Kool Haus
Cost: $41.25
Hand Stamp: None, but plenty of wristbands
July 03, 2010
On one of the hottest nights in Toronto, the Kool Haus was near capacity for Black Keys openers The Morning Benders. Arriving just in time to hear an excited fan run up to her friends waiting in the merch line to exclaim, “The Morning Benders are playing, can you believe it?” It was nice to see someone excited over their performance, even she came to this realization during their last song. The Morning Benders seemed like an odd opener pairing with The Keys, but they both have a distinctive sound that is both modern, but reminiscent of decades past, even if the Keys fall into a blues era, and the Benders more into a folk/surf music era.
After an efficient ten-minute stage setup (and a dramatic backdrop banner reveal), The Black Keys, or simply Dan and Pat as Dan Auerbach introduced himself and band-mate Patrick Carney, jumped into Thickfreakness, to open their twenty-one song set. For the first half of the evening it was just the duo on stage playing many of their hits from their last five albums. As hot as it was in the thick of the crowd, the band wasn’t any more comfortable as Carney quickly drenched his dark shirt and had to remove his glasses after the first song. Auerbach doesn’t make a lot of conversation on stage between songs and occasionally introducing them, but he did express love for the city. In return, Toronto certainly loves The Keys, since this was the first of two sold-out shows.
The second half of the show featured a handful of songs from the new album, Brothers, and brought two additions to the stage, a key-board player and an additional guitar player. While the addition of two members should have given the band a fuller sound, some renditions of the new material didn’t translate as well to the stage (Sinister Kid in particular) with the keyboard sounding out of place and awkward at times. The Keys actually seem to get a better, fuller sound as a duo, which was strange and at the same time really impressive. Also impressive is Auerbach’s almost falsetto voice on Everlasting Light that is even more impressive when heard in person, as is his whistling solo on Tighten Up. It’s unfortunate that so many great bands are writing material for the Twilight franchise, but Chop and Change from the newest movie soundtrack was really great live as well.
After a welcomed three-song encore, the duo left the stage covered in just as much sweat as the audience members, some of which appeared to have just come out of a shower when all was said and done. The floor was equally soaked with a combination or alcohol and sweat, which percentage of each still remains a mystery.
On an interesting note, it seems Auerbach had more to say on the second night as he stopped right in the middle of Stack Shot Billy to confront some obnoxious audience members acting like ‘frat boys’ and pushing some girls. That’s kind of chivalry that makes the girls swoon and imagine themselves as the girl that is on Auerbach’s mind.
