Imploding the Mirage Tour

The Imploding the Mirage Tour was the sixth major concert tour by American rock band The Killers. The tour supported their sixth and seventh studio albums Imploding the Mirage (2020) and Pressure Machine (2021). The tour began at the Terminal 5 in New York City on August 19, 2021, and ended at Interlagos Circuit in São Paulo on December 2, 2023.

Background

Announcements and tour itinerary

The tour was initially announced in November 2019, with a series of stadium concerts in the UK and Ireland in May and June 2020. This was followed by announcements for multiple festival and arena shows across Europe in summer 2020. However, in April 2020, the band were forced to postpone the shows due to the COVID-19 pandemic, rescheduling them to summer 2021. Further pandemic restrictions forced the band to postpone the shows again in March 2021, moving them to summer 2022.

Following the announcement of the band's seventh studio album, Pressure Machine, in July 2021, the band also added a number of dates across North America between August and October 2022 to the tour. The tour began with a series of warm-up shows in the United States between August and December 2021, which also coincided with the release of Pressure Machine.

In November 2021, the band further extended the tour by announcing dates in Mexico in April 2022, and in Australia and New Zealand in November and December 2022.

In February 2022, the band announced that the tour would begin with three intimate shows at Las Vegas' Cosmopolitan Hotel in April 2022. This preceded the tour's first stadium shows in Mexico in April and May. The tour then continued on to the UK and Ireland in May and June 2022, and in April the band announced that the UK tour would begin with an intimate warm-up show at the O2 Academy Sheffield. The tour then continued on throughout Europe and to North America during the summer of 2022.

In August and September, the band announced a further leg of the tour into South America in November 2022, with shows in Colombia, Chile and Brazil. This was followed by their previously announced tour of Australia and New Zealand in November and December 2022.

In December 2022, the band confirmed that the tour would continue into 2023. This began with the a series of shows in the United States throughout the year, followed by the announcement that the band would tour the UK and Ireland again in August and September 2023, most notably with headline slots at the Reading and Leeds Festivals.

In July 2023, the band announced that the tour would end with a headline slot at Primavera Sound in São Paulo in December.

Highlights

At the first of two shows at London's Emirates Stadium on June 3, 2022, the band debuted the title track from their 2021 album Pressure Machine following a request from BBC Radio 2 DJ Jo Whiley, who was in attendance that night. Before performing the track, Flowers said, "Jo Whiley, she’s always championed us since the very beginning – she’s here tonight. She should have a jubilee, right? She said some wonderful things about this next song and she requested it tonight – if you don’t like it blame her. It’s called ‘Pressure Machine’." Whiley later said on Twitter that this was a "life highlight".

The band's show in Manchester on June 11, 2022 attracted headlines after 67-year-old Doug James crowd-surfed to the front of the audience during the show and injured his head. Frontman Brandon Flowers embraced James after he was carried over the security barriers, and James later said it was “like his childhood [was] coming back” and it brought him “so much joy”.

At their headline set at the Mad Cool Festival in Madrid in on July 7, 2022, the band debuted new track "boy" for the first time. Flowers introduced the new song by asking the crowd, "Do you wanna be the first to hear us play a new song right now? It goes like this." A studio version of "boy" was later released on August 5.

The following August, the band released another new single, "Your Side of Town", on August 25, 2023, on the weekend that they headlined Reading and Leeds Festivals. The song was debuted live the next day at Reading, on August 26.

In November 2023, "boy" and "Your Side of Town" were confirmed to be included on the band's second greatest hits album, Rebel Diamonds. The third new track from Rebel Diamonds, "Spirit", was debuted live in São Paulo on November 30, the week before the song (and album) was released.

Controversies

On August 15, 2023, the band apologized after inviting an audience member from Russia to perform on drums for "For Reasons Unknown" during their concert in Batumi in Georgia, the band's first ever show in the country. After inviting the audience member on stage, frontman Brandon Flowers asked the crowd, "We don't know the etiquette of this land but this guy's a Russian. You OK with a Russian coming up here?", which was greeted with a mix of boos and cheers. Flowers later responded to crowd discontent by asking, "You can't recognize if someone's your brother? He's not your brother?", which led to further booing and a small percentage of fans walking out of the arena in protest. The band later issued an apology on their social media pages, stating "it was never our intention to offend anyone" and recognizing that Flowers' comments "could be misconstrued".

Critical reception

The tour received widespread acclaim from music critics.

Reviewing their second performance at the Emirates Stadium in London in 2022, Thomas Smith of NME awarded the band four stars, commenting that they strike the balance between "humble and grateful; bombastic and flashy" and that frontman Brandon Flowers has "Jagger-level bundles of energy and a similar magnetism". Smith particularly praised the additions to the set list from the Imploding the Mirage album. Jenessa Williams of The Guardian also gave the band four stars for their intimate warm-up show at the O2 Academy in Sheffield prior to the start of the UK and Ireland leg of the tour in 2022, noting that the band overcame issues with the venue's sound system and consequently that "tonight’s cage might not have been as grand as the Killers are used to, but with 20 years of practice and the crowd on their side, they’re still coming out of it with style".

These sentiments were echoed in reviews of the band's headline set at the 2023 Reading and Leeds Festivals. NME's Andrew Trendell called "Mr. Brightside" "a fitting showstopper of showmanship to a set that could run as a Vegas residency for the rest of time" in his four-star review of the performance. The i newspaper's Ali Shutler awarded the same number of stars in his review, remarking that "The Killers’ music remains universal and timeless" and praising the band's balance between "a sense of nostalgia" and "fresh-faced excitement".

Set list

This set list is representative of the show on May 24, 2022 in Doncaster. It is not intended to represent all shows from the tour.

1. "My Own Soul's Warning"
2. "Enterlude"
3. "When You Were Young"
4. "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine"
5. "Smile Like You Mean It"
6. "Shot at the Night"
7. "Blowback"
8. "Running Towards a Place"
9. "Mr. Brightside"
10. "Somebody Told Me"
11. "Fire in Bone"
12. "Shadowplay"
13. "Run for Cover"
14. "Runaway Horses"
15. "A Dustland Fairytale"
16. "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"
17. "Runaways"
18. "Read My Mind"
19. "Dying Breed
20. "Caution" (with "Rut Segue intro")

Encore

1. "Spaceman"
2. "Human"
3. "Midnight Show"
4. "All These Things That I've Done"

Special guests

• Alex Moore performed The Lathums' "How Beautiful Life Can Be" with the band during the concert on July 16, 2022 in Vienna, and again on July 16 in Amsterdam.
• Johnny Marr performed The Smiths' "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out", "Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before", "What She Said", "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want", "This Charming Man" and "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby", as well as The Killers' "Mr. Brightside", frequently during the encore of the band's 2022 North American tour (where Marr also served as the band's opening act). Marr returned to play "This Charming Man" and "When You Were Young" with the band on August 29, 2023 in Edinburgh.
• Lindsey Buckingham performed Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" and The Killers' "Caution" and "Mr. Brightside" with the band during the concert on August 27, 2022 in Los Angeles.
• Bruce Springsteen performed "Born to Run" and "Badlands" and The Killers' "A Dustland Fairytale" with the band during the concert on October 2, 2022 in New York City.
• Mike Scott performed The Waterboys' "The Whole of the Moon" with the band during their headline performance at the Electric Picnic Festival on September 3, 2023.

Midnight show

This set list is representative of the show on November 21, 2022 at Auckland Town Hall. It is not intended to represent all shows from the tour.

1. "Midnight Show"
2. "Shadowplay" (Joy Division cover)
3. "Human"
4. "Bling (Confession of a King)"
5. "Cody"
6. "Pressure Machine"
7. "This River Is Wild"
8. "Bones"
9. "The Way It Was"
10. "Run for Cover"
11. "From Here on Out"
12. "Mr. Brightside"
13. "When You Were Young"

Tour dates

Cancelled shows

Personnel

Credits adapted from LasVegasRoundTheClock and Consequence of Sound

The Killers

• Brandon Flowers - lead vocals, keyboards, piano, bass on "For Reasons Unknown"
• Dave Keuning - lead guitar, backing vocals (did not appear on May 17 - June 22, 2022, returned to the tour on July 2, 2022 in Gdynia, Poland, absent in 2023 dates)
• Ronnie Vannucci Jr. - drums, percussion, rhythm guitar on "For Reasons Unknown" (audience member on drums)

Additional musicians

• Ted Sablay - keyboards, rhythm guitar, lead guitar (May 17 - June 22, 2022 and 2023 dates), musical director, backing vocals
• Jake Blanton - bass, backing vocals
• Taylor Milne - rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals
• Robbie Connolly - keyboards, rhythm guitar, backing vocals
• Erica Canales - background vocals
• Melissa Mcmillan - background vocals
• Tori Allen - background vocals, violin, acoustic guitar

Notes