A good band is always going to be better live.

The Killers are a very good band.

If you only know “Mr. Brightside,” if you haven’t yet been won over by the insistent charm of “Human,” if you didn’t follow our instructions on this very website and run out to grab your own copy of Day & Age, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

A band called M83 opened for the Killers, and they were fine, but they suffered greatly from being juxtaposed against Brandon Flowers and his group. I said to Hystrix and Electric Boogaloo that I had never seen a band with so little charisma as M83, and, indeed, their music felt much like background music. It was fine and there was nothing outwardly wrong with it, but the Killers marched on stage and every single song they played was so commanding that you felt you loved it even if it hadn’t been a particular favorite of yours before. The Killers play on a sparse, simple stage-a screen in the back that broadcast digital images or the video for the song, a few fake palm trees, and a weird, small “k” in the forefront of the stage behind which Flowers had a keyboard hidden. But the stage was very effective, because it was completely secondary to the music being played, which is how it should be. For a band that creates such elaborately costumed videos, the Killers were very tamely clad in mostly black. Flowers started the show off with a black jacket with brown feathers positioned on the shoulders as if they were epaulets but he shed the jacket by the third song, leaving him in black pants and a black button-down shirt that he wore for the remainder of the concert. Like the band, very simple and very effective. Flowers is, somehow, an oddly attractive, sexy man, possibly because he has the charisma necessary to front a rock band. Oh, and also, he plays the piano, which is a personal weakness of mine.

The tour is promoting Day & Age, and there was a very wide selection of music from the newest album, a fact which doesn’t surprise me, as it is, top to bottom, one of the strongest albums I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to. There are apparently critics out there who skewered the album. I’m not sure if we’re listening to the same songs, because there is not a single song on Day & Age that is not eminently hummable.

The concert began with “Spaceman,” which is the current single for the band and supported by an odd, surrealistic video. It is blessed with an extremely catchy refrain (it starts around 1:15 in the linked video), and the band moved straight from that into “Losing Touch,” which happens to be my favorite song on Day & Age. There is a patented Killers moment in the middle of that song (around 2:30 in the linked video), when the song quiets down a bit, becomes almost delicate, and Flowers croons, “Impending doom/Must be true,” before pulling the drums and horns and guitars all back into it to end on a driving high note.

“Somebody Told Me” was next. I have a confession to make: This is not one of my favorite Killers songs. I’ve always found something a bit generic about it, a bit forgettable. And, although it was greeted warmly by the crowd, many of whom jumped to their feet for the first time in the evening, many other songs got much warmer receptions. The good news is that it feels like a much better song live, and it must be admitted that, like most Killers songs, it has a very good refrain (around 1:05). It was also a huge hit for them, and so there may be some nostalgia value in that. It certainly reminds me of a very specific time in my life.

The Killers followed “Somebody Told Me” with another older song, “Smile Like You Mean It.” (I must pause here to say what fondness I have for many Killers song titles, “Smile Like You Mean It” being one of them. And props to the Killers’ marketing team, which sold Killers toothbrushes at the concert emblazoned with the phrase “Smile like you mean it.”) The Killers once performed “Smile Like You Mean It” on “The O.C.,” which then, in a later episode, featured in a quieter cover version of the song by Tally Hall. Like all truly great songs, a bit of alteration makes “Smile Like You Mean It” seem like a completely new song (see also “Umbrella” for proof that a great song can be made a million different ways and stay great). The Killers sing this song in the style in which they’ve always played it, but you can tell it’s one of the more solid, flexible songs they’ve written.

Back to Day & Age, for “This Is Your Life,” and then the appropriately named “Joy Ride,” which is an extremely buoyant, energetic, joyful little tune, full of hope and enthusiasm. The Killers clearly hoped to set a summery mood with this song. Flowers told us to think of things like beaches and parasailing and whatever else our “pretty little heads” could “fathom.” Straight from “Joy Ride” into “I Can’t Stay,” which starts with the lines, “The emotion, it was/Electric,” and the crowd really belted that “electric” out along with Flowers. All in all, the songs off Day & Age are clearly being embraced by Killers fans, who, for the most part, seemed to have listened to the album enough to know almost all the words to almost all the songs.

The band then moved into “Shadowplay,” a Joy Division song that the Killers covered for Control and included on their album Sawdust. It is apparently a live staple for the band, who also played it in the tour to promote their second album, Sam’s Town. Sticking with Sam’s Town, the Killers next moved into “Bling (Confessions of a King),” a song never released as a single but with an irresistible anthemic conclusion, in which the crowd enthusiastically punched the air and shouted along with Flowers, “Higher and higher/We’re gonna take it/Down to the wire” (around 3:00). Continuing the Sam’s Town portion of the evening, the next song was “Bones,” which was a single off the album and starts in a very distinctive fashion.

The Killers shifted back to the considerable riches of Day & Age for “Neon Tiger,” which Hystrix confided is her least favorite song on the album. While I can see why she says that (I, actually, cannot pick a least favorite, although “Neon Tiger” is by no means one of my favorites), it does have a lovely wistful ending. Almost every Killers song has at least one moment that surprises you a bit, that shifts the song in such a way that makes you catch on it.

The Killers moved from “Neon Tiger” onto “Human,” which was their first single off Day & Age and which was, judging from the crowd reaction to it, a considerable hit for them. Indeed, “Human” received by far the loudest reception up to that point, and the crowd was evidently singing along so loudly that Flowers paused to let the audience take over the distinctive question of the refrain (around 0:43). Flowers was clearly delighted by how warmly the song was greeted, concluding the song by pressing his hands over his heart and bowing to the crowd.

“Sam’s Town” was next, but they played the Abbey Road version, with Flowers seated behind the piano. Much like “Smile Like You Mean It,” “Sam’s Town” is a strong enough song to discover new depths in it by playing it all different ways. I have always had a huge weakness for the relative simplicity of the Abbey Road version of this song. (I also, incidentally, wonder about the reception that the “I see London” line gets when the Killers perform in London, around 2:43 in the Abbey Road version.)

“Read My Mind” was next (another of my favorite song titles), and then, as if finally settling down to the heart of the matter, the Killers played “Mr. Brightside.” “Mr. Brightside” is the song I start singing for people when they tell me they don’t know who the Killers are, because this song is so pervasive that most people in the country seem to have absorbed knowledge of it through the osmosis that powerful songs travel by. There were people at the Killers concert who were clearly there solely for “Mr. Brightside.” “Mr. Brightside” is not my favorite Killers song. But I will make this proclamation here and now: “Mr. Brightside” may be one of the best songs ever written, and I certainly think it’s the best song the Killers have ever written. Flowers certainly seems to think so, too. He leaped about the stage while singing the song, and, while he did sing it, he almost needn’t have, because the crowd singing along with him was so incredibly loud that he was utterly drowned out. I am not sure I have ever heard a crowd sing along to a song as loudly as “Mr. Brightside.” There is something about that song that demands that you turn the volume way up and shout along to it. It simply cannot be helped. In fact, “Mr. Brightside” is such a good song that you almost feel like it’s too short and could be a longer song, and then you realize that it’s four minutes long and you wonder why it feels like it’s over a flash. I’ll tell you why it feels like it’s over in a flash: because it is just that good.

Some people actually left the concert after “Mr. Brightside” was done. In doing so, they entirely missed my all-time favorite Killers song, which is “All These Things That I’ve Done” (another fabulous title) and was the next song they played.  The song is known for its “I’ve got soul,  but I’m not a soldier” repetition in the middle (around 2:30), which the crowd appropriately belted out, but it is my favorite song for all the rest of it: for its mournful lead-in, for its main guitar line, for its refrain full of entreaty, for its line about being so much older than you can take, for the way that “I’ve got soul” part builds into a crescendo of energy (punctuated at the concert by an explosion of confetti), for the way the song ends in the way it begins, for the way Flowers holds the “I’ve” in “All these things that I’ve done” a bit longer than you might initially expect. It is a fantastic song, and if it didn’t bring down the house quite as much as “Mr. Brightside,” that doesn’t lessen the fact that the crowd clearly loved it.

The Killers took the requisite break at that point, before jumping back out to perform four “encores.” They started with “The World We Live In,” off Day & Age, notable for containing the line where the album title comes from (”I heard a rumor that you quit this day and age,” around 0:27) but otherwise not one of my favorites off the album, and then “For Reasons Unknown” (another great song title). Flowers announced that the next song would be “Jenny Was a Friend of Mine,” raising a cheer from the crowd. “Jenny” is actually another of my favorite Killers songs, even if I do find the lyrics creepy. Flowers gave the guitar in the song a nice spotlight, fitting as the guitar in the song is very distinctive.

The concert ended with “When You Were Young,” which I considered a bit of an odd choice to end the concert with. “When You Were Young” has always been one of my least favorite Killers songs. Like “Somebody Told Me,” I’ve always found it a bit generic. And, like “Somebody Told Me,” it is anything but generic when played live. The crowd was extremely into it, shouting the words, and the song ended with a display of sparks on the stage. And I’ll admit it: I was even singing my least favorite Killers song as we walked home. They do write some catchy music.