The Killers fail to slay at live show

Brandon Flowers was all fear and loathing from Las Vegas.

Well, not really, but for the frontman of the latest “it” band, The Killers, it sure seemed like that’s how he felt as the band played New York’s Bowery Ballroom on Tuesday.

In fact, the Vegas band is all about affectation right down to their faux-British singing vocals and lyrics like “we had a fight in the promenade out in the rain.” And the group itself exhibits more swagger (proof: Flowers’ Trump-like facial affectations and strut) than any other band today.

One might think that perhaps The Killers are overcompensating. Indeed, with only 12 songs (10 on the album and 2 b-sides) to their name and stiff competition from sound-a-like bands, who are creeping up everywhere, one senses the incredible pressure that these kids must be under. As fast as someone might say, “What ever happened to The Vines?” Flowers and co. could disappear from MTV2. Incidentally, The Killers’ debut Hot Fuss also has only four completely-good songs on it.

From The Killers’ live performance, however, it seems like the band has six good songs, but they also have some thudding duds like the b-side “Indie Rock & Roll,” where Flowers sings “Indie rock and roll is what I need / It’s in my soul / It’s what I need.” So says the band signed to Island Def Jam Music Group.

The real problem of the night was that while the band played solidly enough, the song renditions sounded too close to the versions on the album. At that rate, Flowers might as well have lip-synched. The epitome of this treatment occurred on the band’s hit single, “Somebody Told Me,” which was prefaced by the lame “We’re going to play the hit” shout-out and was then sped through with nary an ounce of spirit. Flowers just killed it.

Every song can either sound exactly like a Depeche Mode track with a big Duran Duran influence or like a sexually-ambiguous ballad à la Franz Ferdinand, but in the end, the Killers have simply copped too many moves.

Indeed, the audience left the concert venue at 11:20 p.m. after a slim, 50-minute set wondering what the big deal was.