The Killers Forced to Apologize After Political Gaffe Sparks Boos from the Crowd
An American rock band issued an apology on Tuesday after a political gaffe during a performance spurred members of the audience to walk out of a music venue in the nation of Georgia.
Attendees at a concert in the city of Shekvetili weren’t happy when vocalist Brandon Flowers urged them to embrace a Russian national who had been invited on stage to play drums as their “brother,” according to CNN.
Flowers appeared to lecture the Georgian audience about the nation’s distrust for its northern neighbor.
“We don’t know the etiquette of this land, but this guy’s a Russian. Are you okay with a Russian coming up here?” Flowers questioned the crowd.
The vocalist — a progressive extremist who has conflated the United States with “racism” — went on to urge citizens of the Caucasus nation to abandon the concept of national identity and citizenship.
“You can’t recognize if someone’s your brother, he’s not your brother? We’re all separate? We all separate on the borders of our countries?”
“So I’m not your brother? Am I not your brother, being from America?”
Some concertgoers walked out of the venue in opposition to Flowers’ lecture, according to CNN.
Russia occupies two regions of Georgia internationally recognized as Georgian territory.
The regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia were brought under Russian control during a 2008 invasion, according to History.
Georgia has no formal diplomatic relations with Russia as a result of the occupation.
In their apology statement, the band claimed that Flowers’ on-stage remarks were merely about brotherhood between fans of The Killers, rather than nationality.
“[I]t was never our intention to offend anyone,” the statement began.
“We have a longstanding 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 onstage with us,” it 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 we apologize,” the apology concluded.
— The Killers (@thekillers) August 15, 2023
One Canadian of Ukrainian heritage explained why Flowers’ remarks were met with a cold reaction in a tweet response to the tepid apology.
Canadian Ukrainian here, I attended your gig in Montreal last year, love your music since 2004.
Hope you understand why there was such a reaction from the people of Georgia.
Would be easier to understand if you imagined that instead of Georgia in 2023 you are giving a…
— Elias Artista (@artista_elias) August 16, 2023
Georgia has incurred an influx of migrants from Russia in the aftermath of the latter’s invasion of Ukraine, with new arrivals hoping to escape diminishing economic prospects in their home country.
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