The Southwestern Masquerade of the Killers by Olivia Ho

The Southwestern Masquerade of the Killers

Olivia Ho

Sports Arena Stadium, forever cemented in my memory as the monolithic monster whose concert-goers caused many traffic-filled afternoons of driving home from school, was about as devoid of windows as I had remembered. I can’t imagine that the 15,000-seat arena has changed much since its construction: the faded red and mustard stripes on the wall, obscured by a perpetual yet unidentifiable smokey haze, teleported me straight into 1960s San Diego.

Somehow, it seems to me that a venue like Sports Arena that stands somewhat outside of time is the perfect place to see The Killers. The general admission crowd at the late-August show shared the same excitement almost bursting from my sister and me as we waited in line. From our vantage point on the arena floor, surrounded by now-vintage Killers t-shirts and stories of past shows, we could tell that this was not a show for casual listeners or half-interested fans.

This was a show of a band in their golden years, where every listener knows every song, old and new, and shares a dedication only strengthened by time.

The depth of my almost-frenzied elatedness from being at this show is difficult to imagine. The concert was—and I cannot stress this enough—a transformative experience, filled with a variety of emotion: I sobbed about being “On the corner of Main Street/Just tryna keep it in line,” as “Read My Mind” rung through the stadium, and my sister and I gripped each other with the panic of uncharacteristic hero-worship each time Brandon Flowers waltzed onto our side of the stage.

The culmination of my joy came right at the encore, as the sleazy, opulent glamor of The Killer’s modern aesthetic was driven home by rotating images of Adonis during “The Man” (a personal favorite glitzy ode to masculinity and manliness off of 2017’s Wonderful Wonderful).

The show ended as the crowd was pelted by dollar bills decorated with the bands’ faces. As we drove home, emotionally numb with ears ringing, my sister’s friend summed the experience up precisely:

“Well, he doesn’t look a thing like Jesus.”

I spent the majority of my elementary school years memorizing every lyric of each Killers’ song, Christmas special, and B-side—jealously watching as my sisters and mom jaunted off to concerts and returned with a deep analysis of the quality of Brandon Flowers’ hair or the trajectory of Ronnie Vannucci’s drum sticks.

Because of my basically lifelong attachment, I tend to think of The Killers as my band, with a possessiveness completely unjustified for a group so popular and well-known. I can’t help but associate The Killers with my family and the place where I grew up. And, in a way that’s become more bittersweet and pertinent as I’ve left home, with how I conceptualize the Southwest—the sullen desert land that remains indescribably detached from the rest of the West.

Titled after a Vegas casino of the same name, the powerfully Americana-infused album took in much criticism during its time. To be sure, the nostalgic references to “The good old days, the honest man / The restless heart, the Promised Land,” among rebellious descriptions of “Red, white and blue upon a birthday cake,” and towns “meant for passing through,” feel so powerfully and artificially American that they can leave a sickly-sweet taste in the mouth. With their glamorization of patriotism (“Running through my veins / an American masquerade”), it can feel like The Killers Vegas’d being American.

Yet for an album that was created in a land as placeless, eclectic, and new as the Southwestern section of the United States, it just seems to make sense. Somehow, throughout their entire discography, The Killers have managed to capture the variable faces of the spirit of the Southwest.

This is not an easy task. Despite having grown up on the edges of the same dusty desert that shaped The Killers, I don’t understand the Southwest. It’s far too many things.

It’s cowboys and colonialism—otherworldly and alien to those who didn’t grow up among the blooming cacti and towering Joshua Trees. It’s the land of opportunity and where dreams go to die. It’s the desolated desert highways on the way to my grandparent’s house in Yerington, Nevada—and it’s the cracked Southern Californian asphalt upon which I burn my feet each summer. It’s where the Santa Ana winds blow in every fall, stopping planes and drying skin and making way for an endless fire season. It’s where the only season is fire season. It’s a place where small towns are defined by their public lands and libertarianism, and where big developers with shady pasts pop out of the dust like a mirage to irrigate the desert and replace it with gleaming (and eerie) green grass.

Other regions of America seem to be able to claim artists and genres as their own—the East coast calls to mind the dignified Sinatra-types, whereas the South lays claim to its complex interwoven web of blues, jazz, and the origins of rock. In the Midwest (laying aside Midwestern Emo as the obvious choice) originated Chicago blues and folk singers like Bob Dylan. Even the Pacific Northwest has its 90s grunge (and whatever’s going on in Portland).

But the Southwest seems to lack the musical identity of the other parts of the United States—except for The Killers.

There is no artist as Southwestern as The Killers, and none who’ve embraced the region so wholeheartedly. Their most recent concept album, Pressure Machine, is a tribute to the small town of Nephi, Utah, where Flowers was raised. The album is tender toward the harsh desert landscape of its cover: it includes Flowers’ own meditations on a train wreck which killed a teenage couple, and cites influences from authors John Steinbeck and Sherwin Anderson.

In watching them perform again, right after the release of Pressure Machine, I was struck by The Killers’ wholehearted embrace of such an incomprehensible and hard-to-understand region.

Yet The Killers are also somewhat of an incomprehensible band—so perhaps the mutually baffling relationship between The Killers and their home allows us to gain an understanding of both.

Through The Killers, we see the heart of the Southwest—and it’s only by looking at the Southwest can we truly see The Killers. Image: Billy Bratton