Brandon Flowers, Riviera Theatre, Chicago, Illinois

We didn’t arrive with a lot of time to spare, but it was easy to squeeze into the back of the main floor at the Riviera Theater. I have seen The Killers four times before, and they’re consistently one of my favorite live bands. Every time I’ve seen them, I’ve loved it. Three of four of those times, the experience was even better than I thought it was going to be. And obviously only one of those shows could have been seeing them for the first time. But somehow, I wasn’t as thrilled to see frontman Brandon Flowers’ solo show when it was initially announced. While his first solo album, Flamingo (2010), was fine, it mostly just sounded like a collection of The Killers’ B-Sides tracks. However, his second solo album, The Desired Effect (2015), was quite a bit stronger. In the run up to the concert, I had been listening to a lot of this recent album and appreciating it quite a bit. Seeing that he typically plays a good number of The Killers songs at his shows also piqued my excitement.

Just as when he’s with The Killers, Flowers took the stage without an instrument. He just had a different band behind him. He wore a stylish black suit, not nearly as flamboyant as some of his previous costumes when preforming with The Killers. As the show went on, he shed layers to reveal more layers of black beneath – vest, tee, etc. The band was supported by just some generic stage lighting, nothing particularly glamourous or unique. He began his set with a few of his solo songs, some of which were damn good. Half a dozen songs in, he finally played a Killers song, the murder ballad “Jenny Was a Friend of Mine.” However, it was a kind of slow acoustic version of the song. I kept hoping for the synths to kick in on one of the choruses, but it never happened. So in that sense it was both the most satisfying and most frustrating song that I’ve ever heard live before. He was giving us what we wanted to hear but at the same time, not.

His last solo song of the main set was “Magdalena” which he opened by telling a long, captivating story about an encounter with a disheveled man outside a Mexican restaurant in New Mexico. After giving the man the rest of his delicious pork something-or-others, the man told him that he was undertaking a 60 mile pilgrimage from Nogales to Magdalena, both in Mexico, even though Flowers noticed that the man didn’t have much way of quality footwear. The song tells this man’s story. Interestingly, in other sources, like an interview with Rolling Stone, Flowers claimed the inspiration came from a documentary he saw about a pilgrimage between these two cities that occurs every October. So it was kind of cool that his own experience with a supposed pilgrim has become part of the lore surrounding event. He wrapped up the main set with a few last Killers songs, including the Jacques Lu Cont Remix of “Mr. Brightside.” The show could have ended there as far as I was concerned. We watch the encore, which was a couple more of his solo songs, from the back of the room.

Setlist:

Come Out With Me
Dreams Come True
Can't Deny My Love
Crossfire
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]
Untangled Love
The Way It's Always Been
Magdalena
Human [The Killers song]
Mr. Brightside [The Killers song] (Jacques Lu Cont Remix)
Encore:
Between Me and You
Still Want You
Only the Young