The Black Keys

From the rubber city to the rest of the world

The Black Keys formed in Akron, Ohio, in 2001 when singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney began recording together in Carney’s basement. The early years were resolutely DIY: The Big Come Up (2002) and Thickfreakness (2003) were cut on second-hand tape machines, and Rubber Factory (2004) was tracked in a disused General Tire plant in Akron — the kind of resourceful setting that shaped the duo’s aesthetic and lore. Those first records moved them from clubs into small theatres on the back of a taut, overdriven blues-rock sound and word-of-mouth momentum.

The step-change arrived with Attack & Release (2008), then a full takeover with Brothers (2010) — the album that put them on mainstream radio in the US — and El Camino (2011), which turned “Lonely Boy” and “Gold on the Ceiling” into fixtures at festivals and sports arenas. The Grammys followed (five wins in total), and by the early 2010s the Keys were playing with the scale and polish of headliners without abandoning the two-man engine that had taken them there.

The work that stuck

Brothers (2010) and El Camino (2011) defined the band’s ascent: lean songs, big choruses and a crackle of garage energy cut to hit with modern heft. Turn Blue (2014) stretched into psychedelia; Let’s Rock (2019) reset to guitar-and-drums swagger; Delta Kream (2021) returned to Hill Country blues covers that first lit the fuse for Auerbach and Carney; and Dropout Boogie (2022) kept them writing tight, radio-ready rock. In April 2024 they issued Ohio Players, a guest-peppered set made with Beck, Noel Gallagher, Dan the Automator and others, and built from crate-digging ‘Record Hang’ DJ nights the pair hosted in 2023–24. The record landed on 5 April 2024 and was followed in November 2024 by an expanded Trophy Edition. Interviews around release underlined a loosened, groove-led mindset inspired by those 7-inch-fuelled parties.

If the album recharged the studio chemistry, the tour around it faltered. A 31-date North American arena leg announced on 1 April 2024 was quietly scrubbed in late May, with the band later saying they would rethink how to present the show. Within a fortnight, on 15 June 2024, they parted ways with Irving Azoff’s Full Stop Management and moved to Red Light Management. The end of 2024 also saw the Keys resurface in Akron for a free, first-come “America Loves Crypto” show tied to Stand With Crypto on 25 October — a curious, one-off hometown night that kept them stage-sharp while the wider reset took shape.

A 2025 rebuild on smaller stages

The regroup began in earnest in 2025. On 8 August, The Black Keys released their thirteenth studio album, No Rain, No Flowers, via Easy Eye Sound/Warner — a concise, 36‑minute set that set the tone for a tour of theatres, amphitheatres and the kind of outdoor venues where the duo’s tight rhythm-and-riff attack reads loud and clear. Early shows in California that June captured the pivot: at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre on 2 June 2025 the set ran to around two hours and mixed catalogue staples with a few resurrected deep cuts; at Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre on 3 June they dusted off “Too Afraid to Love You” for the first time since 2015 and leaned into unhurried dynamics that suited the room.

Fan chatter and local reviews through the summer sketched a picture of a band actively reshaping its live pacing: opening with an early-days medley (“Thickfreakness” / “The Breaks” / “I’ll Be Your Man”) at some dates; using projection-screen visuals more as punctuation than centrepiece; and, crucially, playing rooms where the energy wasn’t swallowed by empty seats. By late August, at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Maryland (28 August 2025), the show felt like a career-spanning walk with enough variation to keep devotees and casuals engaged.

Peaches!, and a tour that suits the songs (2026)

The next pivot came with Peaches!, released 1 May 2026 on Easy Eye Sound/Warner. The album, cut quickly and leaning into the Hill Country and electric R&B repertoire that shaped the Keys, arrived with a Peaches ’n’ Kream World Tour ’26 that began in Florida on 24 April and has since rolled across North America and into late‑summer Europe. The routing favoured midsize arenas, amphitheatres and headline slots at city festivals, with support from a rotating cast including Miles Kane, Eddie 9V, Jeremie Albino and, on European dates, Robert Finley; a handful of nights have featured one-off guests, notably in Nashville in early August.

On stage, the 2026 show is spare by design. Reviews from Vancouver’s Rogers Arena on 31 May 2026 describe a giant glowing band logo, a freer, dirtier sound and a set engineered to feel more like a blues bar than a blockbuster. The touring lineup — Auerbach and Carney with Andy Gabbard (guitar), Eric Deaton (bass), Jimbo Mathus (keys) and Chris St. Hilaire (percussion) — lets the duo thicken arrangements without sanding off the swing. Typical running time sits around 90 minutes. Average setlist data across the tour shows openers like “Heavy Soul” or “I Got Mine”, Peaches! cuts such as “Have Love Will Travel,” “You Got to Lose” and “She Does It Right” woven between catalogue pillars (“Gold on the Ceiling,” “Next Girl,” “Tighten Up”), and the now-familiar closing one-two of “Little Black Submarines” and “Lonely Boy.”

Across the Atlantic, the UK leg that closed out summer 2026 — including three London shows culminating at Hammersmith Apollo on 1 September 2026 — drew notices for recapturing the grit of the early 2000s while keeping the big-chorus muscle of the 2010s. The set breathes more than the arena show they had planned in 2024; grooves sit back, Auerbach lets solos stray, and Carney’s drums punch without rushing the tempo. Not every crowd or pacing choice lands the same way — Nashville message boards in early August griped about a few slow patches — but the general read from city to city is of a band that sounds more like itself when the staging stops shouting.

Where they stand now

As at 7 September 2026, The Black Keys are in the closing third of a six‑month 2026 tour that runs through continental Europe in early September before returning to North America for a string of dates in the US Northeast and Canada into mid‑October. Ticket listings show the Peaches ’n’ Kream branding across venues like St. Augustine Amphitheatre (29 July 2026) and Turning Stone Resort Casino (10 October 2026), with Eddie 9V and others rotating in support. The choice of venues — fairground stages, amphitheatres, mid-cap arenas, and classic theatres — matches the music they’re making now: cover-heavy sets and deep-blues pulses that benefit from intimacy and headroom more than they do from scale.

In the catalogue, the run from Delta Kream (2021) through Peaches! (2026) underlines how central that Mississippi-rooted feel is to their identity, even as the pop instincts of Brothers and El Camino still dictate the architecture of a night out. The 2024 misfire and management upheaval is now context rather than crisis; the 2025–26 response suggests they have a viable path that favours feel over footprint. Five Grammys — three for El Camino‑era songs and two around Brothers — still sit on the mantel, but it’s the current shows that tell you most about their priorities: keep the band on stage, cut the complication, and let the guitars talk.