The Black Keys @ The Manning Bar, Sat 22nd June

Hello Halfassed readers,

I thought I should finally live up to my contributor status on this blog. Or perhaps I’m the half assed component? Hmmm. Anyway, last on Saturday arvo The Black Keys played Sydney Uni’s Manning bar. I haven’t seen a gig there before (being from Melbournia), and was pretty impressed with the venue choice – not too big, not too small, and sound balance was just about right.
The macho crowd looked like they enrolled in agriculture course at the uni in 1985, and hadn't left the Manning Bar since. There were sideburns galore, a guy with no perceptible waistline and a very thick neck, and plenty of authentic flannelette shirts.
On the downside, the bar line was insanely long throughout the gig – although we still managed to down three beers each, which isn’t bad for a Saturday arvo session.
The support acts weren’t announced prior to the gig, and both played short sets – Flying Foxes and The Dead Farmers. The names say it all really.
So, the Black Keys. I’ve seen them play twice before, and it’s reassuring to see that some things haven’t changed. Dirgy, dirty, low-fi Southern rock. Two guys who don’t muck around with small talk, working the simple combo of sublime guitar and pounding drums to hypnotic affect... oh also, the singer has now grown insanely long hair (see pic) which added a nice cave man element to the proceedings.
They played a pretty good mix of songs from across their four (?) albums, but the best stuff was still from ThickFreakness. Kicking off with ‘Girl Is On My Mind', and keeping a steady pace, they rocked hard (especially ‘Stack Shot Billy’), and then rocked some more. Considering they had booked another gig straight after, doors opening at 9pm, it was a pretty impressive and suitably sweaty effort.

On a sad note, they didn’t play my favourite cover at the afternoon show – ‘Have Love Will Travel’, but apparently the later show didn’t start til 11pm and had an aggressive over- sauced angry crowd vibe.