Blacky MacBlackenblack & His Blackest Blackness

If you're tuning in from last month then you know I recently saw the Black Keys and the Black Angels. (I guess Black Mountain and Blackalicious had other black plans.) I'm firmly putting this show in my all-time top five, alongside (in no particular order): Unwound/Blonde Redhead at the Middle East in '98; the Reverend Horton Heat at Avalon in '94; Kiss at Great Woods in '01 (where I cracked up everyone around me with a shouted request for "Love Theme From Kiss"); and the AC/DC cover band Fat Angus at a Somerville dump called Good Times a couple of years ago. AC/DC cover band!

(The funny thing about the Unwound and Rev. shows is that my expectations were low, low, low. I'd seen Unwound about a year earlier and they had a shitload of technical problems, culminating in the amps breaking down one last time and the band becoming fed up and walking off the stage. Vern was a prick but Justin realized it wasn't the crowd's fault, so returned to the mic to tell us "Sorry for all that shit and thanks for sitting through our crappy show…" only the mic stopped working after two syllables—it was like a bad sketch. When they came back to town I might have considered not going, except that Blonde Redhead were opening and I'd been wanting to see them awhile. And let me tell you, Blonde Redhead killed. They were so good I actually felt bad for Unwound having to follow them, especially with the baggage—same club, too. But wouldn't you know it, Unwound blew me away. Just an awesome night. Hard to believe they would emerge as the decade's Yes within two years.)

(Meanwhile, I saw the Rev. on the Liquor in the Front tour. They came out and played the first two songs off that album right in a row without even acknowledging the crowd, and I immediately thought "Pricks!" They warmed up though and put on a good show, having a bunch of fun with us too (including soliciting and accepting shots of Jägermeister from the crowd). It's funny, this was in the days when I was up front at every show and pogoed the whole time—no wonder I was twenty pounds lighter back then—so whenever I hear them now I think of how much I sweat during those two hours.)

Where were we? Black. It's been a month since the show and I'm honestly not remembering it too well. A. came with me though, which was cool because she got into the Black Keys soon after I did (around Thickfreakness). I was afraid she would hate the Black Angels because she's not so much into the feedback/distortion sound (i.e., not at all). But she's a trooper and thought they were decent enough. Truly, though, once "Manipulation" started playing I thought to myself "This is the song she'll walk out during." I wasn't far off.

The band was great but I developed a bias against the female keyboard player. She had what Lee Ranaldo called the I'm-in-a-band look and was doing some sort of swaying/grooving thing throughout. I'm certain it was supposed to look cool and blithe and sexy but it too closely resembled what happens when you're walking along and your knee kind of gives out for a second, except over and over. Other than that it was a great performance, and I was glad for them that it was nearly a full house (either I underestimated how popular they are or I don't give Boston music fans enough credit). Also, I made some remark to A. about how impressed I was with the use of a sitar on the band's newish Passover (good album, great artwork), only there wasn't a single sitar on stage and the music sounded exactly like it did on record. So now I'm the non-musician with an opinion about a non-existent sitar—George Harrison and Brian Jones are not happy. (Hey, at least I wasn't that-guy standing in front of us who bought a Black Keys tee shirt and put it on between sets. As much as I love the entirety of PCU, its greatest contribution to society is the "don't be that guy" sequence where Piven yells at Favreau for wearing a shirt of the band he's going to see.)

I wish I could give some kind of set list of what the Black Keys played, but I just don't remember anymore. I can say they hit everything I wanted to hear, including "I've Grown So Ugly" in the encore. I might have pouted for a week had they not played that. It's a lot of noise for two guys. You wonder how much overdubbing goes on in the studio when a small band makes a big sound, but nothing was lacking in the live show. Dan and Patrick are just really good at what they do.

So here are Dan and Patrick, tearing the place apart, whaling on us. A mercilessly excellent show. Patrick is something to watch on the drums, a big gangly dude who's just flailing his arms and legs, but not in a spastic way. Because of the format has to turn his kit into a lead instrument à la Ginger Baker and I'm all for that. It was hard to take your eyes off him. (I read a recent interview with him where he discussed hip-hop and how much he likes it—aren't the best drummers always hip-hop fans?)

Anyway, it's become apparent to me that I waited too long to write this. But the Black Keys were awesome for the whole ninety minutes, seemed very gracious in front of an adoring crowd (I later learned this was the first show of the tour) and really exceeded our high expectations. Pound for pound, my favorite show in about eight years. And despite the awful album art, Magic Potion is probably my favorite album of the year, which may or may not be saying something because I've bought maybe three 2006 albums. More on that later.