Brandon Flowers marked Dolly Parton's death at an intimate hometown show, in a room far smaller than the ones The Killers usually play. At The State Room in Salt Lake City, the first of two warmup dates before the Thrasher Tour, he brought backing vocalists Erica Canales and Nicky Egan to centre stage to sing "Islands In The Stream" with him.
The song is not one of Parton's own compositions. The Bee Gees wrote it, and Parton recorded it with Kenny Rogers for his 1983 album Eyes That See In The Dark. It went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and has outlived most of the records around it. Parton died on August 25 at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville at 80, after a brief illness.
The choice fits where Flowers currently is. The concert came a week after he released Thrasher, his first solo album in 11 years, which he has described as a return to the country music he grew up hearing. He has cited Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings among the artists his father played on drives through the Utah countryside.
"As I've gotten older, I've found my way back to my father's music, 'Country-Western,'" Flowers said of the record, adding that the stories he carries feel most at home in that tradition. A country duet from 1983 is a natural thing for a set built on that premise to absorb.
He showcased eight of Thrasher's ten tracks on the night, including live debuts of "The Red Ground", "Does It Ever Cross Your Mind?", "Angel" and the closing "An American Dream". The setlist also reached back into his earlier solo work, bringing "Hard Enough" from Flamingo and "Between Me And You" from The Desired Effect back for the first time since 2015, and "Magdalena" and "Can't Deny My Love" for the first time since 2016.
Two Killers songs made it in as well, "In The Car Outside" and "In Another Life", and he returned to The State Room the following night for a second warmup. The Thrasher Tour proper began on September 1 in Phoenix, with the North American leg concluding on October 6 in Las Vegas, the city where The Killers formed.
The album itself is a full turn toward the format Parton helped define, which gives the cover more weight than a courtesy would carry. The rest of his rock dates are on the tour guide, and the wider response to Parton's death has crossed every genre boundary going.
The facts
- Brandon Flowers covered Islands In The Stream at The State Room in Salt Lake City
- Backing vocalists Erica Canales and Nicky Egan joined him centre stage
- The Bee Gees wrote the song; Parton recorded it with Kenny Rogers in 1983
- The show came a week after Thrasher, his first solo album in 11 years
- The Thrasher Tour began September 1 in Phoenix and ends October 6 in Las Vegas
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