The Front Row

I've liked the Black Keys for a while but Brothers was life-changing. I went to see them a couple years ago at the LC in Columbus, but blacked out at Char Bar beforehand. I regret those drinks more than my first marriage.

+1. And El Camino.

Apparently you can get more Ohio.

Tighten Up is my favorite Black Keys song. Doves and MGMT are still my favorite bands.

First time I saw them was about 7 years ago in Toledo. I had just moved back from Denver, and a couple of my Toledo buddies were pretty into them by then. They took me to a show downtown and we got there about 1 hour beforehand. We went into the basement area of the venue because there's a bar down there and sure enough the 2 guys were shooting pool and drinking beers and nobody else was down there. I didn't really know much about them and asked if they wanted to play doubles and they obliged. Played a few games then they were like "hey we got to do our jobs now" and we started laughing then they took the stage and just killed it. These guys definitely earned their stripes on the road for a long time before hitting it big.

They gotta be making a lot of money off royalties. It seems like I hear them in every movie trailer, car and beer commercial.

yes they're killing it in royalties, but i don't view them as selling out by any means. their first 3 or 4 albums were basically guitar and drums and really there's only so much you can do with that before you need to spice things up a bit. their new albums are produced a lot more, but they are still very good albums.

i'm happy for them to be getting paid considering these guys used to play like 140 shows a year for several years just getting their name out.