FORT WORTH — It can never, ever be said that the Black Keys do not give the fans what they want. And we mean exactly what they want. Over the course of the Ohio-born rock group’s 90-minute performance in Fort Worth Thursday night, any possible consumer complaints were preemptively quelled with one fan-favorite song after another.
Inside the gleaming, newly opened Dickies Arena, singer Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney provided service with a smile. Mainstream radio hits, deep cuts, fresh songs not even a year old and tunes old enough to have their own driver’s licenses were professionally served in a manner engineered for five-star Yelp ratings.
As gutsy and soulful as much of the Black Keys’ music can be, gritty improvisation and spaces for error were kept to a minimum throughout. The Fort Worth set list was more or less identical to that of every other stop the group has made on its “Let’s Rock” tour in 2019. And yet, their professionalism and technical brilliance kept things plenty thrilling, regardless of how rehearsed every note, every breath surely was.
The set list was well-oiled to serve listener demands. No one had to wait around all night to hear the band’s most popular songs, which were spread out evenly through the show. The three-song encore consisted of a couple of tunes from their most recent LP and a deep track from 2010.
When their show began promptly at 9:30 p.m. (following a raw, free-wheeling opening set by former indie-rock poster boys Modest Mouse), Auerbach and Carney warmed the packed arena with faithful, note-by-note takes on “I Got Mine” from 2008’s Attack & Release, and a couple of songs from their latest Billboard topping LP, Let’s Rock. The appreciative crowd came especially alive for the raucous, stomping “Gold on the Ceiling,” during which a towering, hanging backdrop sheet fell to the stage revealing a properly gigantic video screen, which effectively signaled that the concert had begun in earnest.
Auerbach’s reputation as a guitar hero is certainly well-earned. Rarely did he use the same guitar for even two consecutive songs. When he armed himself with his rectangle-shaped Bo Diddley Gretsch for the frenetically charged “Fire Walk With Me” and the tremolo drenched “Howlin’ For You,” it was particularly exciting.
Given the group’s reputation as a blues-rocking outfit, perhaps their most underappreciated aspect is their ability to ease up off the pedal a bit. A dreamy “Walk Across the Water” lent the set a woozy, wafting vibe, followed by the almost Stax-like soul churner “Everlasting Light,” which featured Auerbach’s most fluttering falsetto of the night.
A handful of the night’s songs displayed the immense influence that Led Zeppelin has had on the band. The British trailblazers were famous for taking the old blues sounds of the American south and filtering them through a modern, amped-up presentation. A greasy, garage-blasting “Your Touch,” “Strange Times” and a swampy “Thickfreakness,” complete with some of Auerbach’s most fiery guitar gymnastics of the night, all offered proof of Zeppelin’s impact on today’s rock landscape.
The concert’s pace and palette afforded enough diversity to keep things interesting indeed. The roots-rocking older song “10 A.M. Automatic” was more Neil Young than Muddy Waters, while “Tighten Up,” arguably the group’s biggest hit, lightened the night with Auerbach’s pristine whistling intro. The sultry “Ten Cent Pistol” from 2010’s breakthrough Brothers LP, lent the set a swinging, psychedelic flourish. If the Black Keys were to ever perform in an airport Holiday Inn lobby bar, this is the song that would wash the room in just the perfect, lounge-lizard aesthetic.
The song that encapsulates what the Black Keys are all about at this point was what formed the fist-pumping, air-drumming climax of the show. With its serenely lilting acoustic guitar introduction, “Little Black Submarines” lulled the audience to a whisper; it was so quiet, you could hear a nacho crunch across the arena. Then, after an abrupt pause and a guitar change, Auerbach scratched out a brazen riff as Carney wailed on his kit with all four limbs.
As the guitar player propped his leg on the drum riser and shredded his weapon of choice, inches away from his lifelong friend, it seemed as though the Black Keys were back in their high school home of Akron, Ohio for a glorious moment.
About midway through the set, Auerbach noted how clean the venue was — perhaps unaware that Dickies Arena has only been open a couple of weeks. There was a time for his group when such a shiny new setting would be the last spot he’d ever plug into, but this new Cowtown palace is far more suited for the band to hand deliver the highest of rock ‘n’ roll goods: a mix of glitz and grime, old and new.