Fans in Toronto were given a sneak peek of Flamingo, the debut solo album from The Killers’ Brandon Flowers, when the frontman gave an intimate performance at the Mod Club last Wednesday (Aug. 25). The 10-song set was an exclusive concert hosted by Virgin Mobile.
The tunes that got the biggest cheers from the crowd included lead single “Crossfire,” which he played early on, and “Hard Enough,” which Flowers described as his first real love song. Other standouts included the upcoming second single, “Swallow It” and a song called “Magdalena” which Flowers said was inspired by a documentary about an annual Mexican pilgrimage where people walk for 60 miles carrying a prayer in their heart. As a treat for longtime Killers fans, Flowers performed a solo rendition of “Losing Touch” and saved an acoustic version of “When You Were Young” for the encore.
Flowers only sang during the show, backed up by full-piece band — a detail that die hard Killers fans would have taken note of. (In Killers shows, he’s known to hop back and forth between the main microphone to the keyboards or the piano.)
While Flowers’s fellow Killers are absent from his current tour, they were reportedly very much present during the making of Flamingo. Flowers told UK newspaper The Sun that band mates Mark Stoermer, Dave Keuning and Ronnie Vannucci Jr. all contributed something during the recording of the album. Much of the record was written while the Killers were on tour for their last album, Day & Age, and as Flowers told the Sun earlier this summer: “I would have preferred this to be a Killers record but the guys wanted a break. I just thought it would be a shame to put a muzzle on these songs as I have a fear of losing whatever I’ve got going on and so I wanted to capture it.”
Flowers’s tour continues next month in Europe while Flamingo hits stores on September 14. A deluxe version of the album, which includes a few bonus tracks, will also be available. Flowers will also appear on an MTV Canada special on Friday, Sept. 17 at 9 p.m.
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