The Black Keys best bet for holiday rock bashes

'Tis the season to pack into a giant concrete cavern and rock out like — or with — a teenager.

Once again WaMu Theater hosts holiday-themed revues organized by two of the Northwest's most popular commercial radio stations.

The 13th annual Jingle Bell Bash, produced by 106.1 KISS-FM, is Saturday. Wednesday is 107.7 The End's Deck the Hall Ball, which has been around since 1993.

Both feature a slew of bands, most playing abbreviated sets of nondenominational (insert "active," "emo," "alt," "modern" or whatever your preferred modifier)-rock, though the music this year is as different in style as Hot Topic is from H&M.

The highlight is the Black Keys, playing its second Seattle show in three months as sub-headliner of the Deck the Hall Ball. The band that used to go toe-to-toe with the White Stripes for the title of World's Greatest Rock Duo has proved the more durable of the two; the Black Keys is, in fact, the only one still operating. More than that — they're kinda popular.

The band's sixth and best album, "Brothers" (Nonesuch), released earlier this year, reached No. 3 on the Billboard chart. "Brothers" continues the Keys' deep reach into the muddy waters of rock 'n' roll's blues-soaked past, this time adding layers of production, percussion and self-aware cool to its raw and worn minimalism.

In concert the band produces a stunning racket for just two dudes, a concentrated Zeppelin-ish stomp, seething and faintly familiar. Their fans consist equally of college-bound stoners, well-bearded indie rockers and cool dads in expensive sneakers.

Broken Bells, as official Deck the Hall Ball headliner, is a proverbial lump of coal in the stocking. Helmed by singer-guitarist James Mercer (best known for his work in Portland band the Shins) and drummer/producer Danger Mouse (half of Gnarls Barkley) and backed by a five-piece band, Broken Bells plays a pleasingly melodic and supremely bland brand of pop-rock. On its sole, eponymous album, released earlier this year, Mercer's vocals remain dutifully bittersweet while Mouse dabbles with enough electronic flourish to qualify the music as entry-level experimental. The duo played an underwhelming acoustic set for The End at the Hard Rock Café in May before a sold-out gig that night at the Showbox.

Perennial smug-rock heroes Cake — whose first album in seven years, "Showroom of Compassion," is set for release early next year — is the bright spot on the undercard, rounded out by emo war horses Jimmy Eat World, ambitious Australian popsters the Temper Trap and token band-whose-moment-has-passed Sleigh Bells.

Over at the Jingle Bell Bash, the headliner is Paramore, whose third record, "Brand New Eyes," has sold more copies than all the Broken Bells and Black Keys records combined. The Tennessee band's power-pop-rock leans hard on the pipes, attitude and Skittle-hued hair of singer Hayley Williams, and speaks to the Top 40 demographic epitomized by KISS's listenership. Young and self- serious, it's a beloved and hard-touring live band that has stepped willingly into the role of pop-punk savior.

Co-headliners 3OH!3 is young and not serious, a sexed-up knucklehead party band to contrast Paramore's sincere-core tendencies. These Boulder, Colo., electro-pop dudes make Katy Perry and Ke$ha — both of whom they've duetted with on studio recordings — look like Sandra Day O'Connor and Gloria Steinem, respectively.

Further down the bill are well-groomed teen-bait bands All Time Low, the Maine, Mayday Parade, the Ready Set, A Rocket to the Moon, Cartel and Runner Runner, all of which make music as interchangeable as their hairdos. A "surprise guest artist," to be announced at the concert, will also perform.

Jonathan Zwickel: zwickelicious@gmail.com