Tepid fuss: The Killers in concert

The Killers were impressive. In that they left an impression. I hope it was the one they intended.

Failed vision and children
My vision was skewed, as it happens. The hipsters stayed home, quietly hating themselves. The top 40 set came, but not the right ones. This concert belonged to the kids, aged 8 to 15. Throngs of them. Entire classrooms/daycare centers paired off and followed dutifully behind wild-eyed adults. The grownups looked tired and thankful for the buddy system.

Before the show started I had to spend ten minutes or so defending my Bright Eyes review, again. I'm getting good at it. Compromise is the key. That was up in the all ages section with its free ice water and soft drinks. The bartenders looked like they wanted to isolate a few of the preteens and shake them down for their milk money to make up for the lost tips.

Chris DeCleur, Publisher of the Sandpoint Reader; Josh Hedlund, singer-songwriter, and I went downstairs for adult drinks and a better view. That's when the party started. We'd been trying to talk to the eight year olds, but they really couldn't keep up intellectually. Chris was discussing the vagaries of the newspaper trade while I quietly scolded a girl in pig tails for not knowing the square root of 81. Josh interrupted a game of Yu Gi Oh to ask a diminutive Asian child if he'd ever known real heartache. He hadn't.

The grownup floor was more our speed. The opening band began their set just after we got our drinks. Tegan and Sara. Their sound was compelling and their lyricism earnest, and it was fun to watch the two girls bob around onstage, trade guitars and lead vocal duties, then try and guess which is Tegan and which is Sara. They never tell. They introduced their band, told us where they were from [drummer from Castlegar, parents in the audience], but left their own identities uncertain.

Chris figured the girl on the right was Tegan because she seemed more comfortable onstage, and that would naturally lead to her getting first billing. I thought it was the girl on the left, because she had hipper bangs. Later, as we left, Tegan and Sara were working their t-shirt booth. Chris and I almost went up and asked them, but the line was long and some questions are best left unanswered.

As we played this game, a woman mistook our glee for mockery.

Woman of indeterminate age: You don't like them?
Chris: No, I do.
Me: Yeah, I like them.
WoIA: [faintly slurring] They remind me of a band I listened to when I was younger.
C: Pat Benatar?

Good thing she'd had a few grownup drinks.

Halfway through their set, Teigen and Sara slowed it down a little bit, playing back to back songs which would have, in a simpler time, been called ballads.

The youth of Spokane began to pogo. Then mosh. Then crowd surf.

"That's never happened before," said either Tegan or Sara.

Tegan's [or Sara's] voice has a pretty unique affectation. Like Eartha Kitt and Minnie Mouse. Maybe a little Billy Joel at times. Coquettish and soulful, but with pomp and an odd upturn. Chris said it sounded like the Cure, but not British, or male.

I'll leave it to the reader to choose the more evocative.

Tore Up
Between sets Chris and I marveled some more at the preteens. Josh returned to dwell among them. Someone poked the guy next to me, who had mockingly head-banged his way through the Tegan and Sara set. They knew each other, kind of. Well enough to know they drank at the same bar in Pullman, but not well enough to know each other's major. Filled with energy [verve?], his was broadcast journalism. His hair was a post-modern take on David Schwimmer's. Moments later another person walked up. If the first guy was an anchor, this had to be his producer.

Anchorman: What's up you slut. I'm trashed!
The Producer: This band, playing--on CD--these guys are called British Sea Power.
A: God I'm f__ked up--f__ked the f__k up!
P: They're great aren't they? They're in the studio--
A: Aaaaooooo
P: --it's just, no one plays them because no one knows them.
A: Tight.
P: Yeah, tight, I love--
A: Tight, I'm hammered! Aaaaooooo!
P: Anyway, if you like them they're called British Sea Power.

Anchorman was a ball of energy, The Killers' entire set was a never ending succession of fist pumps, devil horns and vehemence. He used his entire body. My position behind him was such that he'd tag my junk on the backswing and clip my face on the follow through. To my companions, from the balcony, it might have looked like I was dancing. I was avoiding the devil horns. Anchorman responded to every statement by adding a degree of intensity to whatever adjective had just been used.

P: That's such a good song.
A: GREAT!

P: These guys are great.
A: AWESOME!

P: I'm pretty buzzed.
A: TORE THE F__K UP! Aaaaooooo!

Everytime he howled, he looked back at me to see if I was feeling him.

The rest of the crowd joined Anchorman and the Woman of Indeterminate Age in rapturous ecstasy throughout The Killers set. The object of their considerable affection, though, was unequal to it.

Skin, bone, guts, hearts
There is little doubt that The Killers are a technically accomplished band, but there are lots of tight ensembles that are never able to transcend being accomplished musicians to become something approaching artists. The encore was a microcosm of their set--of their entire sound. The first song, unreleased in the US, was "Glamorous Indie Rock and Roll", wherein Flowers mocks the sincerity of acts like Pedro the Lion and Postal Service [and Tegan and Sara for that matter] as childish. Rather than distance themselves from love songs, though, The Killers choose to revel in the sentimentality they mock, hemorrhaging sarcasm and disingenuousness with every song.

Flowers has figured out quite a few charades-like movements to mirror his lyrics. This is designed to make him seem cute and knowing. Josh said he was prancing around like Mick Jagger's understudy, stalking around and gesticulating. He seemed more practiced to me, like Billy Joe Armstrong lampooning Dean Martin. A snide post-punk crooner. Two video screens on each side added to this effect, framing the plaid-sport-coated Flowers in washed out monochrome, a la Ed Sullivan.

Despite understanding the irony that most indie bands all sound the same, every Killers song is just that, a generic mix of arena-ized Britpop and new wave synth [Meaning Brandon Flowers occasionally plays a keyboard].

Put differently: The Killers drink from the pot they piss in.

The final song was worse, because it began with a hint of saccharine honesty, "This song is about skin. This song is about bone. This song is about guts. This song is about heart."

It seemed like too much to ask that they'd add a dash of sincerity to the end of their set. Perhaps hoping to walk away with a good impression, I kinda ignored the lyrics until the coda, "I got soul, but I'm not a soldier." Maddening.

The crowd surfing continued as people pulled out their lighters and struck them. Many of the field trip chaperones had brought enough for their kids. As Flowers sang, "I got soul, but I'm not a soulja," drowning us in irony, everyone was enraptured, thankful for this postmodern deluge--this fake-schmaltz baptism--perhaps failing to realize that The Killers openly mock exactly the devotion they elicit.

I think we deserved better.