The Black Keys
A few years ago my nephew Devin gave me a CD of songs saying “I think you’ll like this”. If he told me the band at the time, I forgot it at the time. It was unlabeled and did not have any digital text display besides “Unknown track 01″ etc. I played it a few times and enjoyed what I heard. I mentioned it to him and he said he’d get me the track list but for one reason or another, I never got that track list. Flash forward a year or so and I’m watching the film Black Snake Moan on TV one night and I hear “When the Lights Go Out”, it was instantly familiar to me. I popped in that CD again and realized I had heard the song on there. I listened to that CD with a new ear and fell in love with who I found out later were The Black Keys.
A few months ago, I heard their latest album, Brothers. I was instantly hooked by the songs I was hearing. One of my favorite tracks is also their first single, “Tighten Up”.
Shortly after hearing the album, I found out that they were coming to town. I contacted Devin to see if he wanted to join me in seeing them. He told me he was not going to be able to make it but encouraged me to go. Unfortunately I waited too long and the show was sold out. Fate smiled on my and my niece called me up with a spare ticket. We saw them perform at the Crystal Ballroom this past Monday night. Ironically Devin also scored a ticket just before the show so all three of us got to see them.
The show was really great and I’m glad I got to see them perform live. The crowd was ok for the most part but there was the occasional idiot who felt it totally appropriate to try to push their way to the front of a sold out show when they arrived 5 minutes before it started. Had a few sweaty obnoxious dancing people who had no concept of personal space but it didn’t detract too much from the show.
The band played the first third of their set with just the two of them then they had a bass player and a keyboardist join them for songs from the Brothers release. After 5 or 6 songs, they went back to the twosome. The music was loud, raw and full of the blues. The last time I was at the Crystal Ballroom my ears rang for two days afterwords. I picked up a set of earplugs for this show and although it felt inherently wrong to be listening to music with earplugs, it did save my ears and I had no issues the next days. The interesting side effect of the earplugs is that it made the lyrics seem a little more clear without the sonic chaos and echoing sounds. I was still able to enjoy the music even with them in. I guess after 28 years of seeing live music, saving my ears for the future isn’t such a dumb idea…