Live
The Black Keys live in Athens
01/06/15 16:26 Filed in: Concerts
Some thoughts on Saturday night's concert in Rockwave Festival:
1. The performance: We've always held a special place in our hearts for bands that climb on stage and perform as clinically rich and pitch-perfect as they did in the studio during the album recording. That's a "check" mark next to Black Keys.
2. The sound: When we say "play fucking loud!", we mean it in the same exact manner that Bob Dylan did when shouting to Mickey Jones right after the "Judas incident" in Royal Albert Hall. It translates to "hit a drum and make it shout like a rifle shot". The Black Angels, who were on stage before, kind of got it wrong; and featured a sound engineer who was destined to cripple our ear frequency range by endowing something like +80dB on the tweeters. Thankfully, the half-hour intermission allowed some time for curation to hearing impairs. The Keys started a bit quieter and for the most part of their set, were right on sound-wise.
3. The seats: VIP seats usually suck, except on acoustic concerts where they sometimes work. But in a rock arena type of thing, it's ridiculous to hear screaming guitars perpendicular to the stage and watch people go wild from a distance. Either be a part of it, or if you can't stand the unavoidable hassle, watch it on YouTube. Here is how it looked from the inside:
1. The performance: We've always held a special place in our hearts for bands that climb on stage and perform as clinically rich and pitch-perfect as they did in the studio during the album recording. That's a "check" mark next to Black Keys.
2. The sound: When we say "play fucking loud!", we mean it in the same exact manner that Bob Dylan did when shouting to Mickey Jones right after the "Judas incident" in Royal Albert Hall. It translates to "hit a drum and make it shout like a rifle shot". The Black Angels, who were on stage before, kind of got it wrong; and featured a sound engineer who was destined to cripple our ear frequency range by endowing something like +80dB on the tweeters. Thankfully, the half-hour intermission allowed some time for curation to hearing impairs. The Keys started a bit quieter and for the most part of their set, were right on sound-wise.
3. The seats: VIP seats usually suck, except on acoustic concerts where they sometimes work. But in a rock arena type of thing, it's ridiculous to hear screaming guitars perpendicular to the stage and watch people go wild from a distance. Either be a part of it, or if you can't stand the unavoidable hassle, watch it on YouTube. Here is how it looked from the inside:
