It’s weird finding yourself describing the iconic, vaunted, and oh-so prestigious Royal Albert Hall as intimate, but that’s what it felt like as the crowd began to take their seats for the London leg of the Brandon Flowers Thrasher tour. Having last played London as a solo act back in 2015, with two nights at O2 Academy Brixton, plus an extra bonus night at O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, The Killers’ frontman usually spends his London events over in Greenwich at The O2, playing to 20,000 people. Royal Albert Hall’s six-thousand-at-a-push, then, was an opportunity to get up close and personal with ‘The Man‘ and experience some of his incredible, oft-overlooked solo discography… with a few The Killers classics thrown in for good measure.
So, with light stands looking like plastic palm trees and curtains masquerading as sandy beaches, Fabulous Las Vegas had come to London and the crowd couldn’t be happier.
As a quick aside, no support meant that there was nothing to do but stew in excitement and admire the surroundings. From the stalls, gigs at the Royal Albert Hall always feel a little gladiatorial, imperious onlookers watching and judging from on high, but if a show is what they wanted, a show is what they’d get.
Anyway, enough riffing, onto the main event.
Striding triumphantly on stage, accompanied by a nine-person band that ran the gamut from harmonica, steel guitar and synthesiser to the backing vocals of Erica Canales and Nicky Egan, it was clear that the ‘solo’ in solo tour was a bit of a misnomer. Instead, the night was a celebration of Brandon Flowers’ story so far. Heavily Thrasher-weighted, it is his new album after all, but the weaving of songs from Flamingo, The Desired Effect and the aforementioned handpicked The Killers tunes helped to tell a story that felt long in the making. Opening with the mariachi-inflected The Red Ground, the band sounded glorious as their brass-tinged wall of sound reverberated around the hallowed hall and gave a gloriously summery introduction to the dark October evening. As a first taste of the more country-infused third album, it couldn’t have served as a better wake-up call. They were here to have fun, all foot-stomping Americana and beaming optimism. Aged eight, Flowers’ parents moved the family out of ‘fabulous Las Vegas’ and into Utah, a world of ‘big trucks and rodeos’. He spent years ’embarrassed’ by that music; “but tonight I’m going to play it for you!“
It’s hard not to join in on the country-tinged celebration. The rampant joy on display in Does It Ever Cross Your Mind? follows in its album-mate’s footsteps, and even Crossfire, likely the gateway to Brandon’s solo discography for most of the audience there, gets even more country-tinged to fit neatly into the evening’s broader themes of compassion and redemption. “Better to be bullied a little than be the bully,” Flowers tells the audience before the sanguine-drenched lights of Tiger’s Blood, and that idea of being yourself rang true all night long.
Speaking of being yourself, it was the first of many story times!
“When I was a kid,” he started, as he regaled a venue that hadn’t played host to him since The Killers played there back in 2009, “my mother got into it with my dentist, so my dad started taking me. And now he’s 82, and I take him to the dentist. Last time, I got to play him Thrasher on the way, and he had one word – ‘finally’.” There seemed a hint of chagrin there, a bit of self-recrimination at taking so long, but better late than never!
Plans gave way to Paradise, a celebratory, slightly tongue-in-cheek clapper that gets the entire venue dancing, even if, for some, that means enthusiastically bouncing in their seats, and then came Still Want You, the first dip into sophomore outing The Desired Effect. Even with a slight Americana makeover, its disco pulse still shines through, and suddenly everyone was standing.
Here, though, came one of the evening’s emotional veins. “There are two roads inside us,” Flowers declared. “One’s the road to ruin… and one’s the road back.”
Angel, the first road, felt particularly soaked in pathos as it washed through the room. There’s a lot of discourse online over the lyrics and how appropriate they are, but the slow, despondent track was incredible in light of the unrelenting happiness preceding it; the flip-side, Magdalena, felt particularly elated in comparison, upbeat and almost euphoric in its hope. It’s hard to know how much the call-and-response was considered in writing the former, but it’s undeniable how full circle the pairing felt as the songs from different stages of his career began to speak to one another.
A slowed-down Miss America buys into that same emotional weight as Flowers shared the story of his older sister Shelly and the abusive relationship she remained in for far too long. Stripped back almost entirely to a lonely guitar, at least for the most part, the harmonies of Flowers and his backing singers felt devastatingly intimate.
The mood shifts again as drums kick in for The Killers’ In the Car Outside. Given the band’s usual status as purveyors of enormous communal singalongs, the relatively muted response is a little surprising. Obviously, 2021’s Pressure Machine doesn’t get as much love as Hot Fuss! Hard Enough follows, the harmonies of what felt like the entire stage heartbreakingly beautiful, before Flowers sets up what appears to be a choice between two covers: Randy Travis‘ Forever and Ever, Amen or The Jim Carroll Band’s People Who Died. The responses were… minimal. Flowers seemed to expect that, though. “Oh, I know!” he declared, a shit-eating grin on his face as the band launched into When You Were Young.
The crowd was universally on its feet just from the first sudden note alone. If anything, it was impressive just how quickly everyone clocked it, and the smiles on display from stage to rafters were a sight to see.
A handful more The Desired Effect tracks follow, including Can’t Deny My Love, which somehow, even in such a strong set, lands with the kind of impact most bands would dream of. But suddenly, it was almost the end of the night.
“So earlier I told you what the plan was. Work in a casino, someplace nice, raise a family. Like my dad did, like my cousins still do. Now I don’t say this lightly, and I don’t mean it to sound like a boast, but when I look at what’s happened to me in my life, I can only see it as a miracle. I got out of the city of paradise, and I found my own little slice of it with my family, and in rooms like this, stages like this, on nights like this with people like you. That’s my story, and if there’s something to learn from it, I think it’s this: do what you can with what you’ve got, where you are, and you never know where you might end up.”
Cue Only the Young, the candid outpouring offering an almost halcyonic dimension to the already introspective track.
Skipping the obvious artistic peekaboo, four tracks remained: first up, In Another Life, the crowd jumped to their feet once again for the first of two final favourites from The Killers. But the reaction was nothing on the following Read My Mind, which felt like a perfect final interjection from the broader Las Vegas band. Between Me and You felt a little underwhelming in comparison. Nothing against the track; it just felt a little unnecessary. The closer, An American Dream, though, was perfect. Beginning with a surprisingly slow, beautiful introduction, it felt right as a final goodbye. And, as the song gradually built towards an anthemic crescendo, the band introduced along the way, it felt oddly cathartic, even carrying on long after Flowers had left the stage, the band and the venue both having another few celebratory choruses in them.
At times, it’s hard to know what to think about Brandon Flowers and his solo work. Each album feels like a departure from the one before it. Taken in a vacuum, they feel a little disjointed. But the Thrasher tour? You really couldn’t ask for more.
Well, other than Playing With Fire. I know it doesn’t really fit into the set, but if you’re reading this, Mr Flowers, please bring it back!
Photograghy: Rob Loud
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