A night before their headlining set at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago this year, Las Vegas based The Killers could have chosen to head to Chicago a night early, to revel in the party at Grant Park. Instead, the group brought their 80’s-esque guitar and synth sound to Mt. Pleasant to invade the newly constructed Soaring Eagle Casino Outdoor Arena for a 55 minute set that pleased the crowd, but didn’t do much more than that.

As rain came down on the crowd, San Diego’s Louis XIV were a pretty decent opener in a 30 minute set. The band played material such as “God Killed the Queen” and “Finding Out True Love is Blind” to a politely pleased audience.

As with most new groups with only one album’s worth of material, the Killers had to rely on using every song from their smash album “Hot Fuss”, as well as two new songs the band has worked on. To start the set, the group launched into “Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine".

Lead singer Brandon Flowers came out looking like a cross between Liberace and David Byrne of the Talking Heads in a bright white suit, which was a distinct contrast to the gloomy and muggy weather outside. The Killers bantered with the surprisingly strong crowd of 8,000 or so, most of which were the Abercrombie and Hollister crowd driving from Lansing and Grand Rapids.

The Killers did provide a swagger that came across a little more appealing than most of their modern rock counterparts. During songs such as “On Top” and “Smile Like You Mean It”, the band provided much more vigor than (let’s say) The Strokes and other contemporaries who get along in the music world on hype alone. The crowd seemed to just want to hear the hits and get back on the highway. After set closer and largest hit “Mr. Brightside”, most of the crowd started filing for the exits.

The band did come out for an encore of “All These Things That I’ve Done”, which provided an eerie synth sound at the beginning and segue ways into one of the band’s strongest songs. As the fans left and the rain commenced, the crowd walked away knowing the band had met expectations, but not exceeded them. Hopefully, that will change with time as the band develops more material.

Art can be reached at arthatesyou@detroitbuzz.com.