The Killers at The Wiltern (or, The Untold Story of Brandon Flowers)

Imagine a dark London alley where passionate strangers meet. Or the backroom of a glamorous club, cocaine heaped high. It is the late ‘70’s or early ‘80’s. Two pop icons, one glam and one goth, find each other across the abyss of circumstance. They embrace. There is no conversation, no eye contact, no violins (except for synth violins). Robert finds his cure, Freddie his queen. Bereft of uteruses both, they lay the tiny, still unformed offspring of their union in a cabbage patch. And then they part forever. The flowers name the orphan “Brandon.”

He is soon adopted by a kind old couple in Las Vegas. The young lad grows, his true origins unknown to him. Like a dog-wolf, he knows not whether to shun people or embrace them. To belt or to whimper? To raise a defiant fist in the air or stare at his shoes? To wear true black or soft black eyeliner? But there is no doubt about the songs rising within him: about survival, glory, girlfriends, and boyfriends.

One day he meets a wizened old gnome (actually an A&R man in disguise) on a lonely desert road. The gnome tells him, “you, my child, will one day write a concept album of monumental proportions. It will be all-American, small-town, white-trash blues in the new-wave idiom. You might grow a butch mustache too. Then, you shall know who you truly are.”

“Yes,” Brandon replied, with sudden understanding of his exalted origins, his bright destiny, and also the dear price of this understanding. “And Springsteen shall be my Merlin.”

What follows after this, you know.

P.S. I did in fact attend a musical performance by “The Killers” on October 7. It was AWESOME!!!

Photo by Steven_Sanchez