[phlipcam video] Brandon Flowers @ the House of Blues

Phoenix cover story: Brandon Flowers and the evolution of a pop-star Killer

When Brandon Flower's dropped Flamingo back in September, I consciously took a pass on checking for it. Maybe it was the markedly vanilla single "Crossfire" that beat me into ambivalence thanks to a nearly offensive radio play frequency. Or perhaps it was the middling at best reviews, including one from our own Michael Christopher deeming it "straight-up soccer-mom material." But for some reason, I just had little to no interest in a solo CD from the lead singer of the Killers in the year 2010.

Well, silly me, as Friday night's House of Blues show proved once again that my preemptive musical judgment is middling at best. Sure, his new music sounds pretty much like what you'd expect it to sound like, but I've literally loved everything the band has released thus far in their career, even though the critical consensus of those releases has also been of the mixed variety. Focusing mainly on his new material, with which I was unfamiliar with outside of the singles, Flowers still managed to deliver on a rip-roaring set lasting about an hour and confirming my suspicion that I'm just a sucker for blown-the-fuck-out-of-proportion glam rock.

Since he exists in the Morrissey (slash Julian Casablancas/Eddie Vedder/etc. slash etc.) realm of completely outshining his equally talented band-mates while with the Killers, I think it goes without saying that he was the show on Friday. He may or may not have been the only one on stage as he ran through the entirety of Flamingo, a handful of Killers songs ("Losing Touch," "Mr. Brightside," and the intro to "Human"), and a wholly appropriate cover of "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes.

Bros rejoiced. Chicks swooned. And I flipcam'd a video of "Swallow It," embedded above.