Black Keys + Sleigh Bells + Morning Teleportation - Crystal Ballroom (Portland, OR; Dec. 7, 2010)

About six hours prior to the December to Remember show that brought the Black Keys to the Crystal Ballroom stage for the third time in two months, I came across the Rolling Stone list that chose their 2010 release, Brothers, as the second best album of the year. Falling only to Kanye’s masterpiece of a record, it was immediately evident the Keys had cemented their place under pop culture’s gazing eye, and it’s been a long time comin’. Nine years of diligently toiling away had finally paid off for the group, and the world was lovin’ on the Black Keys like never before.

This new album picked up listeners of a different breed from those that had faithfully stuck by the band as they played their signature dishwater blues. Brothers is much more radio friendly than earlier releases by the Keys, but this has helped broaden and diversify the band’s fanbase by the thousands. Their old following has always been devout, though, and this was clear the minute I stepped into the Crystal for their show this week.

What seemed to have been forgotten by this devout grouping of fans was that there would be opening bands, and that they may, or may not, be exact complements to their beloved Black Keys. Personally, I couldn’t have been more excited to see Morning Teleportation bring their local toss-up of styles to the stage first, and be followed by explosive trend darlings Sleigh Bells. The energy expelled by the crowd during those first two sets, however, was the kind that nearly killed any exhilaration the openers had planned to project upon us.

Morning Teleportation came brandishing smiles and an arsenal of manic beats and cheery rhythms, yet the crowd seemed intent on keeping their feet motionless and glued to the floor, with zero ambition to get involved in music that was not being played by the headliners--which was truly too bad for them. Morning Teleportation cast out a wicked mix of everything that is right with music, and they did it with exploration of every genre and style they could get their hands on. Digital cacklings began the set, prompting the idea they were about to whip up an an electronic frenzy of dance, but then they switched gears and launched into a rolling guitar rock beat that defined the mellow nature of what they were about to lay down. Not that the group was by any means docile and reserved, but their performance fell short of the tightly constructed, high-energy spectacle I had come to expect from them. Rather, they pumped out a calmer version of their raggedy playbook, employing their trumpet, banjo and synthesizer in a more collected way than I could have imagined.

It was delivered expertly, though, and featured plenty of style change-ups. Nothing was by the book, and no song remained the same, from start to finish. In just one track, the Portland boys busily offered us a dose of classic guitar rock, only to swap it for a melancholy love song beat, and then wrap it up with Nordic layers of drumming. When lead singer Tiger Merritt channeled his vocals through the talk box made famous by Peter Frampton, it only amplified the band’s miscellany of sound in the most appropriate of ways. This consummate concoction of music should not have gone so uncherished by the crowd present this night.

At least Morning Teleportation didn’t have to deal with the disrespect that would come to be thrown at Sleigh Bells. The truth is that there is very little in common with Sleigh Bells and either of the bands they were sandwiched in between, but that still doesn’t make right the way they were treated by those on the floor. This Brooklyn crunk pop duo are redesigning music with Derek Miller’s thickly fuzzy guitar plugs and Alexis Krauss’ screechy vocals, but their sound did not sit well with those waiting for the bluesy rock of the Black Keys. And it didn’t help that it seems Sleigh Bells didn’t do a soundcheck, because Krauss was barely audible as her singing battled the ear-shattering heaviness of their music.

The Bells had entered the stage to a pretty twinkling of notes over the speakers, but then started acting like they were bringing death metal to the show as the music changed and they started dancing around to a doom beat. A strange decision, but it did effectively speak of their hardcore roots, and aptly led them into the in-your-face riffs of “Infinity Guitar.” Every song after thumped heavily with guitar distortion and glassy noise from the sound box, and the shrieky bluster of those such as “Crown On the Ground” and “Tell ‘Em” felt wildly awesome. Well, it felt that way to me, \but not to the guy standing next to me, who decided to raise a thumbs down to the band for something like three songs. Or to the people who were muttering around me about how badly they wanted the set to be over. It was completely unwarranted, because Sleigh Bells is a pretty exciting group, and we should all be so lucky we got to see them on their way up.

All disappointment in, and of, the crowd during those opening acts evaporated once Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney took the stage. In his oh-so-adorable way, Auerbach greeted everyone with a humble “thank you” before the duo ripped open their catalog and fired up the set with a string of their older tunes. Quintessential blues came tumbling out with an extended jam of “Girl On My Mind,” and a grizzled version of “The Breaks,” and the embellishment those boys provide for each one of their songs left me spellbound. But it was when they were playing two of my absolute favorites, “Act Nice and Gentle” and “Stack Shot Billy,” that I started to realize the band was playing nearly the exact same set they’d done only two months before. Which is unacceptable. A band like the Black Keys should know their devoted fans would pay a fortune to see them play, but not if they know they’re going to show up and repeat the same set, three times in a row. We’re well aware they’ve now produced six albums, and see that as reasoning for a different show, every time. We also honor and respect the type of music they play to a ridiculously high level, and in that, come to expect so much more out of them. They’re lucky they proceeded to put on one badass of a show from there on out; otherwise they might have lost me and a good number of others.

What was especially badass was the way in which they made every song from Brothers, an album viewed as a departure from the band’s original sound, feel as bluesed out and gritty as anything the Black Keys have ever done. They do a magical job of reinventing their recordings with completely new life when performed live, and it’s orgasmic to experience. Even if they did close their set in the same way they did here in October, with a run of Attack and Release hits, then an epic remake of “I Got Mine” to finish the show, I was content in that they blew the face off of each one of those songs. Their encore only gave us two additional songs, but they were passionately executed, and effectively put an end to the night.

As I left the Crystal, I pondered on how the disengaged audience could’ve caused much more of a problem than they did, and was thankful the openers hadn’t been deterred by what had went down. In my eyes, when a show bravely positions together three distinctly different bands, it should be taken as a challenge to the fan to discover what’s so great about the bands they know nothing about. Maybe that’s just my own musically biased brain talking, but I firmly believe we could all be so better by opening our ears to more of the uniquely crafted music out there today. There’s too much of it not to.

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