The crowd at the March 9 Black Keys show at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., could be summed up by one word: diverse. Teens and 20-year-olds in oversized glasses and Converse chatted about the Akron, Ohio, band’s latest album, El Camino, and how it compared to fan favorites—while elsewhere in the arena, a group of gray-haired men, a negligible constituency at most concerts held after 1971, got in line for T-shirts. These were not your average concert going parents stuck miserably following their teenagers around. These middle-aged folks were legitimate fans.
