Just saw Black Keys at Terminal 5. The Heartless Bastards opened.→[More:]

Probably the best sounding show I've been to in NYC; the venue was great, two balconies made the bands easy to see, and though the music was loud it wasn't ridiculous like at some of the smaller places I've been (Mercury Lounge, I'm talking to you!).

The opening act was pretty good, somewhat shoegazey mostly mid-to-slow tempo stuff reminiscent of the headliners, with a lead singer who sounded like Chrissie Hynde or the woman from Echobelly, sinuous vocal lines vaulting in and out of the mix through a great big voice. She played rhythm on a gold top Les Paul through a blackface Fender Twin, mostly strummed upstrokes. The lead guitar was a Jazzmaster with those P90-like soapbar pickups, played through a custom head that looked and sounded like a Matchless, white Tolex cover with an oval logo that I couldn't quite make out from my vantage point, run into a Vox 2x12 combo. The bassist played a Telecaster bass; I don't know enough about drums to tell you what the drummer played on. The band had a good, thick sound, and were an ideal opener for the Keys, since their music was similarly bouncy but not as proficient.

The Black Keys were a lot more fun. Considering they're a two-man band, they had a louder and fuller sound, and I put in the new high-end earplugs my brother gave me for Christmas and heard everything just fine. The plugs made the singer audible -- his voice drowned in and out of the mix at first, which wasn't helped by the keening mumble of his melodies -- I figure if the sound rattles the bones in your chest, it'll rattle the bones in your ears at least as much, so I don't mind being the guy withh the uncool earplugs, living to hear another day. Though I wouldn't say the Black Keys have any great variety in their music, it's all interesting and changes pace from song to song; thick Hendrixy blues riffs and a chunky kind of plod backed by a drummer bent on breaking his skins. The guitarist started on a Gibson SG with P90s, then switched to a beautiful guitar, maybe a Guild: something big, maybe semi-hollowbody, big flat tobacco-burst top with more P90s and a Bigsby tremolo; his amp was turned toward the side of the stage but it looked like a tweed Twin. Man, that guy has big sound down.

Getting in and out of the venue; checking coats; stopping at the bar; using the restrooms was all a breeze, I mean really easy. After the show there were a few touts, real adventurers, selling orange balloons filled with nitrous oxide, I guess, for $5 a pop. They were selling like hotcakes, kids were pitching around on the sidewalk, and while we waited for the fourth member of our party, from whom we were separated for about ten minutes, we watched an unmarked police van roll up and a few cops rush, tackle, and arrest the stash man while he covered the canister.

It's hard not to compare the show to the White Stripes show I saw in Madison Square Garden (last year?), simply because of the unusual personnel: guitarist and drums only. They both do bluesy rock in a similar vein, but I was more impressed with the psychic rhythmic-arrhythmic connection of the Whites than with the rock-solid bash of the Keys. But they aren't the same band, nor are they trying to be, and both were great and worth seeing at least once.

I just ate a good sandwich of leftover chicken, goat cheese, and chard on a well-mayonnaised kaiser roll, and now I'm going to bed. It's wonderful -- my ears aren't ringing. The place sounded so good I wish some of the other bands I've seen in the city had played at Terminal 5 instead of little black too-loud noise-boxes.