I’ve enjoyed a most excellent concert year and spent most of my summer doing this …
Which I have to admit was sort of weird when I went to the symphony.
I tempted fate and tried to sneak in one more concert last week before summer ended. It was a deal I couldn’t refuse. I was in St. Louis “on business” again. My evening was my own. Once again, a major music act was not selling concert tickets for their stop in St. Louis. That is not unusual. I received an email with good seats being offered at much lower prices than the cheap, nosebleed seats I had been eyeing. I also had a couple Ticketmaster vouchers worth a few bucks. In the end, I think this is the only time I have ever seen this on my ticket receipt …
That’s right, the fees portion of the ticket totaling $16.70 was actually more than the ticket price itself. Only $13.55 for a good seat to see … The Black Keys! I had to go. But I almost slept through it, literally. It’s not because it was a boring show, but I was so tired from not sleeping well at the crappy hotel I stayed at the night before. You may remember my blog post about this beautiful hotel room …
So I took a nap after work before I left for the show … except I almost didn’t leave. I overslept and slept through the totally unknown opening act whose name I can’t recall. But before the Black Keys took the stage, I was looking forward to hearing Modest Mouse perform some fave songs including this one …
Except, they didn’t. Unlike their show just the night before in Kansas City, they decided to eschew some of their more recognizable songs for more obscure songs. Here’s a tip … unless you are the show’s headliner, roll out the hits. Their set sucked.
Add in a bad sound engineer who did not come close to a good mix with volume way too high, and I wished I had slept longer. I was surprised by how many Modest Mouse fans (Modest Mouseketeers?) left after their set before the Black Keys.
The Black Keys played a strong set including their hits (Modest Mouse, take note) and lots of new stuff from their excellent 2019 Let’s Rock album. But … it was a bit of a letdown. The size of the stage overwhelmed Dan, Patrick, and supporting cast when they really didn’t do anything except stay in one spot on the stage and play their songs.
The Black Keys were somewhere down there on that stage. Despite a better sound engineer running the board, the end result was sort of like listening to a great set of Black Keys songs through a crappy sound system with less production values for each song. I mean, the arena they played is a giant ice rink, so I guess I should have tempered my expectations.
This Black Keys show reminded me of an inexpensive, all-you-can-eat buffet with plenty of decent food that needed seasoning. It did make me wish I could see Dan Auerbach in an acoustic solo performance. Sorry, Patrick. Here’s a live version of a fave Auerbach solo tune to end this post on a high note …
Jim Flanigan Looks at the World 