How The Killers ruled the UEFA Champions League Final Pepsi Kick Off Show

When The Killers took to the stage for the UEFA Champions League final Pepsi Kick Off Show on Saturday night, thousands inside the Puskas Arena and millions more around the globe watched on in awe as the rock giants condensed over twenty years of glory into a six-minute medley for the ages.

It was first up to David Beckham to make a surprise appearance on screen, dropping a coin into a jukebox, before the pitch was transformed into a jazzy spectacle which brought their Las Vegas roots to Budapest. And then, with a flick of guitarist Dave Keuning’s wrist, the opening lick of ‘When You Were Young’ exploded like a firework, setting off an epic six minutes which saw them run through ‘Human’, ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’ and a final flurry of ‘Mr Brightside’, which whipped both PSG and Arsenal fans into a frenzy ahead of a massive 90 minutes.

“Six minutes is nothing and we’re just doing the best that we can to blast off and kick it off, and we feel like we’ve done a decent job,” singer Brandon Flowers told Rolling Stone UK at a stadium rehearsal two days before the match.

Decent job, you sense, is underselling the sheer scale of their brilliant performance. With not a foot put wrong, it was the perfect way to continue Pepsi’s rich history with the biggest game in the world football, following on from recent shows from the likes of Linkin Park and Lenny Kravitz. The drinks giant has presented the pre-show spectacle every year since 2016, merging the worlds of football and music together to deliver a show for the ages. Ten years in, they’ve gone above and beyond in transporting some of the world’s biggest stars to the biggest stages of the beautiful game.

What you don’t see on TV, however, is the sheer impressiveness of the military-style operation which unfolds to bring the show to life. Moments beforehand, an expertly choreographed team runs on the pitch and, within seconds, unfurls a tarpaulin to cover the playing pitch. They’re immediately followed by an army of stagehands who are tasked with bringing each piece of the stage together, like one of the world’s most high pressure jigsaws. Each of them knows the position where they need to be, and it’s a level of successful team work that perhaps some of the teams who fell short of the final hurdle in this year’s UCL could learn from.

And once it was over? They were there on hand again, ensuring that the stage was cleared for a 6PM kick-off.

“There’s a mixture of fear and gratitude [from us],” added Killers drummer Ronnie Vanucci Jr while speaking to Rolling Stone UK before the match. “It’s nerve wracking in both, in all ways imaginable.”

Understandable, perhaps, but there was no signs of nerves on the night. Just one of the planet’s most electrifying bands tearing through a back catalogue for the ages and looking like they’re having a fantastic time doing so. We’ll open a Pepsi and drink to that. Here’s to 2027…