Top 10 Concerts of 2018 - #1
The Killers – Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center, Noblesville, IN, June 8th 2018
After a few weeks we have made it to my #1 show of 2018, and it comes from a band out of Las Vegas, The Killers. I had been wanting to see the Killers for a while and they finally came to Indy on this last tour. The Killers consist of front man Brandon Flowers, guitarist Dave Keuning, bassist, Mark Stoermer, and drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr. If you want to see an extremely entertaining alt-rock band, these guys are the group for you.
First up, let’s talk about Brandon Flowers. Dude is an insanely good lead singer in terms of involving the crowd. He works the stage the whole show, makes eye contact with lots of people in the audience, and most importantly you can tell he’s passionate about the songs he’s singing, and he knows you are passionate about those songs he’s singing too. He might be singing “Mr. Brightside” for the 10,000th time, but damn he makes it feel like it just came out a month ago.
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The other band members do a great job of accenting Flowers in their roles too. Playing some different arrangements specifically made for live performance and with various solos throughout the show, The Killers make sure to let you know this is a four-person group, even if Flowers is front and center.
The Killers have a decent number of slower ballads, and I was interested to see how they would work these into their set. You put too many together in a row and the show loses all it’s momentum, but they did a great job of structuring them throughout their roughly 2-hour set.
Speaking of momentum, about 30 minutes into their set, this show suffered a momentum killer in the form of an Indiana summer pop up severe thunderstorm. Everyone was asked to evacuate, and the show was delayed for about 45 minutes. Always approaching things from a critical eye, I was interested to see how the Killers would start the show back up when it was time. In the middle of their song “For Reasons Unknown” when the delay hit, they came back up (Flowers took the opportunity for a quick outfit change) said “where were we?” and starting in THE EXACT SPOT they left off. No lengthy talk about thanks for sticking it out during the rain, no restarting the song or moving to the next, they basically just acknowledged the rain delay didn’t even happen. Other bands take note, this is a perfect way to handle this.
Running through all their hits, some new material and a Tom Petty and John Mellencamp cover, the Killers crushed it. I loved every minute of this show. Not once was a bored at a song or by Flowers talking too much. I love their music anyway, but live, they push the songs to a new level. See The Killers if you can, you will not be disappointed.
If you read all 10 of the Top 10 Shows of 2018, thank you! I love concerts and being able to share with you which ones were my favs of the year was a great experience. I can’t wait to check out more live acts in 2019!
