The Killers Booed at Concert Over Russian Drummer

American rock band The Killers on Tuesday issued an apology after bringing a Russian fan onstage during a concert in Eastern Europe and telling the audience they were all “brothers and sisters.”

Formed in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the early 2000s, the alternative-rock group has garnered seven Grammy nominations and 28 million album sales worldwide across two decades. The Killers are amid their tour across Europe that will last through early September, with the group performing at the Black Sea Arena in Batumi, Georgia, on Tuesday evening.

During the show, in what the band called a long-standing stage tradition, the group invited a Russian fan in the audience to come on stage and play drums. During the bit, frontman Brandon Flowers told the audience that Russians and Georgians were “brothers and sisters.” This prompted a wave of boos from the crowd throughout the rest of the show, owing to the fraught history between the two nations, seemingly derailing the rest of the evening. Mariam Nikuradze, a Georgian journalist based in the capital city of Tbilisi, reported that fans began to get up and leave after the bit, with the group later leaving the stage without saying goodbye.

Nikuradze also shared a video from the concert on X, formerly Twitter.

Nikuradze’s post was in response to another about the incident from Georgian activist Ana Aptsiauri, who advised the band that “Russia is an occupier” in the nation and that “it’s their last time” performing there.

Newsweek reached out to Killers representatives via email for comment on Tuesday.

In response to the incident, the band posted a message to their official X account, stressing that no offense was meant and that bringing a fan onstage is a recurring tradition for them. The statement also claimed that Flowers’ “brothers and sisters” comment was actually referring to the relationship between the band and the audience, not specifically to Russians and Georgians, as Aptsiauri’s post claimed.

“Good people of Georgia, it was never our intention to offend anyone!” the statement read. “We have a longstanding 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 onstage with us. We recognize 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 we apologize. We stand with you and hope to return soon.”

In a somewhat similar incident, acclaimed author Elizabeth Gilbert was confronted by Ukrainian fans over the planned recent release of her book, The Snow Forest, due to the story being set in Russia. In response to the outcry, Gilbert opted to cancel the planned 2024 publication of the book, leaving the door open to release it sometime in the future.