Music
Keo’s emphatic London show explains why they’re the capital’s buzziest guitar band
The first of two nights at Camden’s Electric Ballroom is flooded with die-hard teens helping to carry this unflinching alt-rock quartet to the next level
Much like any breakout act, it’s tempting to continually compare Keo to other artists. From Wunderhorse to Nirvana, critics and fans alike have lumped Keo’s abrasive, grunge-laced indie-rock in with bands who have come before. But, having shifted 3,000 tickets for this headline tour in London alone, there is an increasing sense that they are carving out their own trajectory – and it’s happening at a frightening pace.
Admittedly an enormous fan of both Fontaines D.C. and Wunderhorse himself, frontman Finn Keogh has acknowledged Keo’s emergence comes in a landscape where there exists a fierce appetite for rough-and-ready rock among young music fans. Spiralling down Camden High Street, the army of teenagers in the queue are already all-in on Keo, snapping up the tickets before the 6Music dads even have a chance to open social media. The desolate bar queue inside the Electric Ballroom tells you just how young tonight’s crowd is on the whole.
How did this come to be? Unlike the steady rise of Geese – thanks to their landmark third album Getting Killed – or Catfish and the Bottlemen’s long march to the top during the 2010s, it would seem the hype around their live show is why Keo’s stock has bolted from the jump. For three years, it was the only way to experience their music, until debut EP Siren arrived in June to bring the phenomenon to streaming and – perhaps unexpectedly – TikTok. With just five songs on that EP, the same principle of discovery underpins the anticipation for tonight.
So, enough of the comparisons: what do Keo have to offer? For starters, a blast out of the blocks with ‘Hands’, ushered in by an assertive “Come on!” from Finn. It’s unsurprising to see fans immediately clamber onto shoulders, after starting mosh pits when riff-tastic openers Bleech 9:3 played ‘Ceiling’ and flinging pints in the air during the changeover. Finn is shielded by sunglasses while guitarist Jimmy Lanwern wears his hood up. In such an elongated venue, the four figures atop the stage seem almost godlike.
Although nearly two-thirds of tonight’s setlist consists of unreleased material, the faithful somehow already know every word. The Britpop swagger of ‘Be Happy’ and the moody ‘Fly’ stand out from the pack, while the spooky ‘Spaceman’ – one of few that Finn introduces by name – is full of surprises, including Finn’s brief but dazzling falsetto. Red-faced during ‘Spent Of You’, pure passion and intensity emanate from every strum of his guitar.
Facing away from the crowd, his grating voice distorts like The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan during the gnarly ‘Black Dress’. An appropriate choice for the penultimate track, the melancholy ‘Kind, If You Will’ evokes a picture of the sun coming up at the end of the long night, even if that brightness serves as a facade for Finn’s true feelings: “If I act kind, it isn’t true”. A bouncier ‘I Lied, Amber’ makes for a knockout closer, met with a sea of phone screens before Keo typically close the night with a symphony of feedback.
A well-oiled machine after four years of relentless practice, tonight’s show is both slick and emphatic. In their adopted hometown of London, it feels like a particularly impressive statement, confirming why their live show can go toe-to-toe with the defining guitar bands of this era, as it will do at Reading & Leeds in the summer. Faced with endless competition, comparisons and co-signs, Keo’s live show is finding a way to cut through the noise.
