Bigger not always better for Black Keys - Sydney Morning Herald

Still evolving ... The Black Keys. Photo: Peter Stoop

Reviewer rating:

Rating: 30 out of 5 stars

Reader rating:

Rating: 30 out of 5 stars (2 votes)

Genre

Rock

Performer

Black Keys

Black Keys, Sydney Entertainment Centre, October 22

It's the natural order of things, a progression meant to be not just welcomed but adapted to smoothly because, after all, isn't this what you wanted?

You start off as a small band in a small room playing to 50 or 100 people, all of whom you can see. As you become more popular, you play bigger rooms and put on bigger shows, and when you get to arenas and stadiums, well, you do it louder and bigger. Easy.

The Black Keys are proof that even the very good bands don't find it easy or natural, their show a still-evolving thing which flared often with brilliance or excitement or both, but also showed up inherent and accumulated flaws that are yet to be resolved.

Of those, the least of them, but in some ways telling anyway, was a set and lighting arrangement which isn't quite sure whether to go stark or expansive and doesn't entirely convince in either; a mix which sometimes was inconclusive; and a shortage of easy stagecraft and chat from two men who are not natural showmen when not playing.

This was first of all a song selection dominated (14 out of the 20) by the two most recent albums, the success of which has taken them from mid-sized venues and rusted-on fans to the Entertainment Centre and a younger, wildly enthusiastic new crowd who probably don't know much of, say, 2002's excellent The Big Come Up (no song from it played) or 2003's Thickfreakness (one song) and wouldn't be much the wiser after this show.

In part to reproduce the sound of the hit albums, and in part to fill the bigger rooms, the two-piece of guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney has expanded to a four-piece with extra guitar, bass and keyboards. It can certainly work, as it did with the solid blows of Next Girl and the powerful swing of Howlin' For You, which opened the show, and the faster, harder version of Lonely Boy, which closed the set. But interestingly, when they revert to the two-piece, first for a mini bracket of Thickfreakness, Girl is on My Mind and Your Touch, and then for the closing, base-principle rock of I Got Mine, they are more convincing and compelling.

When they go big they are pushing out, claiming the room but actually highlighting its size and our distance from them; when they play small they bring us in automatically, creating intimacy and reducing our separation.

It may sound counterintuitive, but the smaller band has a greater impact. Maybe because in a sense they reverse the burden of proof/performance from the sound to the songs, and maybe because the looseness of the two-piece (Carney is hardly a strict timekeeper, which matters more in the newer songs) and the muddier sound they inhabit feels more comfortable or real from them.

I came away thinking the Black Keys have the songs to pull a crowd like this but are still working towards a way to reward a crowd like this. It's not yet natural for them. But, hey, if it was easy, we'd all be doing it.

The Black Keys play at the Sydney Entertainment Centre tonight.

Last night's song list: Howlin' For You, Next Girl, Run Right Back, Same Old Thing, Dead And Gone, Gold on the Ceiling, Thickfreakness, Girl is on My Mind, Your Touch, Little Black Submarines, Money Maker, Strange Times, Sinister Kid, Nova Baby, Ten Cent Pistol, She's Long Gone, Tighten Up, Lonely Boy. Encore: Everlasting Light and I Got Mine.