A harmonica line carries a mournful chord progression as green light washes over the stage. What Brandon Flowers opens with isn't any Killers hit, but a brand new song that hasn't even been officially titled yet. On Saturday, October 17th, the frontman played a solo tour date at Beacon Hall in Bristol, UK, with a lineup and setlist that pushed the show well beyond routine.
The show was held in celebration of Flowers' latest solo album, *Thrasher*, which sees him taking a rare look back at his Utah upbringing and leaning into the country music he grew up on. Following last week's big show at London's Royal Albert Hall, The Killers frontman brought his UK tour to Bristol.
Sticking with the pattern from previous shows, the set opened with the upbeat one-two punch of "The Red Ground" and "Does It Ever Cross Your Mind?" before moving into his 2010 solo single "Crossfire." The middle of the set wove in *Thrasher* tracks like "Tiger's Blood," "Miss America," and "Still Want You," without skipping Killers classics either, including "In The Car Outside" from *Pressure Machine* and "Read My Mind" from the *Sam's Town* era.
What set this Bristol night apart was Flowers covering The Coral's 2002 track "Dreaming Of You," performed with his solo band and two female backing vocalists, giving the indie classic a country-tinged twist.
The other highlight of the night was the live debut of the unreleased track "A Good Man Is Hard To Find." The song opened under minimal green lighting, with understated instrumentation that drew the audience in, as Flowers sang about holding on to faith in love even through hard times: "Led through the desert by the deaf and the blind / Now she's battered and bruised," his harmonica melody trailing close behind his voice. By the chorus, the song swelled into something more urgent as he sang, "She can change her number, she can change her mind / But a good man is hard to find."
The *Thrasher* tour kicked off in North America last month, with Flowers bringing his 15-year-old son Henry on stage during the Salt Lake City show for a cover of Oasis' "Don't Look Back In Anger." The UK and Ireland leg moves on to Manchester on Tuesday, October 20th, followed by dates in Nottingham, Glasgow, and Dublin through the rest of October.
*Thrasher* marks Flowers' first solo album in over a decade, following 2015's *The Desired Effect*. As for "A Good Man Is Hard To Find," Flowers told NME back in August that *Thrasher* is actually the first of two linked solo albums — the follow-up, described as more "romantic" in tone, is already finished and set for release, with this new track likely to appear on it.
He described the upcoming companion album as "maybe not as country, but country-adjacent, like Tom Petty's take on country, or The Traveling Wilburys." Speaking about what drove the project, he said: "I see it as a response to the loneliness epidemic. The problem I see is that we're pulling each other apart, and the beautiful things that make us human are slipping away. The greatest joys of my life have been those moments — being young, dating, falling in love, whatever it is. That's what keeps the world turning."
