It was a full and very hot house at The Wedge for The Black Key's rescheduled date. The heaving crowd was packed in like sardines and ready to blow away those Sunday night blues.

Warming us up were The Cato Salsa Experience (TCSE) - a four-piece from Norway with chunky, thumping bass lines which gave a cheeky wink to 1960’s British Mod music - rockin' guitars and stunning vocals from frontman Cato which bear an impressive tinge of Free's Paul Rodgers.

Patrick

They go down a storm with The Wedge crowd who nod and bounce about appreciatively. With a support band as good as TCSE I fear The Black Keys are going to have to pull off something pretty special.

Dan and Patrick were welcomed on stage by the eager crowd and prepared to show us that 'three's a crowd' as they took us back to basics with their bass-less guitar/drums set up.

The pair's stripped-down dirty sound is raw and thrilling live with thrashing drums and gritty, riff heavy guitars. I almost felt like I was in a rock club in New Orleans rather than The Wedge in freezing cold Southsea.

As Dan began to sing I found myself doing a double take - surely that extraordinary powerful, rusty voice couldn't be coming out of such an ordinary looking bloke!? He certainly has a pair of lungs on him!

Dan

They played songs from both their debut album The Big Come Up, the more recent Thickfreakness and also threw in a bluesed-up cover of The Beatles' She Said.

They might play the blues but it's not the usual tales of woe - waking up in the morning and finding that the missus had walked out etc... Their songs have more of a feelgood vibe which certainly put a smile on the crowd's faces who grooved, strutted and wiggled throughout their infectious, stomping tunes.

Carrying off the minimalist approach is a pretty tricky thing to do, but The Black Keys well and truly pulled it off. They're not even cool, they're just quite simply brilliant.

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