Week 110 : Day 7 : Heineken Jammin' Festival cancelled, Tennent's Vital, Vegas mag, FRU review..
News
The Killers' appearance at Heineken Jammin' Festival in Venice was cancelled after a whirlwind hit, injuring up to 25 people after sound towers and girders collapsed.
A whirlwind hit Venice on Friday, injuring about 25 people among 30,000 standing persons and forcing the cancellation of a rock festival headlined by rock bands Iron Maiden, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins and Aerosmith.
The whirlwind hit late in the afternoon, just before Killers' appearances, bringing down 9 sound towers and girders on the stage for the Heineken Jammin' Festival as well as trees in the surrounding park. Several vehicles were overturned by the strong winds.
The Friday night concert was Killers' only Italian appearance on their current tour.
- thanks to DJ4ever!
Pictures from MTV Italy:
Brandon disappointed:
The Killers will headline Tennent's Vital festival in Belfast on August 22, according to Hotpress: The second day of this summer's Tennents Vital gig in Belfast will be headlined by The Killers.
While there’s no official word yet from the promoters, The Killers have announced on their MySpace that they're headlining the second Vital ’07 gig in Belfast’s Botanic Gardens on August 22.
Two-day tickets are already on sale for £70.
-thanks to stace!
There are reviews of The Killers at Pepeworld Festival (June 12th) on MTV.es and elmundo.es (in Spanish). - thanks to Coco215 and ZittyStardust!
Charts
UK: #58
Canada: #78
Article
All These Things That They've Done from Vegas magazine, June 2007
by Steve Friess.
- thanks to JacKiller!
Note: the interview from this article is on The Strip's May 31st podcast, which was linked two weeks ago.
Brandon Flowers stood beneath the stage of the MGM Grand Garen Arena, shaking. The wild trip the onetime Gold Coast bell-hop was on was about to get trippier, as he ascended to the stage to share a duet with none other than U2's Bono. How, Flowers remembers wondering, did I get here?
How, indeed? By that point - November 2005 - Flowers and his out-of-nowhere rock band, The Killers, had blasted into the stratosphere of the music business from the largely lacklustre but growing indie-music scene of Las Vegas. Their debut album, Hot Fuss, had sold five million copies, and they hit number one on the charts in Britain and Australia. The band had also sold out Wembley Arena and Madison Square Garden, opened for Morrissey, garnered three Grammy nods and appeared on Saturday Night Live as well as the most vaunted of poverty-relief concerts of 2005, Live 8.
Still, the much-eyelinered pop star found it inconceivable that he was about to step onto one of the largest concert stages in his famous hometown and perform a duet of "In a Little While," with the lead singer of the biggest rock band of the era, no less. "It's not something I could really take in," the 26-year-old Flowers says. "I remember being down there while they were up there playing 'Desire' or something, knowing I gotta go out there. Those are things you don't forget."
Flowers' career launched seven years ago when he picked up a copy of David Bowie's Hunky Dory album at a now defunct used-record shop in Vegas. He already had his eye on stardom. I thought I knew everything about music," he recalls. "I had my vision of what I thought I was and what kind of music I would listen to without ever listening to David Bowie, who had influenced all the bands I listened to - Depeche Mode and Morrissey and others. I never heard chord changes or melodies like that. That's the beautiful thing about him; he's metal sometimes, he's vaudeville sometimes."
Flowers, like Bowie, emits a sexually ambiguous flamboyance on-stage and has a penchant for funky suits and makeup. Wikipedia refers to him as "a famous example of metrosexuality," and he has found himself having to declare his heterosexuality, partially because one of the band's earliest gigs came at a gay club in Vegas known then as Sasha's. Not to mention the lyrics of "Andy, You're A Star" seem like an ode to a crush on a male football player, with such lines as: "In a car with a girl, promise me she's not your world." Flowers now says he wrote it "from a girl's perspective."
The Killers were officially born when Flowers, dumped by a synth-pop band in 2001, decided to switch to rock and responded to guitarist David Keuning's classified ad seeking band mates. Later their current bassist, Mark Stoermer, and drummer, Ronnie Vannucci, Jr., would join them. They were discovered on the Vegas indie circuit by a British scout for Warner Brothers, who turned their tape over to an independent-label producer. Once signed, the quartest moved to London, recorded Hot Fuss and took off, as Dick Clark used to say, "with a bullet."
As a group, The Killers fit perfectly into an appealing media narrative about hardscrabble Vegas youth done good: In addition to Flowers working as a casino bellhop, Vannucci once toiled as a photographer at the Little Chapel of the Flowers, and some of their parents were service employees on the Strip. Their backgrounds made for terrific fodder, and they worked that theme by naming their sophomore album, Sam's Town, after the locals' casino east of the Strip near one of Flowers' childhood homes.
"Vegas doesn't need to be put on the map, but when you mention The Killers, that's what they instantly associate with us," he says. "At first, people think you're extraterrestrial almost because it's such a foreign place. A lot of people love it and love the party aspect of it. But a lot of people hate it and think it's a fake city. I find myself defending it a lot."
Lately, The Killers have also been defending themselves against poor reviews of Sam's Town, which has sold about half as well as Hot Fuss (but still went double platinum). Flowers admits he became obsessed with Googling the band for reviews but stopped when he realized that nothing productive was coming from that.
Vannucci says that's the best approach. "I know how people react when something's different, so I was halfway expecting it. I really don't care that much. The album pleases us first. If we had done the same thing, people would say we rewrote the old songs."
The Killers' June 1st homecoming concert at the Hard Rock is, to Flowers, a bittersweet moment. Beyond closing the latest tour, it also will be a reminder of how far they've come from the Vegas scene and how they're now the subject of a great deal of sniping by their former musical brethren.
"We want people to be proud of us when we play here, but there's so much jealousy that goes on in Las Vegas about what we've done," Flowers says. "It's kind of a shame. We'll sell out the [Vegas] show, but it'll be a lot of people from L.A. The people who filled Sasha's aren't going to be in the front as they were before we sold any records. They're going to be bitching about it on blogs."
Review
The Killers - For Reasons Unknown from Billboard, June 2007
- thanks to stace!
"But my heart/It don't beat the way it used to," a feverish Brandon Flowers laments in "For Reasons Unknown," the fourth single from the Killers' inexhaustible sophomore set "Sam's Town." Indeed, things have changed since the Las Vegas boys dumped Bowie for Springsteen, creating a hook-filled blockbuster that fuses new-wavey melodramas with epic Americana. Destined first for alternative radio, this synth-free rocker opens with ominous multitrack vocals and grinding fuzz guitars and builds to a huge pop chorus as Flowers dances on the edge of a relentlessly pumped groove. As indie heroes like Arcade Fire begin to reveal a crush on the Boss, the Killers' bombast appears visionary. If anything, Flowers' heart beats louder and bigger these days.
Media Watch
BBC2, 3 and 4 will have Glastonbury coverage on June 22-24
The Killers are in Vegas magazine (June issue)
The Killers are on the cover of the latest La Mosca magazine
Awards Watch
Much Music Video Awards - vote Favourite International Group (June 17)
--
For all the latest news, register as a member of the official community: http://comunita.thekillersmusic.com
The Killers' appearance at Heineken Jammin' Festival in Venice was cancelled after a whirlwind hit, injuring up to 25 people after sound towers and girders collapsed.
A whirlwind hit Venice on Friday, injuring about 25 people among 30,000 standing persons and forcing the cancellation of a rock festival headlined by rock bands Iron Maiden, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins and Aerosmith.
The whirlwind hit late in the afternoon, just before Killers' appearances, bringing down 9 sound towers and girders on the stage for the Heineken Jammin' Festival as well as trees in the surrounding park. Several vehicles were overturned by the strong winds.
The Friday night concert was Killers' only Italian appearance on their current tour.
- thanks to DJ4ever!
Pictures from MTV Italy:
Brandon disappointed:
The Killers will headline Tennent's Vital festival in Belfast on August 22, according to Hotpress: The second day of this summer's Tennents Vital gig in Belfast will be headlined by The Killers.
While there’s no official word yet from the promoters, The Killers have announced on their MySpace that they're headlining the second Vital ’07 gig in Belfast’s Botanic Gardens on August 22.
Two-day tickets are already on sale for £70.
-thanks to stace!
There are reviews of The Killers at Pepeworld Festival (June 12th) on MTV.es and elmundo.es (in Spanish). - thanks to Coco215 and ZittyStardust!
Charts
UK: #58
Canada: #78
Article
All These Things That They've Done from Vegas magazine, June 2007
by Steve Friess.
- thanks to JacKiller!
Note: the interview from this article is on The Strip's May 31st podcast, which was linked two weeks ago.
Brandon Flowers stood beneath the stage of the MGM Grand Garen Arena, shaking. The wild trip the onetime Gold Coast bell-hop was on was about to get trippier, as he ascended to the stage to share a duet with none other than U2's Bono. How, Flowers remembers wondering, did I get here?
How, indeed? By that point - November 2005 - Flowers and his out-of-nowhere rock band, The Killers, had blasted into the stratosphere of the music business from the largely lacklustre but growing indie-music scene of Las Vegas. Their debut album, Hot Fuss, had sold five million copies, and they hit number one on the charts in Britain and Australia. The band had also sold out Wembley Arena and Madison Square Garden, opened for Morrissey, garnered three Grammy nods and appeared on Saturday Night Live as well as the most vaunted of poverty-relief concerts of 2005, Live 8.
Still, the much-eyelinered pop star found it inconceivable that he was about to step onto one of the largest concert stages in his famous hometown and perform a duet of "In a Little While," with the lead singer of the biggest rock band of the era, no less. "It's not something I could really take in," the 26-year-old Flowers says. "I remember being down there while they were up there playing 'Desire' or something, knowing I gotta go out there. Those are things you don't forget."
Flowers' career launched seven years ago when he picked up a copy of David Bowie's Hunky Dory album at a now defunct used-record shop in Vegas. He already had his eye on stardom. I thought I knew everything about music," he recalls. "I had my vision of what I thought I was and what kind of music I would listen to without ever listening to David Bowie, who had influenced all the bands I listened to - Depeche Mode and Morrissey and others. I never heard chord changes or melodies like that. That's the beautiful thing about him; he's metal sometimes, he's vaudeville sometimes."
Flowers, like Bowie, emits a sexually ambiguous flamboyance on-stage and has a penchant for funky suits and makeup. Wikipedia refers to him as "a famous example of metrosexuality," and he has found himself having to declare his heterosexuality, partially because one of the band's earliest gigs came at a gay club in Vegas known then as Sasha's. Not to mention the lyrics of "Andy, You're A Star" seem like an ode to a crush on a male football player, with such lines as: "In a car with a girl, promise me she's not your world." Flowers now says he wrote it "from a girl's perspective."
The Killers were officially born when Flowers, dumped by a synth-pop band in 2001, decided to switch to rock and responded to guitarist David Keuning's classified ad seeking band mates. Later their current bassist, Mark Stoermer, and drummer, Ronnie Vannucci, Jr., would join them. They were discovered on the Vegas indie circuit by a British scout for Warner Brothers, who turned their tape over to an independent-label producer. Once signed, the quartest moved to London, recorded Hot Fuss and took off, as Dick Clark used to say, "with a bullet."
As a group, The Killers fit perfectly into an appealing media narrative about hardscrabble Vegas youth done good: In addition to Flowers working as a casino bellhop, Vannucci once toiled as a photographer at the Little Chapel of the Flowers, and some of their parents were service employees on the Strip. Their backgrounds made for terrific fodder, and they worked that theme by naming their sophomore album, Sam's Town, after the locals' casino east of the Strip near one of Flowers' childhood homes.
"Vegas doesn't need to be put on the map, but when you mention The Killers, that's what they instantly associate with us," he says. "At first, people think you're extraterrestrial almost because it's such a foreign place. A lot of people love it and love the party aspect of it. But a lot of people hate it and think it's a fake city. I find myself defending it a lot."
Lately, The Killers have also been defending themselves against poor reviews of Sam's Town, which has sold about half as well as Hot Fuss (but still went double platinum). Flowers admits he became obsessed with Googling the band for reviews but stopped when he realized that nothing productive was coming from that.
Vannucci says that's the best approach. "I know how people react when something's different, so I was halfway expecting it. I really don't care that much. The album pleases us first. If we had done the same thing, people would say we rewrote the old songs."
The Killers' June 1st homecoming concert at the Hard Rock is, to Flowers, a bittersweet moment. Beyond closing the latest tour, it also will be a reminder of how far they've come from the Vegas scene and how they're now the subject of a great deal of sniping by their former musical brethren.
"We want people to be proud of us when we play here, but there's so much jealousy that goes on in Las Vegas about what we've done," Flowers says. "It's kind of a shame. We'll sell out the [Vegas] show, but it'll be a lot of people from L.A. The people who filled Sasha's aren't going to be in the front as they were before we sold any records. They're going to be bitching about it on blogs."
Review
The Killers - For Reasons Unknown from Billboard, June 2007
- thanks to stace!
"But my heart/It don't beat the way it used to," a feverish Brandon Flowers laments in "For Reasons Unknown," the fourth single from the Killers' inexhaustible sophomore set "Sam's Town." Indeed, things have changed since the Las Vegas boys dumped Bowie for Springsteen, creating a hook-filled blockbuster that fuses new-wavey melodramas with epic Americana. Destined first for alternative radio, this synth-free rocker opens with ominous multitrack vocals and grinding fuzz guitars and builds to a huge pop chorus as Flowers dances on the edge of a relentlessly pumped groove. As indie heroes like Arcade Fire begin to reveal a crush on the Boss, the Killers' bombast appears visionary. If anything, Flowers' heart beats louder and bigger these days.
Media Watch
BBC2, 3 and 4 will have Glastonbury coverage on June 22-24
The Killers are in Vegas magazine (June issue)
The Killers are on the cover of the latest La Mosca magazine
Awards Watch
Much Music Video Awards - vote Favourite International Group (June 17)
--
For all the latest news, register as a member of the official community: http://comunita.thekillersmusic.com