About The Black Keys

The Black Keys head for the road (Updated 6/5/2014)

If you haven't had a chance to catch the Black Keys in concert this year, you haven't missed your chance. In fact, their entire tour slate is yet to come and the band has already confirmed the addition of even more North American stops this year.

The band is hoofing is around the world in support of "Turn Blue," their latest album which recently debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. It was the highest debut yet for the band, whose previous album "El Camino," came in at No. 2 back in 2011. "Turn Blue" was also the Black Keys' highest charting album to date internationally, having bowed at No. 1 in Canada and Australia.

Produced by a couple of huge names, including Danger Mouse, "Turn Blue" contains 11 tracks. It spawned the single "Fever," which went to No. 1 on alternative radio and stayed there for weeks, as well as claiming the top spot on AAA radio for two months. In addition, the project received some hefty critical praise, with NPR music calling it "expansive and irresistibly catchy."

Special guests during the band's upcoming tour will include Jake Bugg, Cage the Elephant and St. Vincent. The latter will provide support for many of the gigs, beginning June 20 in Neuhausen Ob Eck, Germany at the Southside Festival. They'll seemingly conquer the world (playing Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and England) before returning home.

The North American portion of the tour begins September 5 at Columbus, Ohio's Schottenstein Center and runs through December, with dates at Brooklyn's Barclays Center and Nashville's Bridgestone Arena among the highlights.

Update: October 31, 2012 - Tickets fly for The Black Keys 2012 Tour

With continued success, a third LP called "Rubber Factory" was released by The Black Keys in 2004 and was recognized by fans and critics alike as one of the best records of the year. A live DVD followed in 2005, along with the full-length albums, "Chulahoma" and "Magic Potion" in 2006. Two years later came the Danger Mouse-produced "Attack & Release," which was originally planned as a collaboration between the Black Keys and Ike Turner. Turner's death in December 2007 made the pairing impossible, but the album marked the first time The Black Keys completed a project in a professional studio, and also the first time they would work with an outside producer. The Black Keys briefly split in 2009, but reconciled later in the year. Their sixth studio album, "Brothers," was released in May 2010. The lead single, "Tighten Up," would become their most successful single to that point, spending 10 weeks at No. 1 on the Alternative Songs chart and becoming their first single on the Billboard Hot 100. Their popularity exploded from there, so much so that they were Warner Bros. Records' most-licensed band of the year, appeared on NBC's Saturday Night Live and won three of the five categories they were nominated in at the 53rd Grammy Awards. In 2011, the group canceled a string of concerts in Australia, New Zealand and Europe, citing exhaustion. They recorded their seventh album, "El Camino" from March to May, and many publications would rank it among the best albums of the year. A tour in support of the project was the first headlining tour of The Black Keys' career, and they've stormed through Europe and North America, with tickets to their Madison Square Garden concert selling out in just 15 minutes.

Update: December 2nd, 2012 - The Black Keys 2012 Tour Dates Announced for March in the United States

The Story of The Black Keys tickets

The blues duo The Black Keys has a story straight out of Americana that fledgling musicians dream about. Struggling to survive as landscapers, glorified lawnmowers for a low-rent landlord, in Akron, Ohio, vocalist and guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney embarked on their first tour in 2001, only hoping to play their tunes and make it back home to resume their landscaping jobs. They haven't held another day job since, and have sold more than 1.7 million records. After their first album, The Big Come Up, released in 2002, The Black Keys thought they might be on to something when the album instantly established their success as an indie, no-frills, soulful blues rock duo. Their sound is stripped down as it gets, a bare vibe of drums and guitar with no effects, and Auerbach's gritty vocals grinding out their retro blues lyrics like Howlin Wolf. The singles 'Leavin' Trunk' and 'She Said, She Said,' both covers received indie radio play, and in a big break, 'I'll Be Your Man' became the theme song for the series Hung on HBO. The duo's second album, Thickfreakness, like the first album, was recorded entirely in Carney's basement. The result is that the songs are forced to stand on their own, and that's the way The Black Keys like it. With The Black Keys tickets you'll see a band on stage that simply plays their music, without any adornments, effects or unnecessary theatrics. Just blues, pure, raw, down and dirty.