaky, he hardly acknowledged his screaming fans, and the less optimistic among us were recounting tales of ‘Killers gigs of old – back in the days when men were men and crowd interaction was half the fun.
Luckily for us, things picked up. Granted, hearing the classic ‘Human’ two songs in, while negotiating with an unfailingly polite, but fist clenchingly slow barman was not ideal, but once the crowds parted to reveal Brandon’s black-clad form, posturing like his life depended on it, all seemed well with the world.
Indie anthem ‘All These Things That I Have Done’ was the classic of the night, closely followed by ‘Mr Brightside’ and ‘Jenny Was a Friend of Mine’, not to mention Mr Flowers’ impromptu acoustic asides.
Downsides included the predictably long queues to get in and out of the venue and the comedy bar set-up (no, we don’t need to see your Tom Cruise moves, we just want a drink before the encore).
Luckily, gems like the lone security gentleman employed to wheedle out possible underage drinkers in the queue, using only his trained eye rather than the more traditional checking for identification method, more than made up for it. We’re ashamed to say we hung around a little too long, hoping to be asked our age. No such luck.
All in all, The Killers rocked, but was it worth the six-hour round-trip for an hour and a half of one of the world’s best live bands? Damn right it was.
