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Review by Rob.

New songs bedding in well but a bit lacking in substance

Back in Blighty for yet another tour, but this time their debut arena shows, following the Autumn tour of much smaller venues where they 'road tested' much of the debut album material, the Killers are eager to show everyone that their new album, 'Sam's Town' has the tunes to match the first five on the debut album. Also what arena gimmicks would we be seeing? Do they translate as well to the big aircraft hangar type venues as they do to a festival field in the middle of summer? A sold out Sheffield Arena awaited them, would they deliver the goods? So many questions, so little time..

Firstly though unlike the autumn tour we had the small matter of a notable support band tonight. It's been a good couple of years since The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club played the UK. With an imminent new album, a return to the electric sonics of yore, following the largely acoustic and brilliant but hugely underrated 'Howl', I was intrigued to see what sounds the BRMC 2007 would be giving us. They start off in familiar territory with 'Spread your Love' from the debut, and 'Stop' from the patchy second album. As with these type of arena shows the majority of the audience treat them with mass indifference, and a lot of people probably don't know who they were, let alone the fact they have been around three times as long as the headliners and are about to release album number four. Several tunes are previewed from new album 'Baby 81' (named after the baby found in the aftermath of the 2004 Asian Tsunami, where 9 mothers claimed it as theirs) and titles included 'Berlin' and 'Weapon of choice'. The good news is that the new songs hint at at return to the rockin' quality of the 1st album, and bode well for the band's future. Older fans are well catered for with a stunning 'White Palms' and they even dip into 'Howl' to do the title track. They end with a furious 'Punk Song' and even though they get the usual support band deal tonight (short set, uninterested audience, muddy sound) they do enough to prove there is a lot of life left in this particular band yet. Watch out for them later in the year.

Almost all of the audience are really only here for the headline act though. We reviewed The Killers recently and to be honest the set has not changed too much since those dates in the autumn. There is however a much bigger stage production with nifty moving lights and a truly great start featuring glitter canons and a multitude of spotlights. The other notable aspect is the total acceptance of the new songs by the ecstatic audience. 'Bones' goes down a storm, as does news single 'Reasons unknown'. The sound quality is a lot better too and the guitar heavy 'Uncle Johnny' finally gets its day in the sun. Only the very Springstein like 'This river is wild' fails to hit home, and merely plods along in second gear. Much better is recent single 'When you were young', played early on, and one of the big show stoppers tonight. (along with a literal stopper when some falling debris from the lights temporarily halts proceedings).

Despite all this it is the older stuff from 'Hot fuss' that the crowd really wants even though it is only the stuff from side one. Thus it is that 'Somebody told me' and 'Jenny' are played early to get everyone going, 'Mr Brightside' brings the main set to a singalong close which is upstaged by a staggering 'All these things i've done' complete with marching band 'soldier' refrain joyously sung by the mass throng. They end with the mellow 'Exitlude' started by Brandon Flowers (who is back in his white smoking jacket again tonight) and joined later in the song by the rest of the band. Then quietly the song ends and we all slip away, the opposite to the crash bang wallop of many arena shows I have seen but none the less powerful for all that. Criticisms? Well they didn't play for all that long really and a b side or a cover version or two would have padded out the set. (They do a mean version of Dire Strait's 'Romeo and Juliet'). Also the band are not very communicative and must speak only a handful of words all night. However with songs as strong as the ones they chose to play us tonight they can easily get away with it. Never less than 100% confident in their live show they do best what most acts from Las Vegas specialise in - Entertainment.

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