The Killers review: Wild Flowers powers his way through a killer performance

As musical scenarios go, hearing one of the world’s biggest bands in one of London’s best venues is pretty much as good as it gets. So The Killers at Brixton Academy was always going to be special.

With a fifth album, Wonderful Wonderful, out later this month and a UK arena tour booked in November, they came to this 5,000-capacity venue to provide a sneak peak of their future and a reminder of their past.

With guitarist Dave Keuning taking a break from live performance, one might have expected the Las Vegas band to sound at half-strength. Far from it. Recent single The Man was funkier than George Clinton’s old trainers, while the Springsteen-indebted Run For Cover sounded like a future favourite.

The biggest reactions were saved for tracks from the band’s 2004 debut, Hot Fuss. During Somebody Told Me, you feared for the Academy’s foundations.

At the heart of it all was Brandon Flowers. Rock music’s own Tom Cruise, Flowers is a good-looking, clean-living superstar, with a little weirdness around the edges. In a tasselled suit that gave him the air of a musical matador, he led the crowd in sing-alongs to Smile Like You Mean It and Spaceman.

During Human, the question as to whether we are, in fact, human or dancer remained tantalisingly unanswered. It was proof, however, that nothing unites the crowd like a nonsense lyric — and The Killers write some of the best in the business. “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier,” bellowed Brixton as All These Things That I’ve Done built to its confetti-filled conclusion.

There was only one song that could crank up the excitement further. As Mr Brightside’s lyrics of post-break-up paranoia filled the Academy, two things became abundantly clear: it’s one of the 21st century’s truly great songs, and The Killers are one of 21st century’s truly great bands.