I am a big fan of The Black Keys. Recently DH and I went to see them in concert and they were fuckin’ AMAZING. If you get a chance, do go see them live; they sound even better live then they do on the albums.
They are still on tour (http://www.theblackkeys.com/turnblue ) — go, buy the tickets right away; I’ll wait.
Little Black Submarines has been my favorite during this NSF proposal-writing season. It sends shivers down my spine (wait till about 1:10). And it KILLS in concert!
And of course, Lonely Boy:
They also did a mean rendition of A Girl Like You in concert
xykademiqz 
More music suggestions please!
Since they’re so popular now, it seems like they must only play large venues now and they seem like a better small club band. What was the size of the venue you saw them in?
I saw them in a pretty large venue and they sounded great. They had two more guys, one on guitar and one on keyboards, and you’d think that was why it worked. But near the end they played one song without the backup, just the two of them, and they killed it! You could not tell at all that the other two were not there. Auerbach changed like 6 guitars during the concert (that I counted, could be more).
I think they are a band that has always been capable of doing pretty much anything they wanted musically. The early albums sound raw, garage-like; the newer ones are unsurprisingly more pop, but why not? Why shouldn’t they make money? I don’t understand it when people begrudge artists for actually becoming successful. I don’t care one iota for the numerous one-hit-wonders whose only qualification for a career in music is being a bubbly ingenue.
But I am actually very happy to see people who are real musicians, who have been playing for years and have a real track record of creativity and originality behind them (The Black Keys have written ~120 songs) finally hit it big and make some money.
That’s like a great scientist who’s been doing great science for years finally starting to get recognition once they have applied their fantastic skills to the area that people are paying attention to. Why not, I say?
Anyway, this was less a response to anon above and more of a tangent after reading
this article in the Rolling Stone
Cool. I’m never a huge fan of arena shows, but I like The Black Keys (even their more recent money-making stuff), so it’s good to know that they’re still with seeing in that sort of venue.
Sounds likes a wicked fun show. I got into them late (last 1.5-2 years) and wonder what took me so long.