Caught In The Crossfire

In late April of 2010, a strange phenomenon could be observed when logging onto the website of my favourite band. http://www.thekillersmusic.com/ bore what could only be described as a countdown. The countdown was set to end at 8pm, Thursday April 29th local time. What was being counted down to, no one knew. Speculation was rife; a new single, a covers album, an end to the hiatus, a countdown to a break-up (but surely they wouldn't be so sadistic), and even perhaps a countdown to a Brandon Flowers solo album. I laughed the last one off, seriously, solo album? Why would they announce that on the band's official website? Well, obviously I was in for quite a shock when the countdown ended and I found out that it was indeed a solo album! Minutes later, I heard that the title of this Solo Album was "Flamingo". Uh, okay then. I turned off my computer and went to sleep, highly, highly put out. So much so that I changed my desktop background, which had been a picture I'd taken during the concert I went to last December, and even removed Hot Fuss from my car cd player, replacing it with the angry rock sounds of Bon Jovi for three whole days.
Eventually I couldn't take not listening to Mr. Brightside on my way to lectures or Everything Will Be Alright after supper, so I forgave them. However, I was still not impressed with the idea of Flamingo.
Fast forward a few months to mid-June. It's the day of the Fifa World Cup kick-off. I am South African, which means that my life had pretty much revolved around soccer for the last week or so. This meant that I was completely oblivious to the fact that a certain radio station had been claiming that they were to play Brandon's first single, Crossfire that very day. A few hours before this monumental event (and I'm not talking about kick-off), Twitter enlightened me as to the fact that I could potentially be hearing Crossfire that very day. Using all of my very limited technological know-how, I managed to stream this very station and, lo and behold, hear Crossfire! I also attempted to record it on my cellphone as it was playing (remove that judging face, please, I bet you did the same thing), but all I could hear on the recording was myself screaming (oh dear, i'm not doing much to prove that I'm not an obsessive fan-girl, am I?). I was on a complete high, I loved the song! Only later did I find out that it had been an illegal leak of the song. I felt terrrible about having listened to it, but I didn't know that it had been played without permission. I am the type of person that, had I known, I would probably have launched an active protest against the station. No, I'm serious, I actively boycott not only Chris Brown and Kanye West for their various misdemenours, but also plastic bags, for their general environmental degredation, but that's another story altogether.
Anyway, back to Crossfire. I must say that I am extremely impressed. I'm still not completely happy about Brandon going solo, it just makes me sad as I'm so attached to the band as a whole, but the song is a masterpiece. I have also managed to procure an image of the cover artwork for the single, sadi image is now the wallpaper background on my cellphone. Okay, okay, do it, call me a fangirl, I can handle it!
I greatly look forward to hearing Crossfire played on the radio once it has been released officially. I wish Brandon nothing but luck with his solo career, and nothing will make me happier than seeing Crossfire soar to the top of the charts, but really, the sooner the boys re-unite for a 4th studio album, the happier I will be.