With Bono fully recovered from back surgery that forced U2 to postpone their North American tour, the Irish rock band has announced plans to head back into the studio to
Past tours and live offerings have found the group blasting out hard rocking/white boy blues, but tonight found them more confident, easing back and letting the songs (especially those played as a four piece) speak for themselves. This came with a sacrifice of their metallic aggression and urgency but it is hard to argue with the quality of the Brothers tracks.
While traditional print media seems slowly to be going the way of the 8-track, we’re happy to note that Spin Magazine is in the midst of celebrating its 25th Anniversary.
The ninth annual Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival kicked off Thursday afternoon. As we hit the midpoint of the festie we thought we’d take a peak at what’s been going
While we may have wished for rap-rock to fade away in the past, we couldn’t be more pleased with the results of The Black Keys’ latest project – Blakroc – that
While the members of The Black Keys are both busy touring with their solo projects this fall, the Akron-based act did manage to make their way into the recording studio
After a spending three years inhabiting venues across the mighty Northeast, Farm Aid will once again return to its roots with a show in the Midwest at the Gateway City
With The Black Keys and Dan Auerbach each hitting stops in the greater Maryland/Washington D.C. region last month, it only seemed appropriate to stack the two shows against each other – Auerbach’s main gig vs. his side gig, Baltimore, MD vs. Washington D.C., duo vs. ensemble.
[All Photos By Zachary Herrmann]
So, what better way to compare the two than with a Battle of the Bands? We’ll tally up points for each round, and, at the end, crown a winner. Let’s see how Auerbach fared against Auerbach.
CORE BAND:
With The Black Keys, you know exactly what you’re getting: two dudes, a guitar, a drum kit and a lot of noise. The Akron, Ohio twosome has been doing its dirty, bluesy, garage rock thing for the better part of the decade and – after last year’s brilliant Attack and Release
Dan Auerbach’s backing band for his first solo tour behind last month’s Keep It Hid
READ ON for the rest of Rudi’s comparison of Dan vs. The Keys…
This is a no-frills DVD from the no-frills Akron, Ohio duo. We catch them in their live element and thus fans will rejoice and haters will not be swayed. The Black Keys play a compact set that – encore included – just breaks the hour mark, no guests, and no major surprises, just straight ahead white boy blues/hard rock. Dan Auerbach shaggily fires off riffs and vocal grunts on fan favorites “Stack Shot Billy” and “10 am Automatic” and drummer Patrick Carney crushes his foot pedal into dust on the thunderously jammed out “Busted”. The sound is excellent here with Carney’s floor tom vibrating through the screen while the fluid segue between “Set You Free” and “ThickFreakness” screeches. In the end, no doubt there is fiery playing however, there just doesn’t seem to be much variety and the set ends up feeling like one long song. Visually the direction and the lights are major players, Lance Bangs who uses more tight shots and close-ups to accentuate Auerbach and Carney than wide stage shots, a few crowd pans are tossed in, as well, to break it up. The editing was heavy, but not hyper-spastic – a mixed bag overall. The lighting, on the other hand, is flawless and inventive, cascading over the sold-out house, playing havoc with lenses and creating fantastic visuals, Mike Grant should be commended for his work here. There are only a few extras, three “official” music videos, some behind-the-scenes-footage, as well, but the live set is why fans are buying it, especially if they caught the Keys on this tour. It will definitely stay in the collection but this effort would seem to play better as a background disk at a party than a sit-down-to-be-studied concert film.
As usual, Superfly Productions will present a series of concerts at a number of New Orleans venues during Jazzfest. The cleverly titled 2009 Superfly during Jazzfest concert series has just been announced.
READ ON for more details and a full list of performances…
