aaamusic | On 18, Feb 2012

London, 10th February

They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, and if that’s true then The Black Keys must flatter an awful lot of folk in an awful lot of ways. However there is one band who the Keys have had to stomach an awful lot of comparisons to, they’re a little blues-rock duo hailing from Detroit, you might have heard of them, they’re called The White Stripes. Although how much they’ve taken varies depending on whether you’re a fan or not. The Keys’ detractors have accused them of their ascension to biggest rock band in the world being directly caused by nicking the Stripes’ entire fan base after they tragically split up early last year, conveniently forgetting the fact that The Keys also released one of the year’s best rock albums which might have something to with it, but the gods honest truth is that they might have something resembling a point there.

Y’see, a two piece blues rock band infiltrating the mainstream is quite a rare thing these days, you might have noticed, while it’s true the Keys became truly huge after the Stripes split, The Keys were already pretty huge because of 2010’s breakthrough album Brothers which got them three Grammy awards, Ggold and platinum records, millions of Youtube hits (for a band so resolutely imageless their music videos are hilarious), and in terms of concerts, three sold out nights at Brixton Academy. Clearly this isn’t a case of rags to riches, more of a case of enormous cult act to mainstream success story. But when the Stripes split, a whole fan-base into a very certain kind of rock group were left orphaned (sort of), until they realized there was a band around similar enough to appeal to their colour coded blues rock tastes left stung by The Stripes’ kicking the proverbial bucket, yet different enough to avoid the “rip off” tag that so many had dismissed them with beforehand. It would be almost viciously calculated if the music wasn’t so damn good.

This leads us to leafy London suburb Muswell Hill, home of one of the UK’s biggest all standing venues Alexandra Palace. Otherwise known as the place where they’ve sold out three nights at, playing to around 33’000 people over the course of a weekend. Those are not the kind of numbers you get by sounding a bit like someone else, and indeed, live, The Keys are an entirely different beast. They’re, at least compared to The Stripes, slickly professional, in that they have a setlist, sound rehearsed, and have a bassist and a keyboardist beefing up their sound, and it sounds phenomenal. They’ve also got a show going as well, the band play while flanked by four screens with psychedelic visuals projected on it, an abundance of spotlights directly surrounding them, an enormous disco ball for Everlasting Light and during the closing I Got Mine a Broadway marquee style flashing THE BLACK KEYS sign. Let’s be honest here, you’d never get that with Jack ‘n’ Meg.

What you’d also never get is the big, balls out rock show that the Akron, Ohio duo give in spades, storming into the opening Howlin’ For You after briefly thanking the audience for coming to see them, what follows is an hour and a half of the best that American Rock has to offer, from the Zeppelin sized grooves of Next Girl, the glam stomp of Gold On The Ceiling and the deathless Tighten Up to the lesser spotted likes of Thickfreakness and Your Touch. The sound is immaculate, the musicianship unimpeachable and The Keys seem very comfortable with their surroundings, which is just as well considering that their show at the 20’000 cap Madison Square Garden sold out in 15 minutes. In fact, very rarely has this reporter seen a band take on their first arena shows with such gusto, and as the Black Keys sign starts flashing in time with the closing riff of I Got Mine, if anyone is going to take up the mottled, ever so slightly pointless crown of “Saviours of Rock ‘n’ Roll”, then as a dyed in the wool rocker, I’m proud that it’s them.

 

 

Will Howard