Black Keys shift in to high gear for rousing set at NASCAR Chicago

It’s been a quiet few months for The Black Keys, culminating in an unplanned “exclusive” for the NASCAR Chicago Street Race Weekend on Saturday night. As of now, their 90-minute set at the racing event was the band’s only scheduled performance for 2024, after the Akron-born blues rock duo abruptly canceled a planned fall arena tour six weeks ago.

That announcement netted a wave of think pieces about the status of poor ticket sales plaguing the industry. Yet principals Dan Auerbach (guitar/vocals) and Patrick Carney (drums) had a more simplistic stance in their public announcement, noting their desire to return to more “exciting, intimate experiences.”

Whether they intended that vibe to start immediately at the NASCAR Street Race, it ended up being the tone of the concert anyway as they took on a no-frills, back-to-basics approach to their blues-garage rock pedigree — with relatively intimate crowd taking it all in. Much of the racing hordes had departed Grant Park after The Loop 110 NASCAR Xfinity Series Race wrapped in the late afternoon, leaving a small flock of music fans in Festival Field where blues master Buddy Guy had taken the stage hours earlier.

The band’s overall circumstances and Saturday’s small draw did nothing to deter Auerbach and Carney from giving it their effortless all, however, supported by an extra percussionist, bassist, keyboardist, and a couple guitarists, including long-time friend and tech Dan Johnson.

The rollicking set was padded with plenty of staples including “Tighten Up,” “Howlin’ For You” and the superb “Little Black Submarines,” a master class in musical chemistry where the pulse of the organ, Carney’s bolstered beats and Auerbach’s fret slides came together in voluminous harmony.

“We’re just trying to get louder than those race cars,” Auerbach declared to a cheering crowd.

There were also reverent covers of The Sonics’ “Have Love Will Travel” and a twangy take on the Motown classic, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” And yes, ample tastes of The Black Keys’ new collaborative album “Ohio Players,” released in April, including lead single “Beautiful People (Stay High),” as well as “This Is Nowhere” (written with Beck) and the Noel Gallagher-featured track “On The Game.”

Yet, these current selects came off too polished and watered-down, commercialized attempts compared to the rest of the band’s catalog, recorded with analog, one-take perfection.

In fact, it was the Auerbach-deemed “oldies but goodies” that stole the spotlight Saturday, including the scorching “Heavy Soul” that harkens back to a time 20 years ago when The Black Keys were cutting their teeth in those down-and-dirty clubs and studios — before the five Grammys, before working with uber manager Irving Azoff, before losing their grit to the mainstream sheen. If they are trying to replicate those formative days, they are on the right track after the NASCAR appearance.