Gig review: Brandon Flowers at York Barbican

For one of rock ’n’ roll’s biggest performers, Brandon Flowers has proven himself no stranger to a geographical swerve off the beaten track now and again.

Four years ago, the Nevada-born frontman of The Killers chose to launch his band’s grandest tour thus far in the oddball environs of Doncaster’s Eco-Power Stadium.

Now, amid his first solo jaunt since 2015, he has taken the brief one-stop trip up the East Coast Main Line for a flying visit to the York Barbican, two decades on from treading the boards at Fibbers for his nascent day job.

Yet plenty of questions linger here. After over half-a-dozen records bolstered by shimmering new-wave hooks and Springsteenian heartland choruses, the star’s third self-supplied effort Thrasher represents something of a nominal volte-face; synth-disco frissons and west-coast sparkles swapped out for rhinestone-fringed introspection and honky-tonk hoedowns with his full-throated pivot to Nashville country.

Critical response has been appreciative, but a sense of trepidation does percolate over how its material will be squared with the rest of his oeuvre.

Such concerns are swiftly alleviated with consummate polish and concise musicianship. With wide lapels sprung free inside 30 seconds, and his Vegas grin tempered with a humanistic flair, Flowers is not so much chameleonically refreshed as he is exposed anew; a man with a new-look catalogue that, for all its bells and whistles, still ultimately breathes with widescreen abandon, still possesses a cinematic soul.

The Americana-kissed palate of Tiger’s Blood and Angel’s melodic mourn nominally unspool the threads of the undervalued Pressure Machine from back in 2021; Does It Ever Cross Your Mind?’s pin-tack bluegrass and the prairie sway behind Plans meanwhile stack up fine against the effervescent gleam of old singles Crossfire and Lonely Town, their own Eighties-pop nostalgia now refashioned by that fondest absence.

Across a luxurious 90-minute-plus night, the singer frequently marvels at the comparative club-intimacy of his surroundings, confessional asides and light anecdotes delivered with the touch of a seasoned residency player – one smoothly attuned enough to sprinkle a handful of prime-rib cuts from his regular group, with rousingly bombastic renditions of All These Things That I’ve Done and Read My Mind received with giddy aplomb.

“It took a long time to realise I could love both Shed Seven and Johnny Cash,” Flowers muses before swooning closer An American Dream delivers a lushly elegiac showstopper. Many will delight that he finally has.