Brandon Flowers, w/ Rey Pila at First Avenue, Minneapolis (10 September 2015)

Brandon Flowers Setlist

Come Out With Me Dreams Come True Can’t Deny My Love Crossfire Magdalena Jilted Lovers & Broken Hearts Jenny Was a Friend of Mine (The Killers song) Lonely Town Diggin’ Up the Heart Read My Mind (The Killers song) Simply Irresistible (Robert Palmer cover) The Way It’s Always Been Human (The Killers song) Mr. Brightside (The Killers song) — Encore — Between Me and You Still Want You Only the Young

Rey Pila Setlist

Intro: Chicago’s “Hard To Say I’m Sorry” Fire Away Alexander Surveillance Camera What A Nice Surprise Order Police The Lost Art of Crashing Cars No Longer Fun

 

The Killers’ singer/songwriter Brandon Flowers recently stopped by First Avenue’s mainroom, last night, September 10th, in support of his second solo album The Desired Effect, playing to a nearly sold out crowd.

Sometime singers release solo albums because of ego or control … but based on hearing Flowers’ brand of music (accompanied by a full backing back, a horns section, and two dedicated backup soul singer), I can tell you that he needed to release his music under his own name, because these uplifting songs did not seem to belong on a typical Killers album… Although the second half of his set consisted of plenty of The Killers songs, which kept the fans very happy, clapping, and singing along.

My favorite moment of his set was for the brand new intro song, “Come Out With Me”, which Flowers personalized to Minneapolis by adding “Stone Arch Bridge”, “Saint Paul” and “Mill City Nights” to the song.

Highlight was when Flowers need our help on deciding which cover songs he would play. On the last tour, Flowers was fond of playing Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes”, but for this tour we had these choices: America’s “Sister Golden Hair”, Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible”, or INXS’ “Don’t Change” (leaving the roadie assistant plenty of time to produce the lyrics to song choice). If we couldn’t decide, he was just going to play “Untangled Love”… but the majority of the audience seemed to yell for “Simply Irresistible”.

Mexico City’s Rey Pila opened up the show, walking onto the stage to Chicago’s “Hard To Say I’m Sorry”. The band, in their brief 30-min set, previewed five tracks from their forthcoming album The Future Sugar (available September 25th via Cult Records)… but ending their set with two older songs
“The Lost Art of Crashing Cars” and “No Longer Fun” (taken from their 2010 self-titled debut album).

 

Singer Diego Solórzano confessed that this was the band’s first time in Minneapolis, and you can tell that he’s actually done some research on our city before the show, by name-dropping the Minnesota Vikings.

Highlight of their set was during “What A Nice Surprise”, Solórzano went down to the disused photo pit (since no photo passes were approved) and high-fived some people in front. He liked it down there so much that he almost didn’t want to go back up for the next song.

Anyway, hearing their Interpol-ish sound, but with a passionate vocals, and winning over some of the crowd (I overheard a few fans saying how surprisingly good they were) – I can see why Brandon Flowers personally asked the band to support him.

Remaining tour dates: