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REVIEW
Happy homecoming for Black Keys

Auerbach, Carney attack and release in Akron show

By Malcolm X Abram
Beacon Journal music writer

If the Black Keys want to play their hometown in 2009, they might have to wait for the University of Akron's new stadium to be finished to fit all the local fans in one place.

The West Akron duo is riding a wave of critical acclaim and its best record sales on the strength of its fifth album, Attack & Release, produced by hot knob-twiddler and Gnarls Barkley member Danger Mouse.

On Saturday, the band entered the stately, acoustically refined and designed stage of E.J. Thomas Hall to a standing ovation from the sellout crowd. Playing in front of a giant inflatable tire touting Akron and ''Heavy Sole,'' the Firestone grads proceeded to give the age-varied crowd the fuzzed-up blues-flavored rock it desired, with Girl Is on My Mind, followed by the stomping riffage of Thickfreakness.

''It's nice to be home,'' Dan Auerbach told the crowd.

The Keys subscribe to the ethos that recordings and live shows are separate listening experiences. Thus, songs such as the taut Set You Free and the bouncy blues of Busted are stretched out and broken down, with Patrick Carney — who has come a long way as a drummer — adding subtle and occasionally funky variants on his usually thunderous lockstep grooves, only to rebuild to crowd-pleasing crescendos.

Likewise, Auerbach, whose onstage moves have always resembled a drunken whirling dervish, seems to be embracing his inner guitar hero, dramatically stomping his many fuzz pedals, playing screaming lead and slide lines and literally beating power chords from his Rickenbacker.

As for the new songs, Attack & Release is the band's most varied and layered collection of songs, but in concert with only Carney and Auerbach, those tunes are stripped to their bare essentials.

Carney shifted the groove of the uptempo single Strange Times, and I Got Mine featured an extended freakout solo from Auerbach, who has added a bit of flash to his traditionally chord-heavy and fingerpicked playing.

Fans will have one more chance this year to see the duo, when the Black Keys open for their musical heroes and fellow Akronites Devo at the Akron Civic Theatre on Friday.


Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.

If the Black Keys want to play their hometown in 2009, they might have to wait for the University of Akron's new stadium to be finished to fit all the local fans in one place.

Get the full article here.


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Firestone Park Fire Breathing Fr
Barberton, OH

Posted 07:57 AM, 10/14/2008

woohoo! Can't wait for Friday!


Urban Renaissance
Akron, OH

Posted 02:42 PM, 10/14/2008

Where's my ducat, Malcolm?
















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