Although I’ve only mentioned The Black Keys a couple of times on this blog, a quick glance at my last.fm charts will show you just how much they’ve shot up my “greatest f@#$ing bands in the world” list. A great oversight occurred when I failed to mention their show at the Nokia Theatre that I attended back in November. There was no way I would miss it, but as the date neared and I found myself with an extra ticket I eventually forced my lovely wife to join me. She likes their music, but just isn’t much of a concert goer these days. But boy were we both happy that she finally conceded to come along.
I think the reason I didn’t talk about the show was that I simply couldn’t find the words to express how mind-blowing it truly was. And I’m not exaggerating here. I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that show belongs in the top 10, possibly top 5, performances I’ve ever seen. When you’ve just got two people up on stage, it’s hard to imagine such a thrilling performance, but when the singer has a gorgeous, bluesy voice and incredible chops on the guitar and the drummer is… well, just sick on the drums, how can you go wrong? But reviewing a live show cannot do it justice, so how could I convey yet another instance of awesomeness to my readers?
Enter Fabchannel. A couple of weeks ago, someone in a music forum mentioned this site which has posted the full videos for hundreds of concerts performed at a couple of venues in The Netherlands. This is totally legit, as the venues themselves are taking part in the taping and the artists give their permission. To my delight, they had a performance of the Black Keys from last year posted. I have multiple shows of theirs, but no video, and watching them play is almost as breathtaking as actually listening to them play. And so I present to you the final song from their set, Till I Get My Way:
They messed up the tracks on this show, so the first minute plus is actually the end of “Grown So Ugly” (the one track I really wanted to hear that they didn’t play). Enjoy that, and then watch how Patrick totally destroys the drums on the final song.