Afternoon Baseball

Last night, I was in St. Paul mainly to see the Killers. They aren't my favorite band -- although their four or five good songs are really good -- but it was a fairly cheap concert and I figured, it'll be fun.
Now, they had canceled twice before, but actually made it this time. Only thing was, they made us wait about 55 minutes after the opening act finished, and only played for about 65 minutes.

Louis XIV completely stole the show, and all the Killers did was blind a few people to that fact with their noise, light show and extremely metrosexual (and sweating like Patrick Ewing) lead singer.
Louis XIV outglam the Killers...


I had not really taken a listen to Louis XIV before, but having done so today, I can attest that the live show is 10 times better than the album tracks. Each member is better at his instrument, the vocals are better, the songs are a lot longer with lots of great instrumentation and soloing, and the live show doesn't sound crappy (or indie?) like the record. Instead, it sounds like a jauntier, dirtier AC/DC. It's appropriate that they were playing "It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll" right before taking the stage.
"The Grand Apartment" was the tour de force for Louis XIV, although a handful of other tracks were right up there. Didn't completely mesh with the crowd, but screw them.

Look, I'm not knocking the Killers. They were very solid with lots of energy, and if that's all you judge in a concert, then they rocked. Brandon Flowers' voice held up very well, too, which is a testament to his skills as well as the choice not to overproduce him on the album. But when you stack them up to their opening act's performance, it was like listening to the album, but just really, really loud.

But hey, at least they didn't cancel this time.