The Black Keys An Evening of Dangerous Riffs and Other Good Decisions at Hammersmith Apollo
- Alan Bryce
- 9 hours ago
- 5 min read
Eventim Apollo – 31st August 2026
IAMGES / WORDS ALAN BRYCE
I arrived at Hammersmith Apollo expecting a Black Keys gig and left feeling like I'd spent the evening trapped inside somebody else's overdriven record collection.
A quiet sense of anticipation hung around the Apollo long before the lights went down. This was the opening chapter of an unusual London residency: three nights, three venues, three chances to see how The Black Keys' music would react when dropped into entirely different surroundings. Hammersmith got first crack at it, and there was a feeling in the room that nobody wanted to miss the start of the story.
The night began with Robert Finley, who was the ideal opening act precisely because he made no attempt to behave like one. While most support slots are exercises in audience management, Finley's set felt entirely self-contained, as if he'd wandered in from another era and decided to occupy the stage for a while. His voice carried the sort of grain and weathering that singers spend entire careers trying unsuccessfully to fake. Every song seemed connected to somewhere real, somewhere hot and dusty and stubbornly alive.
What made the performance especially compelling was the interplay between Finley and his band. They weren't there merely to accompany him. They pushed and coloured the songs, building grooves that moved easily between blues, Southern soul, gospel and rhythm and blues without ever sounding self-conscious about it. The musicianship throughout was tight but never over-polished. There was a looseness to proceedings that suited both the songs and Finley's larger-than-life stage presence.
Between songs he held the room effortlessly. He spoke with the ease of a natural storyteller, drawing laughs from the audience one moment and then silencing the same room with a vocal performance that seemed capable of travelling from a hushed growl to a full-throated howl in the space of a single verse. The years in his voice weren't something to be disguised. They were the point.
More than anything, Finley brought a sense of continuity to the evening. The Black Keys have always worn their musical influences proudly, and here was one of those influences made flesh: a performer rooted in the traditions of blues and soul but still carrying them forward rather than preserving them behind glass. By the end of his set there was a noticeable shift in the room. People weren't waiting for the main attraction anymore. They were paying attention.
The Black Keys walked onstage without ceremony and immediately buried the audience beneath the opening pulse of "Heavy Soul". There was no slow build, no scene-setting. One moment the lights were down, the next the room was moving.
What struck me throughout the night was how physical the band sounded. Not loud, although they certainly were that. Physical. The bass occupied space. Patrick Carney's drums seemed to arrive from below floor level. Dan Auerbach's guitar wasn't so much heard as encountered.
"Fever" and "Gold on the Ceiling" came early and established the tone for the evening: sharp, economical rock and roll played by musicians who understand that momentum is every bit as important as technique. The songs didn't linger. They travelled.
A brilliant "Have Love Will Travel" followed, sounding less like a nostalgic nod to garage rock history than an argument that the music never needed updating in the first place. "Just Couldn't Tie Me Down" and "Next Girl" pushed things further, the latter performed with a swagger that turned the Apollo into something halfway between a dance hall and a bar fight.
The venue itself played a crucial role. The Apollo remains one of those rare places where music can still feel larger than the building containing it. Every riff bounced off the walls and came back slightly altered. During "Lo/Hi", waves of guitar rolled around the room before collapsing into Carney's drums. It felt less like a performance than a weather system.
"Everlasting Light" was one of the evening's surprises. Live, it carried an elegance often overlooked on record. Auerbach's falsetto floated across the theatre while thousands of people watched in near silence, as though collectively recognising a song they'd previously underestimated.
That calm didn't last.
The opening beat of "Howlin' for You" detonated any remaining restraint. Suddenly the crowd was moving as one organism. Beer sloshed from plastic cups. Entire rows sang every word. For three minutes Hammersmith Apollo ceased functioning as a concert venue and became a giant rhythmic reflex.
The set's centrepiece was probably "Weight of Love". The studio version always possessed a sense of scale, but live it felt enormous. The extended guitar passages stretched outward in every direction, transforming the room's mood completely. It wasn't the loudest moment of the night. It was the one that seemed to suspend time.
One of the most impressive things about the set was the balance between old and new material. "Wild Child" and "Where There's Smoke, There's Fire" slotted naturally alongside established favourites. There was no sense of obligation about any of it. The newer songs earned their place rather than borrowing significance from the band's past achievements.
"Tighten Up" landed exactly when it needed to. You could feel the anticipation before the first notes arrived. Some songs have become part of the cultural furniture over the years, but hearing that riff live reminded everyone why it became unavoidable in the first place.
The closing stretch before the encore was gloriously reckless. Earl Hooker's "You Got To Lose" reconnected the band to the blues foundations beneath everything they do, before a ragged, gloriously dirty take on "I Wanna Be Your Dog" filled the room with pure disorder. It sounded fantastic. Not polished. Not refined. Fantastic.
Then came "She's Long Gone", all nervous energy and forward momentum, sending the band offstage with the crowd demanding more before the final notes had properly disappeared.
The encore was perfectly judged.
"Little Black Submarines" began almost delicately. For a few minutes the room shrank, the audience leaning into every lyric. Then came the inevitable release, the song opening up into something huge and cathartic. It remains one of the band's most effective live weapons because everybody knows exactly what's coming, and it still works.
By the time "Lonely Boy" arrived there was nothing left to accomplish except celebration. The riff landed and the entire theatre immediately belonged to the song. People sang all the words. Arms went up. The floor bounced beneath my feet. It felt less like a concert finale than the release of pressure that had been building since the first notes of "Heavy Soul".
Walking out afterwards, what stayed with me wasn't any individual performance or guitar solo. It was the sense of conviction running through the whole evening.
Robert Finley opened the night by reminding everyone where this music comes from. The Black Keys followed by demonstrating that those same ingredients, blues, soul, garage rock, repetition, noise and groove, still have plenty of life in them.
For two hours Hammersmith Apollo was filled with songs that trusted their own simplicity. No gimmicks. No overthinking. Just great rhythms, battered amplifiers and a band completely certain of what it is.
Some nights that isn't enough.
This was one of the nights when it was everything.
SETLIST
Heavy Soul
Fever
Gold on the Ceiling
Have Love Will Travel (Richard Berry and The Pharaohs cover)
Just Couldn’t Tie Me Down
Next Girl
Lo/Hi
Everlasting Light
Howlin’ for You
Wild Child
Weight of Love
Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire
Tighten Up
You Got To Lose (Earl Hooker cover)
I Wanna Be Your Dog (The Stooges cover)
She’s Long Gone
ENCORE
Little Black Submarines
Lonely Boy
CONNECT THE BLACK KEYS
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