Indeed, he still seems to be thinking about it after their performance at the Belgian festival, which by anyone’s standards is a triumph: the crowd sing along, scream, hold up signs bearing messages of undying devotion to Flowers. But Flowers picks apart his performance: a wrong note here, a missed cue there. He hates playing in sunlight, he says. He worries that US audiences won’t be able to work out how huge The Killers are in Britain because they’ve chosen to record their live DVD at London’s Albert Hall rather than a vast stadium.
We repair to the side of the stage to watch Coldplay’s headlining set. Chris Martin goes into overdrive, asking the crowd if they enjoyed The Killers — they did — saying how hard it is to follow such a great band on stage, and getting the audience to sing, “I got soul, but I’m not a soldier,” the deathless refrain from All These Things That I’ve Done, the Killers track that Conservative Party leader David Cameron elected to be shipwrecked with.
I look over at Flowers and notice something extraordinary: nothing. He doesn’t react at all: not a smile, not an aw-shucks shrug. He just looks straight on, impassive to the sound of the biggest band in the world praising him to the skies and thousands of people singing his words. After all, he can’t help it if he’s businesslike.
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