The Black Keys 11/24-11/25 @ Vic Theatre
Here's a Review From ConcertLiveWire.com By Andy Argyrakis, Do You Agree or Disagree?
Since quitting their day jobs of mowing lawns and fixing apartments as a pair, singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney took up the full-time reigns of their band The Black Keys. At first, their local Akron, Ohio gigs took awhile to fill up, but after limping around for the first few years, they slowly amassed a grassroots following, hit the road and scored a deal with Fat Possum. From there, they've spent the better part of the 2000s jumping from one prominent tour to the next, such as opening slots for Beck and Radiohead, plus several solo headlining jaunts. Robert Plant is a fan, Rolling Stone loves the band and its current record label Nonesuch is also the home to Wilco and David Byrne.All those examples of consistent growth continued when The Black Keys returned to the windy city, starting with the fact the group booked two shows at the Vic Theatre (signaling the end of opening act status). In the first of the back to back engagements, the pair pummeled away at the majority of 2006's Magic Potion, along with a smattering of the past four years, confirming their ditching of labor for artistic love was a fruitful decision. From their first few seconds on stage, it was clear the guys have increased in both confidence and chemistry levels, unleashing with scalding power and deep fried licks. In one sense, The Black Keys could be considered similar to The White Stripes, though many of those comparisons come because each group operates with only two members. Like the Stripes, the sounds come across much thicker than the amount of players and there is a certain sense of garage-derived vintage rock n' roll, but these Keys also have a lock down deep in the Delta-blues. Take for instance the snarling "Girl Is On My Mind" or the raucous "Your Touch," two thick fisted examples of their alternative undercurrent and soulful howls. There were also several times when those rootsy groans were mixed with psychedelic shock bolts, such as "Elevator" and "No Thrust," some of the set's most punchy sonic tornados.Fans of the late great bluesman R.L. Burnside would've probably fallen in love with "You're the One," while more rock oriented Led Zeppelin listeners could've connected come "Just Got To Be," (which further cemented why Plant's a fan). Yet The Black Keys were rarely derivative during their 90-minute set, taking everyone's favorite instrumental elements, combining them in a high speed blender and then shedding through any preconceived notions with scratchy singing, smoky chords and searing percussion. intricacy.
http://www.concertlivewire.com/blackkeys.htm
posted by WEBMASTER @ 11:46 AM
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Here is another review by Andy Downing from the Chicago Tribune.
"Black Keys feels the burn"
By Andy Downing
In concert, the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach's fuzzed-out guitar takes on the texture of thick Georgia kudzu, while drummer Patrick Carney pounds out a manic breakbeat, slashing at his kit like a man desperately trying to cut himself free from the overgrowth.
On Friday, during the first of two shows at a near-capacity Vic Theatre, the band didn't stray from this formula in its sharply executed, 75-minute, 17-song set. Auerbach, with his unkempt beard, looked and sounded like a grizzled street urchin, delivering most of his vocals from behind a curtain of brown hair. Carney, by contrast, was all angles and elbows, the lanky drummer ripping off a series of pistol shots on "Stack Shot Billy" and hammering into "Set You Free" as if he were driving steel spikes into the cold, hard earth.
At times, the band leaned too heavily on past efforts instead of making a case for its latest album, the underrated "Magic Potion." New songs such as the breezy "You're the One" and the battered-and-bruised "The Flame" were a welcome change of pace, the latter collapsing at the feet of the fiery "Strange Desire" like a spurned lover worn down from too much crying. "Elevator" was a brooding wonder, chugging along on a desolate drumbeat and rust-scraping guitar.
"The Breaks," as steamy as a Mississippi swamp, opened nearly as slowly, before Auerbach's raucous close. "Busted" was similarly paced, gaining speed like a rumbling steam engine before flying off the rails completely.
Oftentimes the Keys masked the heartbreak in the tunes with foot-stomping rhythms and sludgy, psychedelic riffs, Auerbach singing: "I'm busted, but my heart won't let me die"; "You hold on to love that's gone"; "I still love you so." Other tunes, such as "Just Got To Be," weren't as explicit, but still sounded driven by the same deep-seated ache.
A set-closing "Have Love Will Travel" nicely summed up the evening, Auerbach howling about scouring the Earth for that one true love. It's a romantic notion, to be sure, but in the Keys' hands the search sounded almost desperate — and all the more thrilling for it.
http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/reviews/critics/mmx-g7a2g0nq8.6nov26,0,2062765.story?coll=mmx-critics_heds
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