Sweet Home Wisconsin: Concert Stories #44: The Black Keys with Florence + The Machine and Cage The Elephant

The Black Keys

Openers: Florence + The Machine (2^nd time) & Cage The Elephant

Marcus Amphitheater

July 6, 2011

Age 28

This was a great concert and one of the best combination of bands I have seen to date! Being the huge Florence + The Machine fan that I am, I was super excited that she was finally making her way to Wisconsin right before her second album Ceremonials was about to drop. I knew and liked some of the Black Keys songs but I honestly bought the tickets with FTM in mind! I went to the concert with my brother and we were able to score amazing fifth row seats because the Black Keys offered members of their fan club the seats first! And an even better bonus, their fan club is free, so I was super excited to get such great seats without having to pay any extra fees.

The first band of the night was Cage The Elephant. I only knew their song "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" but I was quickly impressed with them. As the first act up, it can be incredibly hard to get a crowd (what little there may be) going. Matthew Shultz, the lead singer, was not about to perform to a quiet crowd. He demanded attention from the crowd and got everyone (at least in my vicinity) standing up and rocking out. All members of the band performed as if they were the headlining band and it was amazing. At one point Shultz even went into the crowd, many rows deep. It was thrilling and the band was sure to have made many fans with their performance that night.

Up next was Florence + The Machine and my only complaint about her set was that it was not longer because I wanted to hear so much more! I will also say that I noticed a pretty big difference in Welch's performance. When I saw her the first time in Chicago there was a wild intensity about the way she performed and her performance in Milwaukee was much more controlled this time. She was still amazing and passionate with her performance, I would describe it as more professional maybe? That absolutely did not take away from the quality though, it was still as fun as ever.

Then came the headliner the Black Keys and as soon as the lights went out, the pot was lit all around! I only knew a few of their older songs but was well versed on their Brothers album, which was fantastic. Although a two man group, additional musicians were brought in to round out the sound on some of the songs. I love a great guitar player and it was thrilling to watch Dan Auerbach play. I love a bit of blues and the Keys have a bluesy rock vibe to them that is great especially on a hot summer night.

Overall the night was amazing, it's rare when I can watch every band in a line-up and think that each band should have been the headliner. Another interesting and random note about this show was that Jessica Szohr, the actress from Gossip Girl, was sitting two rows behind me!