I don’t sing. I don’t dance. To witness either is to be embarrassed for my lack of shame. But at the Black Keys’ show at The Pacific Coliseum I did both.
The Black Keys are one of the bands that drew me to listening to alternative music. I was stoked to see them live but, evidently, my excitement was not felt by the rest of my disinterested section, who sat down for the entire concert and left early.
Me, though, I was entranced from start to finish, as every song was meticulously placed in each set to create an infectiously fast-paced energy before the final quarter of the show slowed things down, creating the equivalent of looking at Turn Blue’s impressionistic hypnotic swirl with musical sounds.
The duo from Akron, Ohio, made up of guitarist/lead singer Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney saved their slower Pink Floyd-inspired songs from their most recent album, “The Weight of Love” and “Turn Blue,” for the very end, while incorporating the two singles “Fever” and “Gotta Get Away” earlier in the show.
The band came out rocking, as they opened with well-known tracks like “Dead and Gone” and “Gold on the Ceiling.” The rest of the show mainly consisted of tracks from their 2010 breakout album Brothers as the Coliseum sang along to popular hits such as “Tighten Up” and “Howlin For You.”
They did still manage to save enough time for a cover to Edwyn Collins’ popular “A Girl Like You,” giving it a typical Black Keys garage rock sound. To brilliantly close the show, the band melded the tone of the beginning and end of the concert with the poignantly slow and electrifyingly rocking “Little Black Submarines”.
At a concert, there are no judgments being cast. If you can’t sing it doesn’t matter — no one can hear you, anyway. If you can’t dance it doesn’t matter — no one’s looking at you because they’re taking in the spectacle of the lights, the energy of the performers, and above all the pleasures of the sounds — just as I was at this intoxicating show.
