where the mice call shots in the corner

Brandon Flowers @ The Troubadour

I know I'm in the middle of a 3-part series on my vacation, so pardon the interruption, but I felt like I should give a quick review of my evening with Brandon Flowers at the Troubadour. I'm terrible at writing reviews of anything, but here are just some quick thoughts for the unfortunate people who couldn't get into the show and would like to know more about it.

I'm not a big fan of singers leaving their bands to go solo, but when I first heard about Brandon Flowers' new album Flamingo, I was immediately on board. I like him as a person and he writes a lot of the Killers' songs, so that's enough for me. Then, when I heard the instrumental version of "Only the Young" on his website, and the first single "Crossfire", I started getting more excited. Needless to say, I put my speedy password-typing fingers to work to get tickets for his sold-out, 500-person capacity show at the Troubadour.

Scott and I got in line on the sunny side of the building about 3.5 hours before the doors opened to try to get close to the front, then waited inside for another hour or so. There was no opening band to keep us entertained, but a comedian came out and did his best for an unwelcoming crowd. Overall, Brandon's show was really good. He was his usual shy-but-charming self and put plenty of energy into the songs. We got to hear 8 songs off the new album, plus an epic reworking of "Losing Touch", and a very suiting cover of "Bette Davis Eyes."

Most of the new songs sounded pretty strong. I had already heard "Crossfire" and "On the Floor", so those sounded especially good, but "Jilted Lovers and Broken Hearts", "Was It Something I Said", and "Magdalena" all got stuck in my head pretty quickly. Even "Swallow It" has grown on me (especially since the iTunes release this week) and I'm looking forward to hearing Jenny Lewis on "Hard Enough."

If I had the choice to do things over, I would definitely go to the show again, but I couldn't help but feel disappointed when I left that night. Brandon's been in a major band for most of the last decade and played shows all over the world, yet he still cut the show short at 45 minutes and didn't do an encore. I can understand the idea of a warm-up tour where you go out and play a few songs and give people a brief preview of the album, but this was a little insulting. He's got 3.5 albums worth of Killers material he could pull from and he claims to love playing covers. Even an encore of one of each would have pacified the audience and sent me home happy, but instead we all stood there clapping and calling him down from the glass room above for about 20 minutes, until one by one, audience members began hanging their heads and sulking away. Scott and I hung out a while longer, even after the drumkit had been torn down, in hopes that he might come out and play an acoustic song. And to make things worse, Brandon ended on "Playing with Fire," the slowest and arguably the weakest song of the night, and left without playing "Only the Young," the song that built up everyone's interest in this album from the beginning.

I guess they say a good entertainer should leave the audience wanting more, and maybe that was Brandon's plan all along. Despite my disappointment that night, I still went home and pre-ordered the most expensive Deluxe Version of the album, complete with signed Las Vegas lithograph. And even though I claimed that I didn't really want to see him again after that miniature show, I'll most likely be fighting for tickets next time he comes around Los Angeles.