The Black Keys review: Straight to the point with meaty set at 3Arena, Dublin
A recent image of Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, who performed at 3Arena in Dublin at the weekend. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for LOVE ROCKS NYC/God's Love We Deliver )
★★★★☆
Several years ago the Black Keys played the Button Factory in Dublin. There wasn’t much faffing around that night and there wasn’t much messing about in the 3Arena on Friday either. Walking on to a wild reception, lead singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach, in denim and t-shirt rigout, looks like he’d just been fixing his car. He throws us a wave, and gets down to business.
There are screens to the sides and one behind them which resembles a police station surveillance room on occasion, but it’s not that kind of show. Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney, whose kit out front takes a beating throughout that few doctors could help with, convert the 3Arena into a cross between a perspiring juke joint and a sweltering rehearsal garage.
They’re aided by four other musicians - the bass player and second guitarist resemble a pharmaceutically relaxed version of the Allman Brothers - but it’s all about the main men, and Auerbach in particular.
He leans into a rack of decrepit looking amps, feedback howls into raw as a sore tooth opener ‘I Got Mine’, he drags his curly guitar lead over to jump on the drum raiser, and then it’s back to the valves for a feedback solo. A slide guitar as distorted as a Russian TV broadcast takes us into ‘Gold On The Ceiling’ and the crowd take over for the ‘Da, Da, Da’ riff.
‘Your Touch’ from 2006’s Magic Potion, which they probably played in Temple Bar, is as frill-free as prison pyjamas, and the crowd are back again, out-whistling Auerbach for ‘Tighten Up’.
Whether it’s the T.Rexy strut of ‘Everlasting Light’ and ‘Lo/Hi’, which only needs a feather boa to go with the bongos and ride cymbal to be pure Bolan, the Captain Beefheart-rewriting ‘Heavy Soul’, or the Bukka White joins The Sweet groove of ‘Howlin’ For You’, The Keys have no interest in taking prisoners back to Ohio. Noel Gallagher co-write ‘On The Game’ has a hint of the Oasis swagger but it’s a cover of ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ which owes more to Creedence – with an angry Rory Gallagher on guitar – than Marvin Gaye that’s the winner.
They encore with a joyous ‘Lonely Boy’ because they have to but the job’s long done by then. You could argue this music better suits a smaller, sweatier venue, but the Keys are quite rightly too popular for that, although they’re still capable of knocking it out rough as a badger’s backside. Down, dirty, and direct.
