Black Keys and Jake Bugg

Eden Frost

The Black Keys and Jake Bugg

Forum Los Angeles

November 6, 2014

 

The Black Keys killed it last night in Los Angeles playing to a completely packed crowd at the Forum on their Torn Blue tour. Playing a solid 18 song set and finishing with 3 more in an encore, they more than delivered.

Opener Jake Bugg got things going with an incredibly powerful set showcasing this young artist talent for belting out some strong vocals and quick guitar skills. Bugg played some songs from his first album ,Jake Bugg, such as “Seen it All”, my personal favorite “Two Fingers” and saved his biggest hit “Lightning Bolt” for the end. He mixed in some new music he has been working on and songs from his second album Shangri La and changed up some of his originals with longer and slower introductions and drawn out guitar riffs. I can’t wait to see what Bugg’s future holds as he has come a long ways from when I saw him playing at the SD House of Blues last year where he nervously took the stage and played for a much smaller crowd than the huge stadium that was filling up for headliners, The Black Keys.

A hypnotic swirl of black and white appeared on the many screens along the stage and a voice commanded the audience to look in and get lost before the show started. The audience was ecstatic and screaming when Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney took the stage. The duo was joined by touring artists John Wood and Richard Swift who helped the Keys amplify their tunes to the next level.

They started their set with “Dead and Gone” and went into “Next Girl”. Some highlights from the show were when the band went into “Strange Times” from their 2008 album Attack & Release and when they did a cover of Edwyn Collins’ “Girl Like You.” They brought a new element of raw energy and power to the song, and Auerbach’s vocals rivaled the smooth sound that Collins put out in the original made popular in the movie Empire Records.

While I wished they had played more of their older music and some more of the slower tracks off of their album Brothers, it was still an incredible show and the encore set that included their hit “Little Black Submarine” satisfied my craving for a slow and soulful song. The stage took on black and white lights and the floating screens behind the band projected black and white footage of Auerbach singing and close us of the instrumentals. Everyone sang along and left the Forum feeling stoked on the night of incredible music that had just happened.