It was a sort of homecoming Wednesday night at Caesar's Palace.
All four members of The Killers -- singer/keyboardist Brandon Flowers, bassist Mark Stoermer, guitarist Dave Keuning, and drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr., were on stage playing together. A feat that is rarer than you think.
The occasion was the 20th anniversary of their debut smash, Hot Fuss, which gave us "All These Things That I've Done," "Mr. Brightside," "Somebody Told Me," and "Smile Like You Mean It."
Seven million units moved can't be wrong.
Bassist Stoermer stopped touring with the hugely popular group in 2016 after he started experiencing hearing problems.
A year later guitarist Keuning took three years off, came back in '21, but has been more absent than present. Multi-instrumentalist Ted Sablay filled in on guitar and has since become the band's musical director and arranger for their live shows.
The 10-night Vegas residency at The Colosseum at Caesars, right there in the middle of the strip got everyone back together again.
As bands often do, The Killers played the debut all the way through, in order of how it was on the album, which meant "Mr. Brightside" was the second song in the set (sorry, tardy attendees) and the two other top-selling singles were right after it.
Before playing "Brightside," a song London has basically adopted, Flowers explained that when he came to Vegas from Utah as a teen, he bet on his future by being a busboy at a restaurant at Caesars, and placing his trust in "three men I hardly knew."
Then he said to remember that sometimes people come to Vegas and lose it all. "But let tonight serve as a reminder: sometimes it goes the other way too."
Sablay, keyboardist Jake "Snake" Blanton, as well as the background singers were called on stage for "All These Things..." and the party was in full gear.
As is the case with many debut albums that have a string of hits, the deep tracks hardly ever see the light of day as newer and newer albums are recorded.
Because of that it is always nice when the band plays their albums in its entirety because then audiences can finally hear some of these songs live.
"Change Your Mind" and "Believe Me Natalie" hadn't been performed since 2019 and 2018, respectively, until Wednesday.
The hometown crowd seemed to know exactly what it was and how grateful they were to hear it.
So what do you do when you've played the majority of your hits before the show was even halfway through?
If you're The Killers, you live debut a song that is so apropos to the residency and the city and the band, the anthemic "Bright Lights."
The highly produced video has only been out six days now but already has over 425,000 views.
It sounds a little like a Springsteen song circa Darkness on the Edge of Town but punched up with horns and that Killers something special.
After 20 years it's really incredible to write such a... killer... new song just in time for the homecoming.
And it was the perfect lead in for the actual closer "When You Were Young."
The Killers residency has nine more dates to go. Many of the shows are sold out so if you see tickets available on the band's website, don't gamble, grab em up.
