It’s unfortunate that the 2016 edition of Governors Ball will be known as the year an entire day was cancelled due to shit weather, because the first two nights of the New York City music festival provided some intriguing highlights. Two of our favorites included a pair of celebrated bands from the 2000s making grand statements: The Strokes ripped through a fiery homecoming set on Friday night, proving there’s still some spark left in that guitar-rock tank, and The Killers held court on Saturday during a commanding set that reminded us not only how many familiar hits the Las Vegas band has churned out in the past decade, but also how much we’ve missed them.
Like The Strokes’ performance the night prior, The Killers’ set was broadcast live on Viceland, giving those not in New York a chance to tune in and reignite our collective crush on Brandon Flowers. As they did a few nights earlier in Canada, The Killers busted out a very nice cover of Interpol’s “Obstacle 1”, a defining track off Interpol’s 2002 debut record Turn On The Bright Lights, and not only are we oh so very OK with it, but we also realized Flowers does a mean Paul Banks impression.
“Their first record was on repeat while we were making Hot Fuss,” Flowers tells the Governors Ball crowd. “And we thought we’d pay tribute to them tonight.”
Watch fan-filmed video below, and relive the glorious mid-’00s all over again.