The Killers show off sparkle, drama and new members at the X

Going away for a while was a smart move for the Killers. It apparently made the Twin Cities miss them.

The earnest but showy Las Vegas rockers hit the charts in a big way in the mid-2000s with hits like "Mr. Brightside" and "Somebody Told Me," but then they plateaued commercially and fizzled creatively. Lo and behold, though, they returned from a five-year hiatus to play to their biggest Minnesota crowd yet Wednesday night at Xcel Energy Center.

With a busy year ahead that includes headlining gigs at the Bonnaroo and Governors Ball mega-festivals, the band brought along a grand batch of songs off the new album, "Wonderful Wonderful," to match the larger settings. Frontman Brandon Flowers always had a grandiose personality that seemed made for the arena-rock ring, too.

Probably unknown to a lot of the more casual fans in attendance, the Killers on tour this year is only half the band it is on record: The group's original guitarist and bassist both did not want to tour again, leaving Flowers and drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr. with four steady but unremarkable auxiliary members plus three women backup singers.

The swaying, snapping, stylish-looking singers were just one of many ways the 100-minute concert came off with a Neil Diamond-kitschy vibe. This was the most Las Vegas-y show yet by the Vegas group. There was also a lot of canned, hokey between-song banter from Flowers, and the stage lit up off and on with different neon signs, including one of the circle-and-arrow male gender symbol.

Dapper-looking, as always, Flowers really tried hard to make it a manly show, delivering the "Eye of the Tiger"-like new single "The Man" for a second song and even quoting both Evel Knievel and Ernest Hemmingway to the 10,000-plus fans at various points.

"People paid to see the attempt, not a perfect landing," was the Knievel quote.

At times, Wednesday's concert definitely tried too hard, starting with the opening song "Wonderful Wonderful," which came off like the high-flown beginning of a rock opera that Flowers didn't have the energy or ego to finish. (Sample lyrics: "Motherless child, follow my voice / And I shall give thee great cause to rejoice.")

However, the room lit up literally and figuratively on cue with the third song, "Somebody Told Me," and stayed that way through its genuinely exuberant follower "Spaceman." When they're on, the Killers can be really on. And when Flowers turns up the drama in his voice and turns on the Bono impressions — as he did in "The Way It Was" — he's pretty darn compelling.

Some of the new songs that followed were on target, too. "Rut" was another U2-style, feel-good charmer nicely spiked with gospel-flavored backup vocals.

Wednesday's concert arguably relied too heavily on older material, but given the five-year gap between tours that seemed just fine. It'd be nice if one of these years the Killers come up with a song anywhere close to the 2004 anthem "All These Things That I've Done," which once again proved to be the adrenaline-sparking showstopper just before the encore (the more novel "Mr. Brightside" then ended the encore). But it looks like fans will keep waiting around patiently and happily until they do.

Chris Riemenschneider • 612-673-4658

Twitter: @ChrisRstrib