Their appearance on Worthy Farm has been whispered for a while now, but the closer we get, the more certain it becomes. Still, it can’t really be happening, can it? The Killers – a band who can headline festivals this size, playing midway through the day in the John Peel tent?
Mere seconds before they hit the stage, with the largest crowd it’s seen all weekend (and perhaps ever) waiting with baited breath, that iconic K is uncovered. Its light shines out. This is happening.
If any band claims to have more indie bangers in the last fifteen years than The Killers, they’re lying. Not just a little bit, either. Kicking off with ‘When You Were Young’, they follow it up with ‘Somebody Told Me’. Not long later there’s ‘Human’ and ‘Smile Like You Mean It’, before unleashing new single ‘The Man’ – a track with so much disco fever it’s a surprise Barry Gibb isn’t summoned from his main stage Pyramid Legends slot. Radiohead left their big songs to the end; Foo Fighters made each one last ten minutes – The Killers are going to headline this thing regardless of the slot they’re booked in.
‘Glamorous Indie Rock & Roll’ recalls an era where, even on their debut album, the Las Vegas troupe felt like they had stardust running through their veins. ‘Runaways’ feels like a bonafide anthem, the crowd singing back every word, but that’s nothing compared to ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’ – a song that provokes a singalong so extreme its refrain doesn’t even need a prompt to come hurtling back at deafening volumes.
And then there’s ‘Mr Brightside’.
When you’re younger, sometimes you’ll come across grown-ups who tell you that your music is throwaway. That the bands you like, they’ll never go down in legend like the bands they did. In ten, twenty years, they’ll be forgotten. ‘Mr Brightside’ is the cherry on top of the cake for a band who take that backwards logic and stomp it into the dirt where it belongs. There’s quite probably not a song in the last fifteen years that can touch The Killers’ iconic calling card, and Glastonbury knows it. The Pyramid Stage would tremble in the face of this reaction.
There may be a few hours of 2017’s left festival yet, but the results are in. The Killers are back, and boy, do they mean business.
The Killers played:
When You Were Young
Somebody Told Me
Spaceman
Human
Smile Like You Mean It
The Man
Glamorous Indie Rock & Roll
Read My Mind
Runaways
All These Things That I’ve Done
Mr. Brightside