By Christina Drago, Co-Editor-in-Chief -

Before I knew what was happening, I became lost in routine: class, work, rinse, repeat. Music fell victim to the monotony of it all. I stopped spending hours at the record store looking for real albums with real album art that doesn’t fit into the tiny square my iPod gives it. I forgot to scour the uncountable number of blogs and MySpace pages for new artists. Worst of all, I completely neglected the love of my life — the live show. The two of us renewed our vows on Monday night in the front row of Paradise Rock Club. Yes, you were supposed to send a gift. I am now dedicating a portion of my time to making sure the fire of our love is never again reduced to a sad pile of embers.

Dan Auerbach brought two openers with him to the Paradise on Monday. Knowing this, the crowd was restless. The petite, 20-year-old Jessica Lea Mayfield slid onto the stage without notice. Everyone was quieted by a surprisingly strong voice reminiscent of Lucinda Williams with a hypnotizing, rough intonation a la Zooey Deschanel. She stood with her acoustic guitar and an unnerving, somber stare that was only broken between songs when she allowed the audience to see her gap-toothed smile.

Mayfield told the audience that her songs were all about boys. The simple acoustic songs were so similar that it seemed to be a single 30-minute, trance-inducing song.

Tennessee native Justin Townes Earle soon snapped everyone out of Mayfield’s trance. Everything about this man screamed contradiction. He was clean-cut with thick-rimmed glasses and a button-down shirt, but rolled up sleeves revealed tattooed forearms and hands. From his thin, hunched frame came a speaking voice with the tenor and confidence of Johnny Bravo (too goofy to be compared to Elvis) ─ yet he sang with a clenched jaw, giving him more of a twang.

Contradiction worked wonders for him that night. Earle finger-picked his way through honky-tonk and country blues. He sang as quickly as he played, touching on every typical country theme — God, booze, traveling and his mama — even mentioning fried chicken. Earle knew just how to work the crowd.   At the end of the set, a man in the audience yelled, “Yee haw,” without a breath of sarcasm.  For forty minutes, Earle had me believing that I was home in Georgia rather than at a rock club in Boston.

The mirage of the South faded when Earle left. The crowd at a show always reflects the headliner, and Dan Auerbach’s fans take this to an extreme. When Auerbach stepped out onto the stage, he smiled at a sea of full beards and plaid flannel. If it weren’t for his pink neck scarf and sequined guitar strap, it could have turned into one extremely difficult game of “Where’s Waldo?”

Auerbach — who is one-half of the rock band the Black Keys — began his set with “Trouble Weighs a Ton,” the first track off his debut solo album, Keep It Hid. Vocal harmonies provided by guitarist Dante Schwebel of the Texas-based band, Hacienda transformed the gospel-esque song into something spine-tingling.

When Auerbach moved onto the gritty, more up-tempo “I Want Some More,” his strong blues guitar combined with the power of two drummers to create a tangible energy in the room. While Jaime Villanueva, also of Hacienda, played every song on a standard drum kit, Patrick Hallahan of My Morning Jacket often switched over to the congas, which he played with maracas as drumsticks. The combined effect of this instrumentation and Hallahan’s wardrobe choice — a Havana shirt — hit the audience over the head with the Latin influence on the blues.

Abraham Villanueva’s compact electric organ brought the set even closer to its gospel blues roots.  Yet in true rock ‘n’ roll style, the Hacienda keyboardist came close to knocking the organ off the stage more than once.

Auerbach’s raw, reverb-laden guitar in “Heartbroken, In Disrepair” was something special, and the crowd knew it, erupting in cheers. The grin on Auerbach’s face when the song ended suggested that he knew it, too. It was like the smile a child gives his parents after bringing home straight-As — something completely innocent and lovable.

Schwebel kept up with Auerbach, playing the slide as if he were possessed by the ghost of Muddy Waters, but nothing was more reminiscent of Delta blues than the soulful growl of Auerbach when he sang. The man was made for the blues.

For those who have witnessed Auerbach’s electric blues, Keep It Hid will not be something to tide fans over until the next Black Keys album. The next Black Keys album will be something to tide fans over until the next Dan Auerbach album.