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I wasn’t sure what to expect when I entered Toronto’s Sound Academy for The Killers on Saturday, September 22nd. The pride of Las Vegas were playing a warm-up show of sorts ahead of the much bigger tour to come in support of new album Battle Born. They’ll actually be back in town three months from now at the Air Canada Centre, a more appropriate-sized venue for a band of their stature. The last time I saw Mr. Brandon Flowers and his shaggy haired friends in 2009, I was nearly blinded by their neon oasis of a backdrop. I don’t know if I’d call Saturday’s affair low-key, but there definitely weren’t the cheap frills The Killers have become known for in concert that have threatened to overshadow their music. The flashiest thing at the more intimate than usual Sound Academy was probably the big lightning bolt in front of Flowers’ keyboard, which lit up intermittently throughout the 90 or so minutes they were on stage.

Time just seemed to fly by as they cut through all the songs their fans wanted to hear from their first three albums. There was a feeling of revitalization to them after being off as a band for a bit – Aside from some unfamiliarity over “Here with Me” and “Heart of a Girl”, the new Battle Born setlist additions were very well received as The Killers prepare to contend for Pollstar’s top-grossing tour list over the next year. (Can you say Lollapalooza 2013 headliners?)

In case any of you had forgotten, The Killers have some…uh, KILLER material that didn’t need any dressing up in the casino-wanting city of Toronto. Flowers himself even realized this by symbolically taking off his faux-biker leather jacket after only two songs, letting them stand on their own and be sung vigorously by 3,000 people. It sounded like a lot more, which there will no doubt be for Round 2 in December. Oh, and the confetti from the rafters at the end of “All These Things That I’ve Done” was pretty cool too.

*Photos courtesy of Wyatt Boswell

Setlist:
Runaways
Somebody Told Me
Smile Like You Mean It
Spaceman
Flesh and Bone
For Reasons Unknown
Bling (Confessions of a King)
Miss Atomic Bomb
Human
Here with Me
A Dustland Fairytale
Heart of a Girl
Read My Mind
Mr. Brightside
All These Things That I’ve Done
Encore:
The Rising Tide
Jenny Was a Friend of Mine
When You Were Young