The day that The Killers decide to take a couple of years off, they will involuntarily cause the closure of some festivals, since some depend on their presence to sell thousands of tickets. There is no band more effective than the Americans to close a festival. Last night they proved it again with an unbeatable and infallible concert where they were always driven by that attractive stage master who goes by the name of Brandon Flowers. It marked the end of four days of a Mad Cool (held at the Iberdrola Music space, in the Villaverde district, south of Madrid) without surprises that finally, and after seven editions, was reasonably well organized. The only wish now is that the fan who pays a lot of money is heard and that work continues to complete an experience as pleasant as possible; because, as in everything, there is room for improvement.
But now it’s time to talk about The Killers, “from Las Vegas, Nevada,” as their singer and undisputed leader repeatedly stressed. Flowers must be the cleanest and smoothest guy in pop music over the last two decades. You could almost smell the fragrance of his perfume last night from a distance. You looked at him, with that figure adorned with a white jacket (purple in the final phase), his hair with a sharp pompadour, his snow-white teeth and a manly refinement at 43 years old… And then you looked at yourself, and quickly returned your eyes to the stage. This man takes such care of his lustrous freshness that he doesn’t allow professional photographers to dare shoot him with their cameras, lest they remove the tiny pimple left by a mosquito that evaded the security of the five-star hotel where he spent the night. The group takes its own photographer on tour and the images that are distributed to the media are meticulously studied and retouched for later distribution. This is how those chosen by the Lord work to give luster to this world full of normal people. For one who enjoys eternal beauty, let us take care of him.
The Killers offered a show that gives meaning to these massive gatherings. Festivals were set up to see this group play their songs perfectly studied to provoke a bombastic effect. Already in the first song, My Own Soul’s Warningconfetti shot out, and the boss said, in Spanish, “I’ll be your host tonight.” He wasn’t lying. Flowers moved with elasticity across the stage, flexed his left leg on a monitor, and began to throw down hits like suns: Spaceman, When You Were YoungHuman o Somebody Told Me. When you think you can’t sing any more epic choruses, along come others that surpass them: Human, Runaways, Read My Mind o All These Things That I’ve Done. And when you can’t take it anymore, they close with Mr. Brightside, and you go home with “ooooooooh” bouncing around in your brain.
Before, the singer did the little thing of choosing someone from the audience who knew how to play the drums. He noticed Daniel, who (oh, surprise) was very good with the drumsticks. The young man played a whole song, For Reasons UnknownObviously the boy had been selected before, but The Killers are from Las Vegas, where everything is a catch.
Apart from Flowers’ magnetism, Dave Keuning proposes a guitar style that is far from showy and in favour of song, and the drummer, Ronnie Vannucci, sustains the anthemic architecture with robustness. Three great backing singers joined in the merriment, who gave lustre to the leader’s high notes. The Killers swept Mad Cool, we sang along to their songs and had a great time; now we will spend the whole year without hearing them… until we meet them at another summer festival.
There were more things going on on the fourth and final day of the Madrid event. What a wonderfully out of place Avril Lavigne made. She showed up wearing a sweatshirt zipped up to her neck and with the hood covering her head. High boots and wool socks that went above her knees. This, at 8pm, with 30 degrees and the sun beating down on her face. But she was doing her thing. Her musical prime passed two decades ago, but she is experiencing a rebirth thanks to the push she receives from a millennial generation that is rebellious. light It caught him right in his teens. Lavigne’s music turned Mad Cool into a karaoke bar run by thirty-somethings. You looked around and saw only faces crossed by a smile.
The Canadian was delighted with life. She drank straight from a bottle of cava, sang while greeting people as if she were in the victory parade, drew hearts with her fingers and stopped a song to thank a banner that read: “mother fucker princess.” In one hour, the Canadian packed all her hits to show that she had her moment of glory: Girlfriend, Complicated, My Happy EndingI’m With You…
He always had a chorus of thousands of people. “I want to see everyone going crazy,” he said in the final stretch when the crowd had already been in that state for a while. He performed the last Sk8er Boi. He walked off, stomping his foot to keep time with the last drum beat of that song and making the horns gesture with his raised hand. All frankly endearing, vintage and festive.
Bring Me The Horizon came out half an hour late, perhaps because they preferred to play at night to show off their stage. The English have their fans, but this columnist finds their synthetic sound and the singer’s insistence on switching from singing to shouting in a second to be uninspiring. In any case, they gave their all and many people enjoyed them. Oh, and there was a lot of fire on stage, which is always nice.
Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats played a concert with hardly any breaks. Their leader went from one instrument to another (guitar, organ, tambourine) and ordered his band to hit the audience with rhythm and blues, soul or rock and roll. Everything was fast-paced, fun and deep, because Ratelieff’s voice reaches where emotions are. The English Arlo Parks also enjoyed it. With her short orange hair and a sweet and crackly intonation, she developed her original pop with nuances: sometimes funk, sometimes soul and even some madness. grunge. It was another of the highlights of the day.
The seventh edition of Mad Cool has come to a close, the best in terms of organisation. The bar was not very high after a rocky path since it came into our lives back in 2016. But finally we experienced a festival without any surprises. The reduction in capacity has been a success, the relocation of the toilets too and the possibility of having public transport service is a luxury. There will be those who have their small (or medium) complaints, but in general and taking into account where we come from, we have to be satisfied. The maximum capacity was 58,000 (70,000 last year in the same place) and these are the figures, according to the organisation: Wednesday 10, with Dua Lipa as the star, 55,000; Thursday 11, with Pearl Jam, full, 58,000; Friday 12th with Måneskin, 50,000, and Saturday 13th, with The Killers, 57,000.
The disappointment of the sound at Pearl Jam’s concert remains, which prevented thousands of people from experiencing their visceral rock to the full. In addition, there was a lack of heavyweight bands in the second line. Neither Keane nor Bring Me The Horizon nor Sum 41 are bands to be displayed in large fonts on the poster. Not at least in 2024. Also, as cool as Damiano David may seem to us, Måneskin is not a headliner for such a big festival.
Nothing, just a few quick notes to finish in case anyone wants to listen to them…