Live from Royal Albert Hall

AMG Review of Live from Royal Albert Hall

Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music Guide

Culled from a two-night stand at the legendary Royal Albert Hall in London in July of 2009, the CD/DVD set Live from the Royal Albert Hall won't win over any skeptics -- the kind who may sneer at the Killers covering Joy Division, as they do rather early on here -- but the group doesn't care. They're unflappable, confident in their command, not messiahs looking to convert (a trait they managed to not take from U2) but to satiate their flock. And that does give the lengthy Live from the Royal Albert Hall -- a whopping 22 tracks on the DVD, shortened to 17 on the CD -- considerable momentum, one that flattens the excesses of Sam's Town and pumps up Day & Age, one that makes the hits from Hot Fuss sound as if they've always existed. The Killers build up a force that causes Brandon Flowers to occasionally be short of breath, but by the time he's panting on "All These Things That I've Done," he's earned it: he and his band command a large audience through plainly evident hard work.