The Black Keys played none of the hits at SXSW set that paid tribute to rock's Black roots

The Black Keys performed a tightly packed, wet concert Thursday night at the Mohawk as part of the South by Southwest Music Festival. It was a nerdy celebration of Black music that solidified the band’s legacy as sonic allies up there with Stax Records, Clifford Antone and Dan Akroyd. 

And it was just the sort of exclusive and slick pop-up that exists to spark FOMO: Beloved duo famous enough to headline Austin City Limits riffing in an intimate setting, backed by rock star buds Hermanos Gutierrez. There were $50 posters commemorating the occasion, blues lifers Jimmy “Duck” Holmes and Robert Finley enjoying a place in the sun as openers, and Austin heroes like Britt Daniel of Spoon hangin’ downstairs.

Reader, I posted a concert pic captioned “Vibin’ with the Black Keys” to my Instagram Stories 30 seconds into it.

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In reality, said vibes were mixed because the band hit its deliverables and punched out after an hour with minimal banter. They promised and played 2021’s “Delta Kream,” a record of Junior Kimbrough covers the majority of the audience didn’t know, and played no encores. 

The set didn’t stray from the Mississippi Delta sound—distinctly American blue notes plucked from thin air with finesse and processed via cavernous amps—that Keys members Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney leveraged as a foundational influence into punchy, 3-minute rock songs.

A SXSW organizer told me at 7 p.m. that the line open to the general public was cut off at just 25 patrons. The band hit the stage at 12:25 a.m. And the lack of catharsis by way of hearing a loud rock tune that you know from any of the band’s popular albums meant that the sardine-stuffed crowd left without releasing tension in their shoulders. 

But this is why the Black Keys, a band that’s been criticized for riding the shoulders of Black giants to fame, are remarkable.

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They approached SXSW whole-hog, delivering a keynote speech, premiering a documentary about their long road back, and capping the appearance with two concerts Thursday and Friday.

Said film premiered Monday. As Variety wrote, the movie centers around the duality within the band: They make beautiful music together but can’t really talk about it. One of them recorded an album in secret from the other once and called it “Keep It Hid.” The band effectively broke up in 2015, ceasing all interpersonal communication for 3 years.

This might explain why onstage, Auerbach is aw-shucks distant while he tunes between numbers and talks like Ben Stiller doing an impression of Bruce Springsteen.

So you can leave the Mohawk bummed that you didn’t get to dance to “Everlasting Light” like my buddy Matt did after four songs, or you can appreciate that you got to hear Auerbach’s Guild s-200 Thunderbird talk so much.