The Killers’ moment with The Boss reaches the masses
Brandon Flowers told the crowd at Madison Square Garden in October 2022, “Everyone gets a little nervous when their boss shows up to work, right?”
The Killers’ boss was The Boss for all time, Bruce Springsteen, who took the stage for the video and companion 12-inch vinyl record, “The Killers & Bruce Springsteen: Encore At The Garden.”
The 16-minute performance was released on TheKillersMusic YouTube channel Saturday. The vinyl is available “at your local record store,” the band says on its social channels. Go to recordstoreday.com for details.
“Badlands,” “A Dustland Fairytale,” and “Born To Run” is the set list, performed as the show’s encore. Flowers can hardly contain his excitement, falling short of breath at the intro of “Dustland.”
The band followed through on its corporate show for the Google Cloud conference at Allegiant Stadium on Thursday, as we reported a while back. Guitarist Ted Sablay posted a video of the band ripping through a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way.” About 20,000 conventioneers turned out.
Otherwise, the band’s Las Vegas residency strategy is status quo. Nothing on the books. I look at the band’s discography, and there are many albums other than “Hot Fuss” to spotlight, should the time come.
On the topic of Vegas rock stars …
Andre Agassi is serious about his pickleball. The eight-time Grand Slam tennis champ and Las Vegas native hosted the first “Agassi Open Play Day” Saturday at Life Time Green Valley. Maroon 5 guitarist James Valentine, Life Time Chairman and CEO Bahram Akradi, pickleball star Ryan Sherry and 11-year-old phenom of the sport, Jack Lowridge, participated.
The event was part of a series of events across the country at more than 775 Life Time courts.
“When I talk about my involvement with pickleball I have to qualify it, because I used to be really good at something called tennis,” Agassi joked.
In February, Agassi and his tennis-legend wife, Steffi Graf, prevailed over Andy Roddick and Genie Bouchard in Pickleball Slam 3 at Michelob Ultra Arena in February.
Saying there are still some question marks about the sport’s appeal as a TV vehicle, the racquet-bearing icon said, “I believe in it adding to people’s lives, to helping the community, to how you can improve. I love all of it.”
Gaga’s prep
Lady Gaga destroyed with her five-act “Mayhem” theater piece and concert at Coachella on Friday night. Fans remarked about its Gothic and demonic undercurrents. From an account in The Guardian, Gaga “has approached pop as transmogrification, live performance like a hunter — the piercing gaze, transparent hunger and annihilating focus of an apex predator.”
“Gaga conjures an entire fantasy of witches and queens, a typically twisted, self-referential fairy-tale of literal dark and light told in five acts.”
No, this was not a “Jazz + Piano” revival.
Gaga prepped for the shows off-and-on for the past two weeks at Dolby Live, occupying the theater left vacant when Mötley Crüe postponed its residency in the theater.
Sphere tacks ‘em on
“Postcard from Earth” and U2’s concert movie “V-U2” have been extended through June. To be determined is how these productions in the Sphere Experience brand will coexist with “The Wizard of Oz at Sphere,” if “Postcard,” especially, will be sidelined and if the room will play to the approximately 5,000-capacity for the Experience shows or 17,600 set for headliners.
Also, we expect updates on run time — still feeling 80 minutes — and the status of flying-drone monkeys, live-action tornadoes and related non-movie elements in “Oz.”
Bryce is right
Bryce Krausman counts his tenure as owner of DW Bistro in the same way the “Rent” anthem “Seasons of Love” tracks time, “Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes …”
“But I count it as, ‘How long were the waits for tables, how many brunches did we do in 15 years?” The quick math is 705, including last Sunday’s closing of the favorite brunch destination at The Gramercy. Also, 200,000 bottles of champagne, poured during the Bistro’s time on South Fort Apache Road and, since November 2016, The Gramercy.
“I saw where Barry Manilow had set a record for the number of shows at the Westgate, 600-something,” Krausman said. “We’ve done our show, the brunches, more times than that.”
Krausman says the closing of DW Bistro was largely due to life issues, not business-related. His partner and founding chef Dalton Wilson was not able to attend the April 7 sendoff while tending to an ailing family member.
“This was about life changes, and it was just time for us,” Krausman said during a phone chat Saturday. “I see us moving on, not with another restaurant right away, but cookbooks and virtual things, in that world.”
Krausman is still CEO of House Seats, the subscription seat-filling site that services all level of ticketed performances in Las Vegas. As for DW Bistro, the founder says, “We opened before Instagram was anything and nobody was using Facebook to promote businesses. We were word-of-mouth then and were up to when we closed. I’m happy. We’ve had our large-confetti moment.”
Might we recommend …
Kelly Clinton-Holmes’ “Sit In” at 7-8:30 p.m. Thursday at The Composers Room at Historic Commercial Center. Frankie Moreno is guest starring, ahead of his next series at South Point Showroom on Friday and Saturday. Paige Strafella (“The King Comes Home” at Westgate and Mondays Dark), and Positively Arts founder and Walt Disney World performer Pilita Simpson are also in the mix. Ducats are $25-$35, go to thecomposersroom.com for intel.
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.
