Brandon Flowers
O2 Academy, Liverpool
14/10/2010

If The Killers are The Eagles played safe, Brandon Flowers’ solo material is a pale imitation of Tom Waits, lacking any of the gruff-voiced-one’s vital charisma. It seems a little odd to compare Flowers and Waits together (Waits doesn’t exactly write the FM-friendly choruses of ‘Crossfire’), but Flowers’ debut solo album is peppered with arduous poker analogies, bourbon and heartbreak; themes that Waits uses to great effect. But tonight, all the most hackneyed descriptions of Vegas casinos, open roads and being born again are brought to the stage with only the vaguest hint of showmanship; all Flowers can manage is some half-hearted jumping at the front of the stage during the “ah-ahs” of ‘Only The Young’.

It’s no secret that Flowers’ ego is bigger than his choruses, so it comes as little surprise that The Fly’s photographer is hounded by his management for taking pictures at the front of the room when he has already been granted access tonight, although he was one of only two photographers allowed on the whole tour. It may sound frivolous to be bothered by this, but in the age where camera-phones may well be the next stage in human evolution, the prolonged flashing from the crowd makes the management request quite laughable.

Flowers does show moments of brilliance that appease his ego, though, like the cover of Kim Carnes’ ‘Bette Davies Eyes’, an admittedly quite good version of The Beatles’ ‘Helter Skelter’ and a touching final song, a stripped down version of ‘When You Were Young’. All things said, it’s a great testament to the popularity of The Killers’ albums that people tolerate Flowers’ pomposity, no matter how dull the past hour has been.

Mike Doherty