Shut up and play the hits

I think there is a fact that explains well the career of The Black Keysthe first time they played in Madrid, in 2012, they had been in their career for ten years and were at their peak, having released their two best-known albums, also the best, the two previous years, in 2010, “Brothers”and in 2011, “The Way”. As it could not be otherwise, it was those albums that dominated the concert’s repertoire, playing seven songs from each one, fourteen out of a total of twenty. Since then they have released seven more albums, but their weight in this Sunday’s concert has been almost testimonial, six songs only, including only one from their latest album from 2026, “Peaches”. And all this within the “Peaches ‘n Kream World Tour”.

It is clear that Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney They are aware that their peak has already passed, and they continue to resort to the songs from those two great albums, almost half of their current repertoire. But, despite everything, I think I enjoyed this concert more than that one and that they have improved a lot live. Maybe the new band will be better. Evidently the addition of Barrie Cadogan, who has played with Primal Scream, Morrissey, Paul Weller and Liam Gallagher, has given Auerbach a boost, who has enjoyed every solo, or perhaps they have gotten used to playing in large spaces. In fact, it is also quite notable that they have managed to almost fill the old Palacio de los Deportes, now Movistar Arena, after the lukewarm reception of their latest albums and their problems filling stadiums in their native country.

The fact is that they seemed comfortable up there, as if they no longer had anything to prove. Auerbach appeared on the scene with a polo shirt from the Spanish soccer team tucked into his pants. He seemed more like a tourist in Ibiza than a rock star, but he overcame his looks with a great vocal waste and electric bursts on the six strings.

The show began with the song they ended with in 2012, “I Got Mine”, one of the few looks at the albums before “Brothers”in which they used to play much more raw, only as a duo, without much more accompaniment. Those songs have also benefited from the increase in the band: the two guitarists, Carney on drums, some keys and percussion, with an occasional touch of harmonica.

They sounded powerful and, although they barely interacted with the audience, they seemed comfortable and enjoying the concert. “Gold On The Ceiling” was received with a roar, as it could not be otherwise, being one of their two or three best songs. Before the concert, Marc Bolan’s T. Rex had been played because these two guys never hide their influences.

Also playing in the preview was The Stooges and The Black Keys paid tribute to them by playing an incendiary version of more than six minutes of Iggy’s “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” They also did not forget to have Aretha singing to The Beatles and Otis to The Rolling Stones, as if wanting to tell us “Yes, we are a white band that lives off of black music, but it also happens the other way around.” The fact is that another great moment was “Just Couldn’t Tie Me Down”, another of the songs from their beginnings, when Auerbach was still chasing the shadow of Junior Kimbrough and RL Burnside, although it is also noticeable that he has absorbed the Delta blues through Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin, as evidenced in “Man On a Mission” or “She’s Long Gone.”

Of course, there was also time for their more garage-oriented offshoots, such as in their notable version of “Have Love Will Travel”, more psychedelic excursions such as those featured in “Weight of Love”, where they also indulged in some harmonized solos between Auerbach and Cadogan a la Allman Brothers, and their forays into soul as in the celebrated “Tighten Up” or that “Everlasting Girl” in which the singer showed a lot of class singing in falsetto.

What is clear is that people had a really good time. “Howlin’ For You” closed with the people shouting their “tarararata” once it was finished, and the band gave it to them, the perfect summary of the concert being that shout of “Shut up and play the hits!” by Win Butler (Arcade Fire) at LCD Soundsystem’s farewell concert.

Not in vain did they end with two encores to leave everyone happy, “Little Black Submarines”, with Auerbach asking the audience to turn on the light of their cell phones in the acoustic part, which illuminated the Palace and led to the ecstasy of its electric part, and the indispensable “Lonely Boy”, perhaps the second most popular and addictive rock song of this century, behind “Seven Nation Army” by that group that always ends up coming up when talking about The Black Keys…