The Black Keys 5/2/13

... with The Flaming Lips, who stole the show visually with a creative stage set-up.  Leader Wayne Coyne stood high on an elevated pedestal with snake-ish tubes that came down from his mic and weaved across the entire stage and went back up and hung behind him.  In these tubes were orbs of glittery light that traveled through them, corresponding with the music.  Very trippy, especially with the screens behind them adding all kinds of bizarre images.  He was also holding a plastic baby doll and treating it as if was real, playing nosies with it and all.  But they did cover David Bowie's "Heroes" so, I can deal with the strangeness.

 

The Keys, however, delivered that good ole rock show, as they do.  Opening with "Howlin' for You", they had a lot of ground to cover, what with 7 original albums.  Cover ground they did with deep cuts and the radio hits most of us know.  I haven't been to Lakewood in several years and forgot how the bass drum can vibrate the heart in your chest like being brought back to life by a defibrillator in the E.R.  After a few tunes, they cut themselves down to the original duo to jam on some older tracks which was pretty cool.  Muddling through some songs, they completely ripped it up on "Your Touch".  They also had huge screens behind them cut into many different squares for a variety of angles on the band.  For the encore, a moon-sized disco ball was raised and Dan busted out his best falsetto for "Everlasting Light".  "I Got Mine" brought the night to a close and the house music started back, appropriately, with Zeppelin's "Ramble On".