Toronto – What do you get when you combine Jimi Hendrix, the White Stripes and a little blues? Well, a beautiful love child called The Black Keys of course.
The Black Keys are a blues-rock band hailing from Akron, Ohio and boy do these guys make a killer duo.
First of all, what’s a concert review without a little venue commentary? This show was completely sold out and consequently the Kool Haus was jam-packed with a guy to girl ratio of 9 to 1, score. Apart from the sausage fest it was about a billion degrees in there and even before the Black Keys went on I almost melted, however, this excessive perspiration was well worth it.
The Black Keys have eight albums in total and kicked their set off by playing tracks from their first seven. You cannot help but tap your foot or bop your head to this percussion heavy, bluesy music, plus it’s pretty contagious when everyone in the crowd starts moving a bit. About half way through the set the duo took things up a notch and announced that they would play tunes from their new album, which seemed to amp the crowd up a little more. They even brought another guitarist and a keyboardist out for their newer songs which added a whole other dimension to their sound.
In my opinion the second half of the show was far better than the first, The Black Keys’ eighth album, Brothers is tight, polished, catchy and I love almost every single song on there. These newer tunes really got the crowd moving especially during Tighten up, Howlin’ for You and Next Girl.
Black Keys front man Dan Auerbach’s Hendrix-esque guitar skills impressed the bejesus out of me. I can honestly say I’ve never seen such guitar talent at a live show, he played the guitar with a maraca at one point for goodness sake. I would even be so bold as to compare his grainy falsetto voice to that of the great Robert Plant. Of course I can’t forget the other 50% of Black Keys, Patrick Carney, who by the end of the show looked as though someone had thrown a bucket of water on him, Pat did an impeccable job at making it sound like they had many other percussion instruments accompanying them on stage, for example he played one song using the tambourine as a drumstick.
Overall this show was excellent, in my top 3 concerts so far this year and well worth the sweat factor. Black Keys are a must-see live band and as far as I can tell get better with each album they make.