Southern Blues-Rock Duo Pounds the Avalon

For a short time, it seemed that the Black Keys were doomed to live in the shadow of the White Stripes. They were just another blues-rock duo from the industrial belly of the country—even the groups’ names were strangely similar.

Since about 2005, however, the Keys have come into their own; as their show last Thursday at Boston’s Avalon proved, the two boys from Akron, Ohio deserve all the praise they’ve garnered on their own terms.

While Jack and Meg White are lauded for pushing musical their boundaries, the Black Keys have shorn their style to its very skeleton, its bones revealing a marriage of raw blues and Southern rock.

Young men in t-shirts playing no-shtick rock in 2006, the Black Keys attract a wide variety of fans, from young indie-rock fans to 50-year-olds eager to see classic rockers that aren’t sagging pitifully in a way that strikes too close to home. The crowd at the Avalon came as no surprise, then, and tossle-headed twenty-somethings rubbed sweaty elbows with drunken father figures.

The opening act, The Black Angels, took some warming up to. But their peculiar brand of metal-tinged psychedelia, reminiscent of Brit-poppers The Music, got better the longer they played. A different sound than the headliners, to be sure, and, while the crowd responded politely, lead singer Alex Maas’ reminder to “stick around for the Black Keys” was met with many an anxious yell.

When Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney finally emerged, crowd noise reached its peak. Auerbach riffed his way colossally into “Thickfreakness,” the title track of their 2003 release, Carney beat furiously on his spare drum kit, and the tone was set for the rest of the night.

Auerbach, if not a guitar god then surely a demi-god, let loose even more than on the band’s four full-length albums, taking the unchained punch of the band’s songs to a whole new level.

Classic favorites like “Set You Free” and a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Have Love Will Travel,” both from “Thickfreakness,” elicited the most response from the crowd, and Auerbach’s signature howl-and-croon, more delta-bluesman than bearded white guy, reached new heights (and depths).

Sampling equally from their last three releases, both of the Keys drove the beat to the bone, torturing earth-tinged blues from their instruments with such synchronicity that every head in the venue moved in unison.

Indeed, it may be the percussiveness of the Keys that best defines them. One can’t help but be moved by their driving beat, and both are such strong instrumentalists that, as they become possessed by the meter itself, they seem to be calling on some long-lost rhythmic truth.

Sounding older, deeper, and more organic than others who’ve borrowed so heavily from the blues, they combine formidable talent with a soulfulness that many find lacking in groups like Led Zeppelin.

Auerbach coaxed his myriad licks and blues scales out of the same Gibson SG all night, fingering and manning the whammy bar with such dexterity that his hands seemed not to match up with the sounds he was producing.

Carney pounded himself into exhaustion by show’s end, which might explain the brevity of the encore, comprised of just two songs from 2004’s excellent “Rubber Factory.” It’s tough work constructing the spine to prop up Auerbach’s complex guitar work, and Carney, teeth gritted, threw his whole body into every song.

What is emphasized in their live show is the rawness of the Keys’ sound, and it may be this pared down power that makes them appealing to such a wide demographic. There may not be any other recent band—the Black Keys only formed in 2001—that draws such a variety of fans, partly because no one else remains so loyal to the dark honesty of the blues with enough creativity to prevent it from getting old. There is an honesty to their songs, accentuated in their live performance, that seems to call out to everyone and no one at once.

While the White Stripes branch out, and other blues-rock combos have fallen by the wayside, Auerbach and Carney make use of prodigious talent and a big helping of soul to render each plaintive song a new thrust deeper into a universal pain. Last Thursday, as Auerbach shook his shaggy mane and rolled his eyes into the back of his head, he gave the audience just what they were asking for—the beautiful, painful truth.

—Reviewer Henry M. Cowles can be reached at hmcowles@fas.harvard.edu.