My Black Keys Experience

Every so often Skully’s and Jack Daniel’s team up to host a free show with a band that would usually play a venue larger than Skully’s. Past shows brought in Spoon, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The Walkmen, but Monday’s show with the Black Keys was a whole other tier. The excitement for this show was more than I’ve seen for any concert in a long time, and the fans came out in droves. Skully himself called it the most popular show he’s ever done.

Outside the music-diner before the show, the line snaked its way past the parking lot, supposedly stretching all the way to 5th Avenue earlier in the day. Some people gave up (“Dude, let’s just go get drunk at Surly Girl”), but there was still a line 10 minutes before the show ended. I was a doofus and didn’t show up till 9:35, and at point my name on a seemingly nonexistent list was not getting me past the red velvet ropes—and I mean that literally. There were actually velvet ropes.

Thanks to the generosity of one Wes Flexner (who gets on a list like that with a +3??), the flustered, bewildered, overwhelmed JD reps eventually parted the ropes, the free-drink tickets were administered and I eventually settled between the front bard and the bathrooms. There wasn’t much hope of getting any closer. The place was shoulder-to-shoulder all the way back, and every five feet closer to the stage was five degrees hotter.

Skully’s had been magically transformed into a Jack Daniel’s advertisement, with countless bottles of JD lining the bar and big posters that occasionally advised you to “add responsibility to the mix.” The win-tickets-only show brought all kinds: middle-aged men wearing short-sleeve, unbuttoned button-downs; ironic mustache types; the scenester glitterati; a roid-raging Keys fan who was ejected from the premises; and that dude who played the eccentric British boyfriend in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, or at least a look-alike who seemed to be very proud of his eyeliner.

Still, the quintessential person at this show was probably the college-age dude in a Black Keys T-shirt leading his drunk girlfriend out by the hand. Ah yes, the girlfriends. Many of these tag-along significant others could be seen exiting throughout the night, fed up with the heat, the close quarters, or just the fact that the Black Keys really do sound like a fuzzed-out, blues-rock duo. “They’re just not as good as I thought they’d be,” one woman said. This was after I redirected her from entering the men’s bathroom. She thought she was exiting the building.

I pretty much listened to the show more than I did watch it, although if I stood on my toes I could see the duo’s heads from time to time. It was still plenty loud, though. The first half of the set was mostly older stuff. “10 am Automatic” was a crowd pleaser. The second half incorporated more new stuff, which I thought sounded best: “Psychotic Girl,” “Strange Times,” “I Got Mine,” “Same Old Thing.” It was raucous and messy, all in a good, fun way.

The big question on my mind all night was: Why do people (myself included) like the Black Keys so much?

On the way home from the show, I got McDonald’s French fries, because no matter who you are or where you grew up or what social strata you belong to or see yourself in or if you’re urban or suburban or you grew up in a town of dirt and tumbleweeds, you probably crave McDonald’s French fries on occasion. It may be comfort food or a guilty pleasure, or maybe you even eat them ironically. No matter. The point is, just about everyone likes them. They’re the great societal equalizer.

And maybe the Black Keys are like McDonald’s French fries. People from all walks of life and musical inclinations love the Black Keys. At their base, the Black Keys play blues-rock, and ever since Jimmy Page and Robert Plant appropriated the blues and funneled it into young white people, blues-rock has become the base for subsequent subgenres of rock too many to count. And that’s a foundation with endless appeal if it’s done well. Classic rockers like it because it’s so bluesy. College rockers like it because it rocks so hard. Kids like it because the guitar is so loud and distorted, which = awesome. Indie rockers like it because it’s so simple. The list goes on. The Black Keys can be appropriated into whatever rock ghetto you’re drawn to.

The majority of the fans seemed to end the night pretty satisfied. I regretted not showing up earlier to watch the show from somewhere other than the bathroom, but still, mostly satisfied. See? Just like fries. Satisfied, with a twinge of regret.