It's strange revisiting that album now as America, outwardly, looks pretty cartoonish all over again. Sam's Town came during a time when America seemed as ridiculous as the band's newly grown moustaches. That could just be my upper lip, though.' Has it been 10 years?' And Mark came in and went, 'Yeah we're getting fucking old.'' Sam's Town itself is almost as old as Ronnie. 'We were just in there saying, 'Fuuuuuuck. 'This is the jacket from the 'Bones' video,' he smiles, breaking free from the rest of the group. I notice the cowboy-y feather in his lapel. Chi-na!' He's been digging through his old closet for this occasion. 'Chyyyyna! Chiiiiina! Meus-lim, MOOOSLIM. 'Then the dream exploded into more nonsense.' Strutting down the hall with Brandon by his side, Ronnie, the beating joking heart of the band, is doing some vocal exercises. 'It started out with, 'We should play the parking lot of Sam's Town!'' laughs Ronnie. Backstage in the dressing room Ronnie describes it as 'a hometown high five.' All profits are going to two local charities for homelessness and addiction recovery. The top tier includes a daytime bus tour of The Killers' Vegas, a signed re-released copy of Sam's Town, a pool-side acoustic set around dinner time, then tickets to the live show proper: Sam's Town played in the main hall front-to-back for the first time ever. In the hallways are hoards of Killers fans, here to enjoy VIP packages between bouts on the slot machines. 'Yeah they're actually a Vegas band, you know that?' It does an excellent New England Clam Chowder, according to the cab driver. Upstairs the slots are exclusively pre-occupied by the blue rinse brigade.

In the atrium is a forest of foliage and a show that plays on the hour, featuring a waterfall, an animatronic bear, and a bald-headed eagle. Sam's Town is not sexy: It's country & western style, with swinging saloon bars, an old bowling alley, and a big bust of a man called Sam Boyd in the lobby. The album wasn't recorded there, it was recorded in the studio at the bottom of the sexy Palm's hotel, closer to the Strip (yes, there's a studio in the hotel's bowels). When Sam's Town was released 10 years ago today on October 3, 2006, it was named after the place frontman Brandon Flowers used to live across the street from. 'Whaddya wanna go all the way to Sam's Town for?' says the cab driver through her smoker's cough, driving nearly a dozen miles off the Strip towards swampland. The Killers' second album Sam's Town, named after Sam's Town Casino & Gambling Hall, focused on themes from faded glamour, the perils of ageing, and learning to face life's consequences.

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