Magic Soaking My Spine

Devastated not being able to see The Killers perform at the relatively small Webster Hall in July due to being in Sea Isle City, which would have been the first time since living in Boston that we would have seen them locally, I was ecstatic to hear that they would be performing again in the area!


Getting tickets these days is just absolutely ridiculous, with close to zero chance of buying them when they go on sale to the general public via Ticketmaster or Live Nation -- it's truly frustrating, and a way to avoid this is to have mandatory "will call" tickets.  Luckily, I managed to get such Presale tickets to their show at the Paradise Theater in the Bronx on Tuesday, September 18th which just happens to be the day their new album Battle Born drops.

AND it's going to be a live webcast directed by Werner Herzog! Wow, this should be interesting...

Day of, we drive into the city, leaving a little before 3pm to get to the theater early as the doors open at 5:30pm. Of course, by the time we get there around 3:30ish, there's a long line...so Brian drops me off as I try to inquire about will call vs. ticket holders.  (Those who purchased tickets via Ticketmaster did not have the mandatory will call type tickets.)  Turns out that everyone stands in one line regardless.

    

Oh, and I forgot to mention that there's supposed to be tornado-like weather that's supposed to pass through the area...we were all hoping for the best as it would be a torturous long 2 hours if the rain came.  It was already plenty windy with the occasional raindrops here and there. But that wasn't the worst thing about standing on line for a while...it was the man in front of us who literally smoked about 7 cigarettes in a row, and every time the resulting butt was so small I wondered if there was any kind of filter.  Any non-smoker around us was not amused at all, and we started talking about how he should have his own bubble and inhale his own secondhand smoke.

Other interesting things:
a HUGE store full of cowboy boots -- donde esta la zapateria?, Amex folks asking if I wanted to take a survey on camera -- nope, admiring the not-so-famous hamburger shop, getting asked how old I was verbally -- ugh can't you just look at my ID?

Then about 5ish they start letting will call folks pick up their tickets/wristbands which was awesome since we all wondered what kind of craziness would ensue if they waited until the doors were officially opened.

It was a little after 5:30pm when they let us in -- woo hoo!

The theater was GORGEOUSLY lit and had classical Roman architecture.   The GA pit area was *much* bigger than I expected, and we made it to the fourth row just off center. Not too shabby...

There wasn't anyone near us that seemed overtly annoying...except for this one lady from Virginia who apparently just got married on Tuesday. It was as if she had her own placeholder, because out of nowhere did she and her husband push past us and made it to the second row, and this placeholder left and never came back -- impressive and bold but what the heck? She also had one of those overly in-your-face personalities, asking where I was from and hinting at the meanness of New Yorkers, all the while she has her own sense of entitlement...whatever.

[sidebar] I wish I got paid to wait... [end sidebar]

6:33PM

Anywho, we got glimpses of Werner walking around on stage, and he ended up announcing to the crowd that there will be a crowd-surfing camera -- what? How cool!!

At about 6:45ish, I put on my wonderful concert boots, which helped, but amazingly I didn't feel that much taller than everyone...I guess I was near a relatively average height area.

But on to the show!  Here's a loose edit of photos and videos:

(Intro)

7:11 PM

"Runaways"

"Somebody Told Me"

"Smile Like You Mean It"

     

"Spaceman"

   

"Flesh and Bone"

"For Reasons Unknown"

   

"Bling (Confession of a King)"

"Shadowplay"

"Human"

   

"Here With Me"

   

This is probably the BEST* sequencing of songs I've ever heard live:

"A Dustland Fairytale"*

"Forever Young"* + "Read My Mind"*

Surfing Cam #1 (youtube video time 1:04:25)

Surfing Cam #2 (youtube video time 1:06:12)

"Mr. Brightside"*

"All These Things That I've Done"*

   

Brian and my arm + camera phone
(youtube video time 1:17:16)

Encore:

"Jenny Was a Friend of Mine"

(youtube video time 1:23:10)

"When You Were Young"

8:38 PM

       

     

You can watch MOST of the show here:
(unfortunately they cut out "Shadowplay" and "Forever Young")

The audio is very clean in this video, so you can't really hear the enthusiasm of the crowd like in my crazy and unfocused videos.

I do wish the crowd went ballistic though -- the energy never seems quite as high as it should be at the shows we've been to...maybe except for the first two shows we saw in Boston (2005, 2006)

(We have to see them in London...)