The Killers feted rock icon U2 with a cover of “Where the Streets Have No Name” during a show in Connecticut.
Videos by American Songwriter
“Do you know why we celebrate St Patrick’s Day?” frontman Brandon Flowers asked the crowd at Uncasville’s Mohegan Sun Arena. “We bring with us an Irishman everywhere we go. He’s been doing lights for us for about 17 years, Steven Douglas.”
Flowers then pointed out the lighting designer before shifting his focus to U2’s magnum opus The Joshua Tree.
“But even long before we had met Steven – we all love U2 – and they had the little album called Joshua Tree,” he said. “We thought since that’s sort of the common denominator of this band, you know, we all could agree upon U2 … when we first started.”
Flowers then revealed the band was “gonna do a little tribute to them – Christianity coming to Ireland and U2 singing about unity – here tonight.” The group then launched into the opening notes of U2’s 1987 track “Where the Streets Have No Name.”
The lyrics in “Where the Streets Have No Name” center on religion and identity. Bono reportedly was inspired by the idea that it is impossible to identify a person’s religion and livelihood based solely on the street they live on.
Check out The Killers’ version of the song below.
In other Killers news, the band was announced as headliners for Bourbon & Beyond Festival earlier this month, alongside Brandi Carlile and Bruno Mars. The four-day event, dubbed the “world’s biggest bourbon and music festival,” will take place at Louisville’s Highland Festival Grounds in Kentucky on September 14 through September 17.
Meanwhile, U2 recently released an album titled Songs of Surrender, which is described as a “reimagining and re-recording” of 40 of their most classic tracks.
Photo by Richard Kepler / Courtesy of The Oriel Co.
