The Black Keys finally get their Co-op Live moment

The Black Keys are here at Co-op Live, finally, having taken the long way around. Their European tour should have kicked off here in Manchester 18 days ago and, well, we all know what happened next.

Instead they are wrapping up this run in Manchester, having been pipped to the post of being the first band to headline the delayed Co-op Live by Elbow on Tuesday night.

Still, if they’re harbouring any hard feelings about missing out on that accolade, you wouldn’t know; the Ohio duo are on ebullient form, much as they were eleven months ago when they played to a packed house across town at the AO Arena.

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You very much get the sense that the duo are making up for lost time, having drifted apart and onto other projects when drummer Patrick Carney’s dislocated shoulder forced them to cancel a huge world tour in 2015.

They wouldn’t reconvene until 2019, with the Twin Peaks-inspired comeback album ‘Let’s Rock’, but that record proved to be the first of four in six years, a rate of return similar to their early career, when they were more of a grungy, blues-rock proposition.

These days, their sound is more mainstream and melodic, as tonight’s scintillating opening run of tracks proves. ‘Gold on the Ceiling’s bouncing riffery inspires an early singalong, ‘Tighten Up’ balances nimble melody with real groove, and ‘Next Girl’, with its thunderous swagger, reminds us why the two-piece made the step up to rooms this size in the first place.

Much has been made of the sophistication of Co-op Live’s sound system and the design of the room with its acoustics in mind, and on this evidence, the effects are genuinely impressive; whilst spaces this cavernous are never going to achieve sonic perfection, there’s a crispness and clarity that shines through on both the crunching blues of the early material (‘Have Love Will Travel’, ‘Your Touch’) and the softer likes of ‘Everlasting Light’ and a genuinely soulful cover of ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’.

Those moments in the set feel pointed, like the band is reminding us that they remain the scruffy, punky upstarts that conjured up such raw, grimy garage rock on records like Thickfreakness and Rubber Factory.

They certainly seem much changed, playing with an expanded lineup in front of an enormous, 4x4 bank of screens, and with singer and guitarist Dan Auerbach looking sharper than ever, like Hollywood’s idea of a rock star.

And their new material suggests evolution, too, with the clutch of tracks taken from latest album Ohio Players amongst the breeziest, poppiest material they’ve turned out to date.

There’s a local connection to those songs, with ‘Only Love Matters’ and ‘On the Game’ having been co-written by Noel Gallagher, who fails to reprise his guest appearance with the band from last week’s gig at Brixton Academy.

Not that it matters; the real heavyweight moments here come courtesy of the songs that lend themselves freely to extended jams, like ‘Weight of Love’ or ‘She’s Long Gone’.

In those moments, when Auerbach and Carney allow themselves to loosen up, you wonder whether there’s a better blues rock band in the world.