Las Vegas born indie superstars The Killers have found themselves in the middle of a handful of the biggest gigs in the UK’s calendar. Their last performance on UK soil was headlining the one and only Glastonbury Festival back in 2019, and next Tuesday they’re set to embark on a 12-date stadium tour taking them from Doncaster’s Keepmoat Stadium to Dublin’s Malahide Castle. Pretty big stuff. So, what to do with the few weeks off in between the US dates and the UK ones… how about a tiny show (about 2,150 capacity) at an O2 Academy? In Sheffield of all places. See below fan footage of the show’s opener, ‘My Own Soul’s Warning’ from 2020’s Imploding The Mirage.
“It’s been a couple of hard years – how’re holding up? Alright?” calls out frontman Brandon Flowers after a trio of fan favourites ’When You Were Young’, ‘Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine’ and ‘Smile Like You Mean It’, “Thank you very much. There’s been a lot of separation, there’s been a lot of uncertainty. But there’s one thing I’m certain of… we are together tonight, so let’s do something about it.”. A slight surprise in the set came from the early appearance of their seminal single ‘Mr Brightside’ which surprisingly came in the first half of the first set. Flowers also went on to comment on the recent warmup shows in Vegas, “We did some warm-up shows in Vegas. It was good but tonight feels a little bit better. Thanks for coming.” Before ultimately concluding that Sheffield is, in fact, “our spiritual home”.
“Oh, man – it’s such a strange thing that it’s been three years,” he said. “This feels so familiar but when you look at the days… it’s been a thousand days. It’s wild.” muses Flower’s midway through the set, “I hope you can tell that we’re genuine though when we talk about our love for this place. Man… I mean, you changed our lives! And we do love coming here – this is our spiritual home. You took these sentimental Americans in, and we won’t forget it.”
If you weren’t fortunate enough to bag tickets to this particularly intimate set, then you can try and snap up what few tickets may remain to their stadium tour here. Beginning at the end of the month, the tour will see support from Blossoms, Manic Street Preachers, Supergrass, and Sam Fender – depending on which night of course. You can see the full list of dates below.
24/5 – Doncaster – Keepmoat Stadium
26/5 – Bristol – Ashton Gate
28/5 – Coventry – Ricoh Arena
30/5 – Southampton – St Mary’s
1/5 – Middlesbrough – Riverside Stadium
3/5 – London – Emirates Stadium
4/5 – London – Emirates Stadium
7/5 – Falkirk – The Falkirk Stadium
9/5 – Norwich – Carrow Road
11/5 – Manchester – Emirates Old Trafford
14/5 – Dublin – Malahide Castle
15/5 – Dublin – Malahide Castle
