The Black Keys

Monday May 12, 2008
9:30 Club
Washington DC

Show review written by our borrowed in-house music journalist
Pictures taken by me

After a show last week, I found myself trying to describe to a friend what it is that I love so much about live music. What about the concert experience captivates me so much that I spend almost as much time in the 930 Club as I have in my apartment. And I realized that I'm a closet voyeur. That's why I read blogs like this one, why I sit outside at restaurants people watching, and why I go to as many shows as possible. I am fascinated by human beings. By real emotion, laid bare for my consumption. By the sensation that another human being is actually FEELING something, and not only that, but their expressions, their hesitations, their tones of voice, just their mannerisms, can make me feel it too. What The Black Keys made me feel on Monday night was...BAD ASS!
From the opening lick of "Same Old Thing," which incited the capacity crowd, I felt like I was having an out of body experience. By the time the band had finished ripping through "Girl is on My Mind," I had a vision of myself starring in a penultimate cinematic action sequence with this song playing as I strutted in slow motion through a smoking mass of charred car and enemy remains, in combat boots, perfectly fitting black pants, and a sleeveless black shirt, my digitally enhanced biceps rippling from the weight of the Desert Eagle I carried in each hand. And after 2 hours of face melting raucous blues rave ups like "Busted," "10 AM Automatic," and "I Got Mine," my imagination had carried my strut down the runway in pieces from an edgy designer collection while paparazzi snapped and I sneered cockily.

The Black Keys owe this cool vibe to their two main influences. Their secondary influence, the "British Invasion" of the late '60s and early '70s can be seen in the graphic on Patrick's kick drum, which could just as plausibly spell out "The Monkees" in that trippy font, not to mention songs like the slow burn of the banjo infused "Psychotic Girl," but the influence of American black culture leaves the biggest imprint on their sound and attitude.
Dan Auerbach grew up wishing he was black. I know this, cause I did too. Its been said that the American black man is the most copied in human history, and nowhere is this more apparent that rural white towns like Akron, Ohio (the Keys' home town), and much smaller outposts in upstate New York (like the one I grew up in). Rural white kids will go to any length to be cool, and there's no disputing that the black American male is a cultural icon of cool. But where I aped Bo Jackson, Chuck D, and Michael Jordan, Auerbach spent his time mimicking the motown and blues sounds of artists like Chuck Berry, Buddy Guy, and Diana Ross (actually, the black keys on your piano make up a pentatonic minor scale that is most commonly associated with the blues). So it was no revelation when Auerbach slowed in the middle of the set with two perfectly executed motown-y songs, including a haunting rendition of 2006's "You're the One," and even less surprising when they brought the house down with an encore of "The Breaks," which opens on record with a hip hop drum beat behind an old audio recording in which the male narrator instructs you to "Lean forward slightly, look straight at the speaker and listen with a sparkle in your eye as though you might be thinking 'Gee, this is the most wonderful thing I've ever heard in all my life.'"

If they come to your city, buy a ticket to the Black Keys' show and take this speaker's advice, you'll find him quite sage.