Can a rock band create peace in the South Caucasus? No.
Earlier this week, The Killers played an hotly anticipated and heavily advertised concert in Georgia.
The set was a success until The Killers' invited a guest drummer from the audience to join for one song. When Killers frontman Brendan Flowers introduced the guest as Russian. The booing began.
Flowers tried to win the crowd back with a call for 'brotherhood'. The booing intensified.
Flowers tried still, "Am I not your brother, coming from America?”
A din of boos, an exodus of concert goers.
The band left the stage at the end of the show without thanking the crowd. Issued an apology the next morning, and departed for their show in Bratisvala.
Every element of this story is funny.
The concert series courted controversy before the killers ever came to Georgia.
Opponents criticised the use of millions of dollars from the state budget to attract big name stars, such as The Killers, to Georgia.
Young people, the target audience, complained that ticket prices were out of their budget.
The opposition charged that the concert series is propaganda for a government losing popularity.
Into this politicized climate The Killers, a Mormon rock band from Nevada, take to the stage of our comedy.
The Killers front man, in a moment of pure rockstar ego, attempted to do something about something. He knew Russia had something to do with it. He knew Georgia was a place and he was there. Russia and Georgia are neighbors right? But there was a problem before? Still? Hmmm. I got it. Yeah. Brotherhood! The most hollow, insubstantial, meaningless statement you could ever say to a stadium full of people.
And the result? Booing. The crowd booed brotherhood. A lot. The concert, conceived as an delivery device to give the Georgian youth what they wanted. The sucrose sweet taste of western consumer culture. Managed to trigger that exact base with their biggest fear, Russian assimilation. With the conduit for this message of being a band whose most famous song is the same verse repeated twice.
If the audience stormed the stage and beat The Killers to death, it would have been a horrible tragedy. But that didn't happen, our story is a comedy in the truest form.
A rock star managed to make an entire country hate him. The concert, a governmental attempt at youth appeasement, backfired so spectacularly, it resulted in the creation of Russia-Georgian Dream-The Killers conspiracy theories. There were no casualties. Pure comedy.