The Black Keys & The Animeros Live Show Review: 7/15, Vic Theatre, Chicago
The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach
Two weeks ago at the Vic Theatre, in between ripping through "Gold on the Ceiling", a standout from The Black Keys' most Grammy-nominated album, and their cover of "Have Love Will Travel" from beloved Fat Possum debut Thickfreakness, guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach motioned to his right and said, "That's "Patrick [Carney] on the drums, I'm Dan, [and] we're The Black Keys." The Black Keys haven't felt like The Black Keys of the Aughts and early 2010s--let alone been a live duo--for a long while. At times throughout their set at the Vic, you could have been convinced otherwise. For one, they were playing at a mid-sized venue a mere two years after their entire arena tour was cancelled due to poor ticket sales and a subsequent booking at the "2024 America Loves Crypto Tour" in Akron. (The band has clarified in an interview that they accepted the Crypto booking as a way to pay back staff working on the cancelled tour.) (They were set to play the fairgrounds at the much bigger Salt Shed the night after the Vic show, but it was rescheduled, due to dangerously low air quality, to two indoor shows in the fall.) More importantly, they were touring Peaches! (Easy Eye Sound/Warner), their best album in 15 years, one that was made with the rawness and spontaneity that pervaded the band's earliest work.
The Black Keys' Patrick Carney
When Auerbach's late father was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and was staying with Auerbach as he was dying, Carney knew Auerbach would need a distraction. The two took '45s they had been collecting to listen to together at hang sessions and instead covered them at jam sessions, putting them to tape. The resulting Peaches! showcases songs by past Keys muses Junior Kimbrough (whose son Kinney in turn plays drums on Big Lucky Carter's "Stop Arguing Over Me") and R.L. Burnside, plus other American music stalwarts like Jessie Mae Hemphill. Almost two decades after the band had to repurpose written material for Ike Turner into the Danger Mouse-produced Attack & Release, they finally got the chance to cover Turner (well, via Earl Hooker and George Thorogood and the Destroyers) with "You Got to Lose"; at the Vic, sandwiched between better-known originals like "Next Girl" and the Floyd-esque Turn Blue slow-burner "Weight of Love", "You Got to Lose" came across as a sound at this point ingrained and natural. The galloping Willie Griffin cover "When There's Smoke, There's Fire" sported howling electric piano courtesy of Squirrel Nut Zipper/featured Peaches! and touring musician Jimbo Mathus, and an extended outro jam. And Auerbach and Carney managed to make Dr. Feelgood's "She Does It Right" sound as retro as it actually is.
Barrie Cadogan & Auerbach
Despite the stage presence of Mathus, percussionist Chris St. Hilaire, guitarist Barrie Cadogan, and bassist Andrew Gabbard, there was one moment at the Vic that transported me back to Brothers-era Black Keys. The 2010 album was their commercial breakthrough that still saw Auerbach and Carney tour as a duo, making as much ramshackle noise as they could with their guitar and drums, but on larger stages. At the Vic, as the band broke down "I Got Mine" to just its kick drum thumps, upon the reentry of Auerbach's meaty riff, he hopped up on to Carney's platform, as if to hype him up like those two were alone in their practice space, a basement, a rubber factory. It's possible that a return to the rougher aesthetic that got them started in the first place, ironically, will catapult The Black Keys back into bigger venues. See them before they get too popular again, I guess.
Really, the most inspiring endeavor Auerbach's been up to over the past several years has been his label, Easy Eye Sound, one that elevates stellar blues musicians that never got their flowers as much as contemporary soul and garage rock artists. At SILY, we've profiled the likes of Robert Finely and reviewed the late, great Son House. But we haven't seen Auerbach's Latin music curatorial chops shine until his signing of The Animeros, an Austin-based psychedelic cumbia trio who The Black Keys chose to open their show at the Vic, and who will release their debut album ¡Qué Bárbaro! on Easy Eye Sound next month. A sound Auerbach heard from a distant roof during a recent SXSW ended up being a deeper story of three musicians--guitarist Mauro Lopez, bassist Nicolas Sánchez, and drummer Nick Tozzo--who had played in various bands for a decade and came together to combine Colombian, Tejano, and American music. On the Auerbach-produced ¡Qué Bárbaro!, Lopez's guitar takes center stage in favor of an organ, the traditional rhythmic driver of cumbia, to yield a more rock-indebted record.
At the Vic, the trio, accompanied by percussionist Pablo Ranlett-López and multi-instrumentalist David Thacker, performed over half of ¡Qué Bárbaro! plus two songs from their 2024 self-titled EP. They treated the crowd to equal parts earworms and trippy breakdowns. Set opener "Descarga Royal" was propulsive and groovy. The blistering guitars and screaming keys of "Mambo Mambo" deftly juxtaposed Tex Mex and psychedelic soul via stop-starts and stadium-worthy drum fills. "Terlingua" began with a garage-punk riff reminiscent of some of Auerbach's other label signees before slowing into a distorted stomp. The ultimate highlight was "Ponchote de Ritmo", which blended clacking percussion and hazy pedal-work with a mischievous bass line and scraggly guitar leads, the type of song that changes tempo without you noticing because you're locked in, having too much fun listening to The Animeros. No wonder Auerbach was transfixed by that distant sound.
