The summer of unpredictably fluctuating temperatures seems to have subsided rather quickly. With the prospect of magnificent fall weather on the horizon, it’s now imperative to squeeze in all those standard Memorial-to-Labor-Day activities we’ve been putting off. The Summerstage lineup was basically bland this year (aside from the big guns: Dirty Projectors, TV on the Radio, Phoenix, Passion Pit), so now, here we are in September, glued to swivelly desk chairs and longing for sweat-saturated orchestra pits; high-fiving strangers under the big open sky and loving the hell outta life while toasting those plastic Bud Light bottles to the most excellent part of hot summers in the city: outdoor music. Yesterday, we finally broke down and decided to fill the void in our summer scrapbooks. We abandoned our cushy cubicles for the great state of New Jersey—well, Nikon at Jones Beach Theater—to catch The Killers show.

The LIRR commute caused us to miss Wolfmother, but we ran into the amphitheater (VIP tickets in hand) just as Brandon Flowers was belting out, “Somebody told me you had a boyfriend who looks like a girlfriend,” and we all agreed: choice entrance song. The Killers are almost always live crowd pleasers with their elaborate light shows and the bouncing gaggles of lip-synching female fans that populate their audience. Jones Beach was no exception, and we were outside -- mission accomplished. They played the favorites from Hot Fuss (“Smile Like You Mean It”, “Change Your Mind”, “Believe Me Natalie”, “Mr. Brightside”, “All These Things That I’ve Done”), intermixed with some of the Sam’s Town hits (“For Reasons Unknown”, “Bones”, “Read My Mind”), but they were light on material from their ’08 album, Day & Age. We expected the show to be all “Day & Aged-out,” so being greeted with the old songs we don’t even have to pretend to love (or like) was a pleasant surprise. They played “Human,” which always deserves a few giggles (Are we human or are we dancer -- really?). “Jenny Was a Friend of Mine” and “When You Were Young” got the encore. We wished for something more upbeat, but no real complaining. Jones Beach is a dry theatre, which deprives the audience of some of that “fun factor”, but we were in the tents, where you can buy beer until exactly 45 minutes before the band finishes. How they can gage that is still a mystery. The band’s assistant tour manager confirmed that it was a challenge playing dry venues, although, we figured that their lead singer is a practicing Mormon, so it should help them connect with their fans?