The Killers have issued an apology after frontman Brandon Flowers was jeered and booed for bringing a Russian fan on stage during a show in Georgia and encouraging the angry crowd to consider one another “brothers and sisters.”
Flowers invited the Russian to play drums with the band near the end of the show at the Black Sea Arena in Batumi, Georgia, on Tuesday night. “We don’t know the etiquette of this land but this guy’s a Russian,” Flowers told the audience. “You OK with a Russian coming up here?”
They were not. A loud chorus of boos can be heard ringing out from the crowd in videos of the moment shared on social media. After performing the song “For Reasons Unknown,” Flowers poured kerosene on the fire by addressing the audience’s angry response.
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“You can’t recognize if someone’s your brother?” Flowers asked. “He’s not your brother?” He went on to ask: “Am I not your brother, being from America?”
“One of the things that we have come to appreciate about being in this band is it brings people together,” he continued. “And tonight, I want us to celebrate that we’re here together, and I don’t want it to turn ugly.”
It turned ugly. Video footage appears to show people continuing to boo, and many even chose walk out, according to The Guardian.
Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, and it continues to occupy around a fifth of Georgian territory. Animosity toward Russia has only increased in Georgia—itself a former Soviet state—since the invasion of Ukraine last year. Last month, a cruise ship carrying Russian tourists left a Georgian port ahead of schedule after crowds gathered to shout abuse at the vessel and sing the Ukrainian national anthem.
Some social media users called for a boycott of The Killers in the wake of the performance, despite some fans in attendance appearing to cheer in support of Flowers’ actions.
“Good people of Georgia, it was never our intention to offend anyone!” the band wrote in a statement Tuesday night. “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.”
“We recognize that a comment, meant to suggest that all of The Killers’ audience and fans are ‘brothers and sisters,’ could be misconstrued,” the statement added. “We did not mean to upset anyone and we apologize. We stand with you and hope to return soon.”
Read it at The Guardian
