The Killers have issued an apology after singer Brandon Flowers told fans in Georgia to accept a Russian audience member as their “brother”.
The rock band, formed in Las Vegas, were performing at the Black Sea Arena in Batumi, Georgia, as part of their Imploding the Mirage tour on Tuesday when frontman Flowers made the comments.
Towards the end of the concert, the group invited a Russian fan on stage to play drums with them for their 2006 song “For Reasons Unknown”. The band have done this on several occasions while touring around the world.
In clips shared on social media, Flowers was seen telling the crowd: “We don’t know the etiquette of this land but this guy’s a Russian. You OK with a Russian coming up here?”
While there were some cheers in the crowd, many booed and shouted: “No.”
Georgia gained independence from Soviet rule in 1991, and, in 2008, Russia invaded Georgia.
Tensions have been heightened following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, which has led to many Russian people emigrating to Georgia. As a result, the people of Georgia are largely pro-Ukraine.
The Killers then performed the song, which featured on the album Sam’s Town, with Flowers telling the crowd after: “You can’t recognise if someone’s your brother? He’s not your brother? We all separate on the borders of our countries? I’m not your brother? Am I not your brother, being from America?”
Repeating this, Flowers said that the band had the ability to “bring people together”, adding: “Tonight, I want us to celebrate that we’re here together, and I don’t want it to turn ugly.
“I see you as my brothers and my sisters,” he continued, before introducing the next song.
According to local news, the comments prompted some in the crowd to leave, with one fan heard shouting: “This is Georgia!”
After the show, The Killers released a statement on X, formerly Twitter, addressing Flowers’s comments.
“Good people of Georgia, it was never our intention to offend anyone!” they wrote.
“We have a long-standing 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 on-stage with us.”
The band continued: “We recognise 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 apologise. We stand with you and hope to return soon.”
While several fans who replied to The Killers’ post commended them for “trying to unite people” with their music, others accused the band of cultural insensitivity.
Others took issue with the statement for suggesting Flowers’s “brothers and sisters” comment may have been “misconstrued”.
“This could have been a decent acknowledgment of a mistake, condemnation of Russia’s war crimes in and occupation of Georgia and Ukraine, and support of our territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Katie Shoshiashvili, a journalist based in Tbilisi, Georgia, wrote. “But instead we got a response with no mention of Russia at all.”
