Earlier in the week, Brandon Flowers and The Killers teased a clip of the music video for their new synth-led single ‘Your Side Of Town’ that will arrive on Friday (8.25.)
Taking to X with a pre-save link for the tune, the pop rockers wrote: “Hello everyone, with much excitement we present you with Your Side of Town. It’s got the ghosts of a lot of synth music that inspired us over the years. And yet somehow feels completely our own. Now it’s yours! Turn it up.”
Their first song since ‘Boy’ in August of 2022, the band’s new music announcement comes days after they were forced to apologize after Brandon told an audience in Georgia that a Russian fan was their “brother”.
On Tuesday (8.15,) The Killers were booed at the end of their show in Batumi after inviting a man to play drums with them during ‘For Reasons Unknown’ and revealed to the crowd in the former Soviet state that he was from the neighboring country, which invaded them in 2008.
A video of the incident sees Brandon speaking to the crowd amid a mixture of cheers and boos: “We don’t know the etiquette of this land but this guy’s a Russian. You OK with a Russian coming up here?”
Following the song, the 42-year-old singer was booed again when he raised the subject a second time, saying “You can’t recognise if someone’s your brother? He’s not your brother?” “We all separate on the borders of our countries … Am I not your brother, being from America?” as Flowers urged the audience to celebrate “that we’re here together” adding “I don’t want it to turn ugly. And I see you as my brothers and my sisters.”
Following the upset, the group issued the following apologetic statement and insisted that they hadn’t meant to offend anyone:
“Good people of Georgia, it was never our intention to offend anyone!” “We have a longstanding tradition of inviting people to play drums and it seemed from the stage that the initial response from the crowd indicated that they were okay with tonight’s audience participation member coming onstage with us.” “We recognise that a comment, meant to suggest that all of the Killers’ audience and fans are ‘brothers and sisters’ could be misconstrued. We did not mean to upset anyone and we apologize. We stand with you and hope to return soon.”
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Author: Al Denté
Photo: Raph_PH