Finally, Florida called The Black Keys back down to the Gulf coast in the form of an intimate September show at St. Petersburg’s Jannus Live. It’s OK. You can read that again. The Black Keys are playing a 2,000-capacity rock club in St. Petersburg.
The Black Keys w/Robert Finley
Tuesday, Sept. 21, 7 p.m. $79.50.-$85
Jannus Live, 200 1st Ave. N, St. Petersburg
jannuslive.com
Presale tickets to see The Black Keys play Jannus Live in St. Petersburg, Florida on Sept. 21, 2021 can be purchased starting today via the Keys’ fan club website. The public can start buying tickets ($79.50 & up) starting Friday, July 23, and No Clubs Marketing Director Kristin Stigaard told Creative Loafing that this is the most expensive concert at the venue to date—but she still expects the show to sell out quickly.
Wednesday’s announcement is significant because, originally, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney were set to sing on Sept. 4 at the MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre—a venue that can hold about 19,000 people. Gary Clark Jr. and rising Americana star Yola were both supposed to open that gig, but instead, the Keys chose to cancel the show in the wake of coronavirus postponements, so fans could get their music back. In this return to the stage, the band goes back to its beginnings by headlining a venue about 90% smaller.
“They want to just tour America like the old ways that they used to,” No Clubs marketing director Kristin Stigaard told Creative Loafing Tampa.
The St. Pete gig is one of just three small shows The Black Keys play on their "World Tour of America." All the gigs—the others are in Oxford, Mississippi (Sept. 23) and Athens, Georgia (Sept. 20)—surround the band's performance at Tennessee's Pilgrimage Fest.
The rock band last brought its soulful swing to Central Florida back in 2019 when it played Orlando’s Amway Center with Modest Mouse and Shannon & the Clams—and was last in Tampa to close out a 2014 tour at Amalie Arena (St. Vincent opened)—but the Keys local roots go back to 2005 when the band played for about 800 people at Skipper’s Smokehouse (Skipper’s just reopened, by the way)
And this time, the whole tour is at small venues once again.
Soul singer Robert Finley joins the Keys as opener, but this isn’t the the only big show coming to Jannus in the coming months. Have a look at a few others below.
The Struts The U.K. glam-rock band behind “Body Talks” announced the U.S. “Strange Days Are Over” your in June, and it kicks off in St. Petersburg. The last time The Struts, err, strutted into Tampa Bay was in 2018 for a small private gig and Q&A at Jim Chambers Music Box followed by a sweaty show at the Orpheum, and if this next show in Tampa Bay even holds a candle to their Orpheum appearance, nobody will leave the show unhappy. Tuesday, Aug. 31, 7 p.m. $25 —Josh Bradley
Jack Harlow Last Tampa Bay saw Harlow—who was nominated for Best New Artist and Best Male Hip-Hop Artist at the BET Awards—the 23-year-old rapper was part of a slew of unofficial Super Bowl LV concerts that popped up out of nowhere in the run up to the big game. Other Florida dates on Harlow’s “Creme de la Creme” tour include Sept. 8 in Orlando (The Vanguard) and Sept. 10 in Miami (Fillmore). Thursday, Sept. 9, Sold out —Ray Roa
Dashboard Confessional: Unplugged In 2018, Tampa Bay fans of emo band Dashboard Confessional experienced the ultimate heartbreak: Ahead of his second performance at St. Petersburg’s Jannus Live that year, frontman Chris Carrabba had a family emergency that required his presence, causing Dashboard to cancel its appearance here, plus others in Dashboard’s hometown of Boca Raton, and Atlanta. Co-headliners All Time Low and Gnash carried on without the quintet in St. Pete and Atlanta, (Boca Raton got flat-out canceled, understandably), but there hasn’t been any sign of Carrabba & co. rocking in Florida since then.
Between COVID-19 halting the band’s 2020 tour with The Get Up Kids—which was set to stop at Orlando’s House Of Blues, and a June 2020 motorcycle accident that left him questioning whether he’d ever play again, who knew when Dashboard would be able to make it up to the emo kids of Tampa? Luckily, the band’s sole songwriter has since recovered from his accident, and now, the icon behind “Screaming Infidelities” has plotted this acoustic “Unplugged” tour that features fellow emo royalty This Wild Life, as well as Armon Jay with his solo material. Jay has been playing lead guitar for Dashboard since 2015, so that’ll be twice in one night we’ll get to see him. Friday, Sept. 10, 6:30 p.m. $27 & up.—JB
Thrice w/Touche Amore/Self Defense Family In 2012, Thrice—known for a songbook featuring “Black Honey,” “Hurricane” and an earth shattering 2003 album The Artist in the Ambulance—announced that it was taking a hiatus. As we music fans all know, there are times when a band says that, and the break never ends. Sometimes, every member either goes solo, or steps out of the limelight entirely. Luckily, in 2015, Thrice reconvened for a few shows, and released To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere a year later—which peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard 200. Five years later, it appears that a year off the road did not tear Dustin Kensrue, Teppei Teranishi, and the Breckenridge brothers apart again. In fact,there allegedly is new music on the way. Saturday, Oct. 2, 7 p.m. $25 & up—JB
Modest Mouse In June, Modest Mouse released a new album, The Golden Casket. Frontman Isaac Brock & co. were last in the area to support since-disgraced Brand New at the old Gary amp. Before that, the band headlined Gasparilla Music Festival in 2015 to kick off a world tour in support of the band’s Strangers to Ourselves LP. Saturday, Oct. 16, 7 p.m. Sold out.—RR
Tennis w/Molly Burch Made up of husband and wife Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley—plus drummer Steve Voss and bassist Ryan Tullock—Tennis evokes the soft-sounds of the late-’70s and early-’80s but with a modern indie-rock tinge. The couple already has a connection to Tampa Bay, too; St. Pete’s municipal marina is where the couple purchased their beloved sailboat “Swift Ranger.” Moore talked about her love of the area in an interview with CL in 2017 before opening for Spoon at The Ritz. (A show I still can’t believe I missed.) And in 2011, Riley told the “Swift Ranger” story ahead of the Tennis’ set opening for Dum Dum Girls at the old Orpheum on the same block as CL’s Ybor City office. Singer-songwriter Molly Burch opens the show as well as the tour’s only other Florida stop at the Beacham in Orlando on Oct. 23. Friday, Oct. 22, 7 p.m. $19.50 & up—Stephanie Powers
Angels & Airwaves w/Bad Suns Over the years, blink-182 co-founder Tom DeLonge has been a firm believer in aliens and UFOs—having even formed To The Stars Academy Of Arts & Science in the mid-2010s, which focuses on trying to prove the existence of UFOs and the extraterrestrial. The company even went as far as whipping together a documentary for the History Channel a few years back. So, it’s really no wonder that Angels & Airwaves, the second chapter of DeLonge’s musical life, has named its new tour “Lifeforms.” Tuesday, Oct. 26, 6:30 p.m. $37—JB
Thundercat w/Channel Tres Grammy winner Stephen Lee Bruner, aka, Thundercat is one of the biggest names in music, and I first heard of him when he geniusly brought in yacht rock gods Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald to work with him on the soulful “Show You the Way.” Technically in the “Progressive R&B” category, at least in the eyes of the Grammy committee, Bruner just won a gold gramophone in that category for his album Is What It Is. This is the first time Bruner plays the Bay area, after a canceled Ybor City show in 2017. Rapper and singer Channel Tres is opening. Wednesday, Oct. 27, 7 p.m. $25.—SP
100 gecs After postponing its May 2020 show at Crowbar in Ybor City (thanks, COVID), hyperpop duo 100 gecs is headed back to Tampa Bay. Before 100 gecs was even conceived, Laura Les and Dylan Brady knew each other in high school. Their first EP drew little mainstream attention, but once the duo made its way up by performing in music festivals held in Minecraft worlds, and by collaborating with Charli XCX and Fall Out Boy, it’s been nothing but new releases and headlining tours. The duo that gave us “stupid horse” was supposed to make its Tampa Bay debut last May. But due to the pandemic, its “Tree Of Clues Tour” never happened at all. Other Florida dates on 100 gecs’ fall tour include Nov. 6 in Ft. Lauderdale (Revolution) and Nov. 5 in Orlando (Beacham). Friday, Nov. 5, 8 p.m. $22.—JB
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This article appears in Jul 22-28, 2021.