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Review: Moving right along with the Black Keys at Staples Center

Dan Auerbach leads the Black Keys at Staples Center.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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The Black Keys spent the beginning of last week in New York City, where they played for more than 60,000 people at a massive outdoor concert in Central Park with Neil Young and Foo Fighters. Saturday evening, they ended the week at L.A.’s Staples Center, rounding out a two-night stand sandwiched between similar engagements by Justin Bieber and Madonna.

It was a remarkable stretch for an Ohio blues-rock duo that less than a decade ago was making albums in drummer Patrick Carney’s cramped Akron basement.

So how did the Black Keys get so big? By continuing to pursue -- in fact by refining -- an ethos of smallness.

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PHOTOS: The Black Keys at Staples Center

Though they descend from a tradition grounded in manly ostentation, Carney and singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach don’t really go in for the Dionysian displays associated with Cream and Led Zeppelin; they value songs over solos and, true to their Rust Belt roots, economy over excess.

Basically, they’re a guitar band designed to pop-fan specifications, an approach that paid off commercially on 2010’s platinum-selling “Brothers” (which spawned the hit single “Tighten Up”) and creatively on last year’s excellent “El Camino.” Hooky and headlong, the latter plays like a blues-rock best-of minus all the boring bits musicians use to impress one another; it does its job as efficiently as a worker on the line.

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Assisted onstage by bassist Gus Seyffert and keyboardist John Wood, the Black Keys preserved that mind-set Saturday, blasting through a tidy 85-minute set weighted toward material from the band’s last few records: “Tighten Up” and the shuffling “Howlin’ for You,” both from “Brothers,” along with much of “El Camino,” including the stoner-metal boogie “Run Right Back.”

They also reached back to 2008’s “Attack & Release,” which began their ongoing collaboration with producer Danger Mouse, and strung together several early numbers during a brief mid-show sequence that Auerbach and Carney did on their own.

“Let’s keep it moving right along,” the singer said in a rare bit of between-song banter, and he sounded conscious of what’s required to keep an arena audience engaged. (The Black Keys are scheduled to play Anaheim’s Honda Center on Monday.)

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This forward momentum didn’t preclude an attention to detail: In “Gold on the Ceiling,” for instance, Wood’s organ provided a splash of early-’70s glam, while judiciously selected video images connected various tunes to the mythology of the open road.

And throughout the concert, stagehands could be seen wearing black-and-white suits -- a more consciously stylized choice than the band’s jeans and T-shirts.

But even in its moments of high-flying theater -- as when two enormous disco balls descended during the slow-motion strut of “Everlasting Light” -- Saturday’s gig had an appealing low-to-the-ground quality that made Staples Center feel like a (very pricey) neighborhood bar.

Next time, drinks on the band?

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