When The Killers announced a while back that Johnny Marr would be opening up the Vegas band’s 2022 North American tour, it was easy to fantasize about some cool on-stage collaborations and special performances of The Smiths’ classics. It did not take very long for those wishes to come true as The Killers’ long-awaited Imploding The Mirage tour kicked off over the weekend in the Pacific Northwest.
On Friday (August 19), at the tour opener at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, Marr joined The Killers on stage to play a pair of Smiths songs in “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” and “There is a Light That Never Goes Out.” On Saturday (August 20) at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena, The Killers brought Marr on for the encore, which included a lively “Mr. Brightside” and The Smiths’ “What She Said,” the latter described by Brandon Flowers as “the first punk rock song that I fell in love with.”
Last night (August 22) at Moda Center in Portland, The Killers closed with “Mr. Brightside” and “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out,” according to setlist.fm, with Marr on guitar.
Pretty cool stuff.
Watch fan-filmed video from the Vancouver and Seattle shows below, and let’s hope this trend continues through the tour — The Killers play Boston’s TD Garden on October 3.