2021–23 concert tour by the Killers
The Imploding the Mirage Tour was the sixth major concert tour by American rock band The Killers. The tour supports their sixth and seventh studio albums "Imploding the Mirage" (2020) and "Pressure Machine" (2021). The tour began at the Terminal 5 in New York City on August 19, 2021, and ended at Interlagos Circuit in São Paulo on December 2, 2023.
Background.
Announcements and tour itinerary.
The tour was initially announced in November 2019, with a series of stadium concerts in the UK and Ireland in May and June 2020. This was followed by announcements for multiple festival and arena shows across Europe in summer 2020. However, in April 2020, the band were forced to postpone the shows due to the COVID-19 pandemic, rescheduling them to summer 2021. Further pandemic restrictions forced the band to postpone the shows again in March 2021, moving them to summer 2022.
Following the announcement of the band's seventh studio album, "Pressure Machine", in July 2021, the band also added a number of dates across North America between August and October 2022 to the tour. The tour began with a series of warm-up shows in the United States between August and December 2022, which also coincided with the release of "Pressure Machine".
In November 2021, the band further extended the tour by announcing dates in Mexico in April 2022, and in Australia and New Zealand in November and December 2022.
In February 2022, the band announced that the tour would begin with three intimate shows at Las Vegas' Cosmopolitan Hotel in April 2022. This preceded the tour's first stadium shows in Mexico in April and May. The tour then continued on to the UK and Ireland in May and June 2022, and in April the band announced that the UK tour would begin with an intimate warm-up show at the O2 Academy Sheffield. The tour then continued on throughout Europe and to North America during the summer of 2022.
In August and September, the band announced a further leg of the tour into South America in November 2022, with shows in Colombia, Chile and Brazil. This was followed by their previously announced tour of Australia and New Zealand in November and December 2022.
In December 2022, the band confirmed that the tour would continue into 2023. This began with the a series of shows in the United States throughout the year, followed by the announcement that the band would tour the UK and Ireland again in August and September 2023, most notably with headline slots at the Reading and Leeds Festivals.
In July 2023, the band announced that the tour would end with a headline slot at Primavera Sound in São Paulo in December.
Highlights.
At the first of two shows at London's Emirates Stadium on 3 June 2022, the band débuted the title track from their 2022 album "Pressure Machine" following a request from BBC Radio 2 DJ Jo Whiley, who was in attendance on the night. Before performing the track, Flowers said, "Jo Whiley, she’s always championed us since the very beginning – she’s here tonight. She should have a jubilee, right? She said some wonderful things about this next song and she requested it tonight – if you don’t like it blame her. It’s called ‘Pressure Machine’." Whiley later said this on Twitter that this was a "life highlight".
The band's show in Manchester on 11 June 2022 attracted headlines after 67-year-old Doug James crowd-surfed to the front of the audience during the show and injured his head. Frontman Brandon Flowers embraced James after he was carried over the security barriers, and James later said it was “like his childhood [was] coming back” and it brought him “so much joy”.
At their headline set at the Mad Cool Festival in Madrid in on 7 July 2022, the band débuted new track "boy" for the first time. Flowers introduced the new song by asking the crowd, "Do you wanna be the first to hear us play a new song right now? It goes like this." A studio version of "boy" was later released on 5 August.
The following August, the band released another new single, "Your Side of Town", on 25 August 2023, on the weekend that they headlined Reading and Leeds Festivals. The song was débuted live the next day at Reading, on 26 August.
In November 2023, "boy" and "Your Side of Town" were confirmed to be included on the band's second greatest hits album, "Rebel Diamonds". The third new track from "Rebel Diamonds", "Spirit", was débuted live in São Paulo on 30 November, the week before the song (and album) was released.
Controversies.
On August 15, 2023, the band apologised after inviting an audience member from Russia to perform on drums for "For Reasons Unknown" during their concert in Batumi in Georgia, the band's first ever show in the country. After inviting the audience member on stage, frontman Brandon Flowers asked the crowd, "We don't know the etiquette of this land but this guy's a Russian. You OK with a Russian coming up here?", which was greeted with a mix of boos and cheers. Flowers later responded to crowd discontent by asking, "You can't recognise if someone's your brother? He's not your brother?", which led to further booing and some fans walking out of the arena. The band later issued an apology on their social media pages, stating "it was never our intention to offend anyone" and recognising that Flowers' comments "could be misconstrued".
Critical reception.
The tour received widespread acclaim from music critics.
Reviewing their second performance at the Emirates Stadium in London in 2022, Thomas Smith of "NME" awarded the band four stars, commenting that they strike the balance between "humble and grateful; bombastic and flashy" and that frontman Brandon Flowers has "Jagger-level bundles of energy and a similar magnetism". Smith particularly praised the additions to the set list from the "Imploding the Mirage" album. Jenessa Williams of "The Guardian" also gave the band four stars for their intimate warm-up show at the O2 Academy in Sheffield prior to the start of the UK and Ireland leg of the tour in 2022, noting that the band overcame issues with the venue's sound system and consequently that "tonight’s cage might not have been as grand as the Killers are used to, but with 20 years of practice and the crowd on their side, they’re still coming out of it with style."
These sentiments were echoed in reviews of the band's headline set at the 2023 Reading and Leeds Festivals. "NME"'s Andrew Trendell called "Mr. Brightside" "a fitting showstopper of showmanship to a set that could run as a Vegas residency for the rest of time" in his four-star review of the performance. The "i" newspaper's Ali Shutler awarded the same number of stars in his review, remarking that "The Killers’ music remains universal and timeless" and praising the band's balance between "a sense of nostalgia" and "fresh-faced excitement".
Set list.
This set list is representative of the show on May 24, 2022 in Doncaster. It is not intended to represent all shows from the tour.
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Personnel.
Credits adapted from "LasVegasRoundTheClock" and "Consequence of Sound"
References.
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