Brandon Flowers has explained the incident that happened in “The Killers” show he hosted in Georgia, along with his band.
As is their tradition, the band invited a fan onto the stage to play the drums on their 2006 song, “For Reasons Unknown”, when Flowers, 42, asked if a Russian could come onstage.
“We don’t know the etiquette of this land but this guy’s a Russian. You OK with a Russian coming up here?” he asked.
The crowd did not love it as Russo-Georgian relations have been particularly strained since Russia invaded Ukraine last year, which has led to an emigration of Russian citizens to Georgia.
The Killers also happened to be performing shortly after the 25th anniversary of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Georgia, in 2008.
Speaking on the incident, Flowers said that they had to calm the situation.
“We want our concerts to be communal and I had no idea words I was taught my entire life to represent a unity of the human family could be taken as being pro-Russian occupation. We’re sad how this played out,” he said.
The Georgian crowd was not happy with Brandon’s statement and they had to put an apology out.
“Good people of Georgia, it was never our intention to offend anyone!” the band wrote in a statement.
“We have a long-standing tradition of inviting people to play drums and it seemed from the stage that the initial response from the crowd indicated that they were okay with tonight’s audience participation member coming on-stage with us.”
The band continued: “We recognize that a comment, meant to suggest that all of The Killers’ audience and fans are ‘brothers and sisters’, could be misconstrued.”
“We did not mean to upset anyone and apologize. We stand with you and hope to return soon.”
