On June 28th in the year 2019 The Black Keys released their first album in over five years called “Let’s Rock.” The title was inspired by the last words uttered by convicted murderer Edmund Zagorski right before he was executed in an electric chair. The electric chair that appears on the cover of the album made an appearance out by the concessions (I wanted a picture but the line was too long) and later in the show a giant version appeared onstage. Both the album and ensuing tour was highly anticipated and thus allowed them to command a fairly pricy sum for a ticket. As a result Kyle and I were the only ones out of our group willing to fork over the dough.
The album “Let’s Rock” did not grab me at first but just kept getting better and better with every successive spin and only after many listens could I fully appreciate the greatness and genius of the album. I love albums that creep up on you like that. Even without this album I would have gone to see them again but my love of this album turned the show into an absolute must-see.
This show was a far cry from the only other time I had seen them across the parking lot at Soma over nine years before this. For starters the Sports Arena is roughly five times the size of Soma as far as seating capacity. This was also not the two-piece band that I saw all those years ago. As the stage grew larger so too did the size of the touring band in order to fill out the sound of the more intricate songwriting. Don’t get me wrong, by and large these songs could survive with the band as a two-piece but dammit people paid good money to see this show and one could tell that the band intended on giving the people their money’s worth. This equated to a bass player and two additional guitarists as well as a proper projection and light show.
These guys totally aced the songs that they chose to play. I was floored from the get go when they opened with “I Got Mine” and they never really let up after that. Much to my delight they played a good number of songs from the new album including two of my favorites “Fire Walk With Me” and “Walk Across the Water.” These guys have a very timeless sound that would be hard to place in an era if I was listening to them for the first time but thankfully they live in this era.
SETLIST: I Got Mine, Eagle Birds, Tell Me Lies, Gold on the Ceiling, Fever, Next Girl, Fire Walk With Me, Walk Across the Water, Everlasting Light, Howlin’ for You, Your Touch, Strange Times, Tighten Up, Thickfreakness, Ten Cent Pistol, Little Black Submarines, Lonely Boy, Lo/Hi, Go, She’s Long Gone
