The Black Keys have been on a roll on their sold-out headlining US tour, which concludes this weekend. At this week's stop in Portland, The Oregonian says, "the whole show rocked." The crowd at Sunday's show in Vancouver "couldn't have asked for more," says the Vancouver Sun. "The Keys were unrelenting, sweaty and wild right from the very beginning ... Mind-blowing stuff." Following Saturday night's Seattle set, Seattle Weekly says the songs off their new album, Brothers, "were sensual and shit-kicking all at once."
The Black Keys have been on a roll on their sold-out headlining tour of the United States, which kicked off late last month and continues through this coming weekend at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after two stops in Austin: Friday at the hugely popular Austin City Limits festival in Zilker Park followed by a more intimate set at the famed Stubb's Bar-B-Q for their Official ACL Aftershow on Saturday night. The band heads to Europe to tour at the end of the month.
The band returned to the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, Oregon, the site of their 2008 concert DVD, Live at the Crystal Ballroom, for two consecutive sold-out shows last night and the night before.
The Oregonian's Jeff Baker says that whichever part of the night a fan found to be a favorite, "What was most important was that the whole show rocked while demonstrating that the Black Keys have taken their blues-based, guitar-and-drums sound about as far as it can go and are moving in new directions. Auerbach and Carney are still the same two fired-up guys from Akron, Ohio, who love to play hard and loud, but they're maturing as writers and musicians."
Baker goes on to describe their latest Nonesuch release, Brothers as "their most popular and interesting album." Read the full concert review at oregonlive.com.
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Prior to hitting Portland, the band played the Paramount Theatre in Seattle on Saturday and the Orpheum in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Sunday. The latter turned into a celebration of the band's first gold record, as Brothers recently reached that landmark in Canada.
Reviewing Sunday's Orpheum show, the Vancouver Sun says the crowd "couldn't have asked for more." The Sun's Francois Marchand explains: "The Keys were unrelenting, sweaty and wild right from the very beginning ... shaking the foundations of the theatre."
Marchand goes on to describe the band's evolution, saying, "The Keys have come a long way from their early garage days and have mutated into a fully realized band that deserves no comparison."
The highlights of Sunday's show for Marchand came during guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney's duo performances, for "that's when the sparks truly come flying out, the crowd simply erupting, bodies flailing, mouths screaming in unison. Mind-blowing stuff."
Read the complete concert review at canada.com.
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Following Saturday night's set at Seattle's Paramount Theatre, Seattle Weekly's Erin Thompson marvels at "the amount of pure rock-and-roll energy and soul the Black Keys—two men alone—can infuse into their stage show," saying of Auerbach's "beautifully, painfully bluesy" vocals that she is "not convinced another frontman's had this much hard-rocking, remarkable soul in his voice since Robert Plant."
Thompson goes on to say of the duo that "Auerbach obviously loves the guitar and the plenitude of wailing sounds he can evoke from it ... and Patrick Carney's drumming riotously offsets his partner's vitality."
The songs off "the masterful Brothers," she concludes, "were sensual and shit-kicking all at once."
Read more at seattleweekly.com.
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For more tour information, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour. To pick up a copy of Brothers on CD, vinyl, or in the deluxe edition with high-quality, 320 kbps MP3s included at checkout, head to the Nonesuch Store.
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