The Killers Concert: Are We Dancer?

The lights are dim. The crowd is silent. In your stomach, a mosh pit of butterflies is dancing around.

Some could argue those moments right before a concert begins are even better than the show itself. That anticipation held in the seconds between the lights going dark and the shadow of your favorite artist appearing on stage stays with you for a lifetime. Then comes the collective screaming of the crowd, everyone eager for the first notes. How is it possible for a room to be so loud and so silent at the same time?

I’m not sure exactly when my love for concerts began, but I can tell you about the moment I realized the power they held over my life.

It was my first show coming out of the pandemic, and my excitement was laced with anxiety. The Killers were playing a small casino about an hour from my hometown. Having never had the opportunity to see them before, this night was a long time coming. They’d been my favorite band since third grade, ever since I heard “Human” echoing from the TV in the living room. I remember standing there, frozen, as I watched Brandon Flowers dazzle across the stage of Royal Albert Hall in a black blazer with feather shoulder pads. He was singing, “Are we human? Or are we dancer?” In that moment, I locked in as a fan for life.

Naturally, when I found out they were performing nearby, there was nobody I’d rather go with than the person who introduced me to them, my Dad. We stayed at a hotel nearby where other fans had also booked their rooms. We shared smiles in the hallways with people we knew were there for the show (The Killers memorabilia was a good hint). As we neared the venue, we could feel the energy before we even got out of the car; it was truly electric.

We walked into the theater with GA tickets and found ourselves three rows back from the barricade... with two and a half hours until showtime. As a lifelong fangirl, two hours sounded like a piece of cake. That is, until about twenty minutes in, when my back started hurting and I realized just how out of practice I was. It was totally worth it, though.

One benefit of standing for two and a half hours is that you meet everyone around you. It was energizing to connect with people who were there for the exact same reason but with their own personal connections to the band. You could tell everyone was itching to feel the energy of a live performance again. We met people like us, seeing The Killers for the first time, and veteran fans who had been to dozens of shows. One guy even had his entire body tattooed with their lyrics.

So, here we are: three rows from the stage. It’s just after 9:00 PM on a Tuesday night in a casino in the middle of Pennsylvania. We’re discussing which songs we hope to hear when, all of a sudden, the lights go dark.

It’s silent, yet everyone is screaming.

I feel that pit in my stomach and was immediately transported back to my third-grade self, wondering what she would think of this moment. Would she believe we are actually seeing The Killers?

I looked around and felt an immense wave of emotion, realizing how many people had gathered for this one shared purpose. Outside of those theater doors, we are all individuals with separate lives, families, jobs, hobbies, likes, and dislikes. But in this room, we are one.

What felt like minutes was actually only seconds. And before I knew it, The Killers appeared in front of my eyes. Brandon wore a blazer and danced around the stage just as he had at Royal Albert Hall on my TV screen years before. My dreams finally became a reality.

The power of live entertainment will never be lost on me. It’s something I will never take for granted.

Music holds a unique power to bring people together and evoke shared emotions among total strangers.

At the end of the day, we are all just humans on this Earth. Or are we dancer?