The Black Keys played to a sold-out crowd of rabid, sweat-soaked fans at First Avenue Wednesday night, and the duo rocked with enough power behind the pathos to set the coldest Minnesota night on fire. It was a perfect storm of Patrick Carney’s violent rhythms and Dan Auerbach’s shamanistic chord-work and emotionally charged vocals. They ripped through a tight, hour-long set that included half of this year’s brilliant Magic Potion. The rest was equal parts Rubber Factory and Thickfreakness, with a couple of crunchy nuggets from The Big Come Up (“Busted” and “The Breaks”) rounding out the mix.
For me it didn’t get better than “Your Touch,” one of the hottest rock ‘n’ roll anthems to come out in a long time. Amped up enough already on record, hearing it infused with live energy was off the chart. I love that song in the same way I love “I Want You to Want Me” by Cheap Trick: Simple, desperate lust backed by an infectious hook. That level of potency was sustained during favorites like “Girl is On My Mind,” “10 a.m. Automatic,” and “Have Love Will Travel;” and peaked in the 2-song encore “Grown So Ugly,” and “Till I Get My Way.”
Band mates for 10 years now, Dan and Patrick seemed to play off each other effortlessly. As their music built in its intensity, one never clobbered the other. Even when they slowed it down on numbers like “The Flame,” the drums fired skillful shots around the lonely, screaming guitar and mournful lyrics about the sun gone down on love. Earlier on, the soulful “You’re the One” traded some of the tenderness of the LP version for a bit of tension, but perhaps it was for the greater good, in not breaking the momentum of the performance as a whole.
I’ve been going to rock concerts since the mid-‘70s, so you’d think I’d have a stockpile of references for the Black Keys as performers. (And lots of reviews rely heavily on tired, old comparisons to blues-rockers from the “Me Decade.”) This band couldn’t have happened back then. There’d have been way more guys on stage (read: egos) mucking up the raw blast from Dan Auerbach’s guitar to your lower chakra. The complete concentration he possessed in bending notes to his will was mesmerizing, and the resulting language was all his own.
I can’t imagine Pat as a ‘70s drummer either, with a revolving drum kit spitting laser beams over the crowd. (Anyone scratching their heads might want to Google EmersonLake and Palmer...) Don’t get me wrong, I loved ELP, but seeing Patrick Carney unleash his might on those skins should be quite enough to blow anyone’s mind. He only recalled one other drummer I’ve seen, and not in stylistic terms, but in the wrath of his delivery. Time-travel back about 25 years to the 7th Street Entry and you’ll find him flailing away behind Bob Mould and Greg Norton—none other than our own Grant Hart.
If you love good, live, primal rock ‘n’ roll, see this band.
Photo by Ilya Ratner.
The Black Keys played to a sold-out crowd of rabid, sweat-soaked fans at First Avenue Wednesday night, and the duo rocked with enough power behind the pathos to set the coldest Minnesota night on fire. It was a perfect storm of Patrick Carney’s violent rhythms and Dan Auerbach’s shamanistic chord-work and emotionally charged vocals. They ripped through a tight, hour-long set that included half of this year’s brilliant Magic Potion. The rest was equal parts Rubber Factory and Thickfreakness, with a couple of crunchy nuggets from The Big Come Up (“Busted” and “The Breaks”) rounding out the mix.
