5

sunday

The Internet is a terrible thing for a band such as the Black Keys. Analyzing the Akron, Ohio, blues duo should be a pretty simple process involving one question-and-answer sequence: “Can you strap on a six-string, bond with a drummer, and sound cool? No? Then shut up and let these two do their thing.” Of course, cyberspace is for bitchin’ and complainin’ and overthinkin’ and all that, so the Black Keys do have a hater or two. But what’s the point of cynically comparing these guys to various heroes across the broad sweep of classic rock history? You won’t find the answer on Google. Who knows, maybe Dan Auerbach (guitar and beard) and Patrick Carney (drums and eyeglasses) deserve epithets such as “reductivist spawn of Bad Company”—and that’s just a hypothetical—but until “Ctrl-f ‘Paul Rodgers’=found” on the Keys’ Wikipedia entry, there’s no reason to believe it. The Black Keys perform with the Black Angels at 8:30 p.m. Sunday and Monday night at the 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. $20. (202) 265-0930. (Joe Warminsky)