The Black Keys, Corn Exchange, Edinburgh

I last saw Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney’s primitive garage blues duo a little under four years ago, touring their sixth album Attack & Release. Truth be told, I found them slightly heavy going. Big riffs, big drums, back-of-a-beer mat lyrics and not much else. Heard one, heard 'em all. My, but they’ve grown. Or, at least, their audience has. 

After a decade’s hard graft and eight albums, The Black Keys are suddenly a very big deal indeed. They play three sold-out nights at Alexandra Palace next week, while tickets for a forthcoming show at Madison Square Garden were snapped up within 15 minutes. Grammies, million-selling albums and mainstream radio play is now par for the course.

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It’s a slight mystery why this has happened now, because not all that much has changed. Their whole ethos remains somewhat austere and staunchly economical. Last night’s Edinburgh concert was the second in a brief UK tour, and it was rammed to the rafters. The Corn Exchange is a dreadful venue, like one of the riverside meat-packing warehouses where bodies are disposed of in American gangster movies. Only less inviting. And with worse acoustics. But The Black Keys are a band built for business. They simply pummelled their way through.

There was little concession to their new found big league status. They clearly weren’t here to put on a show. A bunch of bulbs and a couple of screens showing grainy black and white footage and retro-coloured patterns. That was it. “Let’s keep this thing moving along,” said Auerbach, and they did. The singer didn’t say – or indeed do – very much. When he took off his shirt (fear not, he had on a striped T-shirt underneath) it carried the dramatic charge of a major scene change.

So thank goodness The Black Keys now have a set list crammed with great things like hooks and choruses and glitter and gold. They always made a pleasingly thuggish noise, but it used to be a rather thick, soupy thing from which distinct songs struggled to emerge. Not any more. New album El Camino, produced by Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton, sounds like a Greatest Hits album created by some killer mutation of The Clash, The Cramps, The Sweet, T. Rex and the best of Stax and Motown. “Run Right Back” cut loose like a runaway from Electric Warrior, right down to its brilliantly silly “finest exterior / She’s so superior” lyric. “Dead and Gone” sounded like “London Calling” colliding with Motown; “Gold on the Ceiling” was monstrous glam rock. What fun it all was.