Live Nation presents…. The Black Keys with special guests The Arctic Monkeys, in Winnipeg, MB on May 14th 2012
Monday night at the MTS centre was just about packed with 6500 screaming fans that were all anxious to see the Black Keys. The opening band The Arctic Monkeys were a perfect fit for The Black Keys. Aside from sounding very similar they warmed the crowd up nicely.
Up next was the Black Keys. Not being very familiar with the band live, I was not sure what to expect. Their music has a sort of weird blues-y energy to it with elements of soul and jazz mixed in, so how that would translate live was somewhat of a mystery to me.
Upon taking the stage you could tell that these guys had honed their craft well and knew how to control the audience. Now these guys were not one of those bands who tried to get the audience all riled up by saying cliché crowd pleasing remarks. Instead they just took the stage and owned it with their musical talent. Starting as a 2 piece it was nice to see them bring a whole band along to really fill out the sound. That being said after about 4-5 songs they went back “to their roots” and just played as a duo. With bands that only have 2 members my greatest complaint is that nothing ever sounds full enough and it just lacks something. The Black Keys lack nothing! With only 2 members everything sounds full and perfect, my only complaint would be that I would like to see something like this in a small jazz/blues club not being surrounded by 6500+ people in the MTS centre. It was nice to see as well that they did not rely on production value to sell the show but instead displaying their musical talents.
Great show, great music, just too bad I never got on the band wagon earlier so I could have maybe caught them in a smaller type venue.
