SUIT YOURSELF MAGAZINE ONLINE | Gig Review - The Black Keys // Liam Finn

Gig Review - The Black Keys // Liam Finn

Monday 18th November 2008 @ Academy, Bristol
With Support From: Jessica Lea Mayfield

Beards are the order of the day: We squeeze ourselves through the dungeon that is Academy, brushing past a few of them until we can see the beard to end all end all beards, fused to the butch chin of Ben, drummer for tonight’s first support act Jessica Lea Mayfield. The three musicians onstage led by lead singer Jessica are a decent, ambient, indie-folk band with some pleasant material but not much else really. What keeps most people interested is the exasperation on the band’s guitarist’s face as he screams and squeals his way through a handful of interesting solos.

Beard number two of the evening comes out onstage dragging its owner Liam Finn. Behind him comes the second half of this band’s double act, Eliza-Jane, and between them they proceed to rock this joint to the floor! There may only be two of them but Liam doesn’t let that hold the music back; through the use of several clever recording loop devises, you’d be forgiven for thinking there were 6 Liam Finn’s on the Academy stage tonight! You can’t keep your eyes off him for a second as he’s always playing with something, with some clever drum or guitar loop up his sleeve. If you do look away, you’ll soon be scratching your head wondering where the hell all these riffs and beats are coming from?!

However, I start to think that instead of all this recording and looping to create the illusion of a band, Liam Finn could just do with a real, full band behind him. He’s got more than enough talent, energy and personality to be a brilliant front-man and his fantastic head-banging riffs and beats had a tendency to get a little lost and lacked a bit of punch when it was just him and Eliza-Jane. Could anyone live up to his high standards though? Liam is at home on lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, drums and vocals and is equally talented on each – maybe he doesn’t need a band!

I eventually came round to Liam’s minimalist way of thinking when he bursts through their final song of the evening, Second Chance, which, once he’s built his dense layers of instruments and riffs and switches between them, proved the best and most kick-ass rock and roll moment of the evening. All else aside, it was a fantastic, pulse racing performance!

Our third and final beard came out tonight to a fantastic reception as part of the US double act, The Black Keys. Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney have been touring their own brand of mid-West America, sleazy blues-rock for 7 years now, releasing 8 albums/EPs along the way, and have slowly made their way up the venue food chain in Bristol on various tours and tonight they headline the Academy for the first time.

From the fan’s point of view the gig was brilliant, a fantastic chance to see the songs we love played live with heart and energy, but from a performance point of view, the gig was pretty unspectacular. The Black Keys did everything that was required of them; a long set smattered with hits and lesser known tracks, a little crowd interaction and the mandatory encore, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. The gig’s pace was steady and constant and without anything exciting going on onstage, truth be told it did get a little tiresome. It was great to see the band live but the headline show was crying out for a bit of Liam Finn’s energy and improvisation.