The Black Keys Quietly Cancel International Players Tour 2024
The Black Keys have quietly canceled their upcoming International Players Tour, which was scheduled to bring them to arenas throughout North America.
The tour, announced in early April, was scheduled to kick off in September, with dates set for New York City’s Madison Square Garden and Los Angeles’ Kia Forum. The 31-date trek would have brought them across North America, with stops planned in Seattle, Boston and Milwaukee before concluding at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena on Nov. 12. All dates have been marked as canceled on Ticketmaster’s website.
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On the Black Keys’ website, tour dates have been scrubbed with the exception of a sole performance still scheduled for July 6 at NASCAR’s Chicago Street Race.
Management and publicity for the Black Keys did not respond to Variety‘s requests for comment.
After news broke on Saturday that the tour had been canceled, the group posted on Instagram explaining that they had to reconfigure their tour to bring a similarly “exciting, intimate experience” for fans and that tickets for the original trek would be refunded in full.
“The band wants to assure everyone that Dan & Patrick are alive and well,” reads the caption. “Following the recent run of shows in the UK & Europe, including stops at iconic venues like Brixton Academy and the Zenith in Paris, we have decided to make some changes to the North American leg of the International Players Tour that will enable us to offer a similarly exciting, intimate experience for both fans and the band, and will be announcing a revised set of dates shortly.
Everyone who had purchased tickets and/or VIP to the initial tour dates will be fully refunded – and when the new plans are announced, will be the first to be able to buy tickets. Thank you for your understanding and apologies for the surprise change… We’re pretty sure everyone is going to be excited when you see what we have in mind though, and look forward to seeing everyone soon.”
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The Black Keys, which consists of Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach, were set to kick off the tour in support of their most recent album “Ohio Players,” which released in April. On Wednesday, the pair appeared on NBC’s “The Voice,” where they performed “Beautiful People (Stay High).”
The band also recently debuted the documentary “This Is a Film About the Black Keys,” which had its world premiere at SXSW last month. The film explored the historical tensions between the bandmates as well as what united them. “We’ve figured each other out, for the most part,” said Auerbach in the doc. “We’re just two very opinionated, hard-headed people, trapped for eternity together.”
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