Talamar’s Blog

… yes yes yes, the last weeks were wuite hazardous here at our rented home but now we finally got the covenant for the mortgage from our bank for buying the condominium, which my older sister offered us, since she and her husband bought a house. The apartment is wonderful: ground level, about 95 squaremeters big, a huge garden a the backside only for us, well it’s just: GREAT!!! We are really happy and we can’t await next march, when we’re moving in.

But now we have some things to do. Choosing the colors for the walls, some decorations, some new funritures and so on. All the crap, which comes when you move house (or apartment). Fortunately we just have to carry our stuff three levels downstairs – a real good thing on my old bones

Okay, that’s enough for now. I will try to post into the blog more often now the worst is over… bye for now.

• Location: The Kobold’s Den (Home)
  
• Mood: really happy
  
• TV-Show: The Hades Effect
  
• Music: TheKillers – Sam’s Town Album (what else? *g*)

Sunday, november, 5th 2006

Back again… sorry for posting this late but I am quite busy at the moment and I really don’t have that much time available for caring about this blog. But here I am… back again.

Well, the title says everything. “The Killers” Live in Cologne at the E-Werk. I came to the music of these four Las Vegasian more or less by accident, when I’ve heard one of their most famous songs (Somebody told me) on the wedding of our close friends Steffi and Holger. After that I fastly bought their debut album, which was the actual one at this time, and I have never regretted this buy.

Now with the release of their second CD called “Sam’s Town” the Killers finally came to germany for some concerts. Luckily I reacted fast to buy the tickets since the concerts were sold out lightning fast. And so we went out last Sunday to see “The Killers” live and I can only say – it was extremely awesome.

There was a band which played first for heating up the audience, but I forgot their name. They weren’t bad, but I wouldn’t say they were really good either. Not bad, not great, but okay. And the sound was bad too at this time and I feared that the sound of the headliner would be bad too.

But as soon as frontman Brandon Flowers, drummer Ronnie Vanucci, guitarist Dave Keuning and the bassist Mark Stoermer, came on the scene, I was told and shown better.

The sound was great, fantastic, and marvellous and the band started with some of their best and powerful songs. Unusual as they are, they first played two of their greatest hits just at the beginning – “When you were young” and “Somebody told me”.

But instead of calming down, the four professional musicians pressed more and more powerful songs out of their instruments. After just three songs the hall was quaking and shaking and all the people in it were dancing and sang along loudly. The Killers had the audience in their grip and they never loosened it until the end of the show.

Frontman Brandon did a great job. He is a very charismatic guy and he is able to express the songs not only with speech, but with his mimics and gestures too. A great entertainer, nothing more nothing less!

But also the other band members are absolute professional musicians and handsome with their instruments. I really like the style and the experience drummer Vanucci (what a wonder), puts in his play and how close he plays together with bassist Mark – almost like symbionts, while Dave adds his melodious guitar plays to this rhythm and bass section.

Remarkable about this is, that hearing The Killers live is absolutely like listento them on a CD, but much louder and even more powerful. It is often a fact that the voice of the singer in a band sounds different live (and often not so good) as on the studio album, but in case of this band this isn’t the fact. Voice and the sounds are original the same as on the CD, even the trumpets and Hammond organ sounds are there (thanks to frontman Brandon and a black shadowed figure who is sitting in the back of the stage and plays keyboards and synthesizers).

All in all a really great band in it’s whole!

But… not only the music and the sound were good, but also the show itself was very stylish. While my wife and I still argue about the thing, if the show was more like a Las Vegas Show (my opinion) or some kind of weird carnival show (her opinion), the set up and the look of the stage was awesome, just as the light show was. The Killers just used light in a broad variations and that was a good thing, since it matched their music style perfect. No explosions or pyros and such stuff but lights, spots and beams – and that was a good decision.

Summarizing this, “The Killers – Live in Cologne” was a really marvellous and fantastic happening and a great show. The Killers have no need to hide from the mega-acts out there. They definitely have their very own and special potential, just like Brandon sings in “Somebody told me”. We are eager to see them again in the future. Until then we have to listen to the excellent CD’s. I am sure that the future will be glorious for The Killers…

Here are some videos from the concert on youtube.com:

Enterlude + When you were young
Read my mind
Bling
Mr. Brightside
Jenny was a friend of mine
Exitlude

• Location: The Kobold’s Den (Home)
  
• Mood: frustrated
• TV-Show: Smallville Season 4
• Music: TheKillers – Sam’s Town (what else? *g*)