The Black Keys Fan Lounge

Many years ago when The Black Keys’ were loading up the tour van themselves and were exploring the world as their popularity and career was taking off, Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney kept a public ‘Tour Diary’ published on their official website, www.theblackkeys.com.

These tour diary posts are all still publicly accessible if you go to archive.org and then search for http://theblackkeys.com

Sadly, Dan and Pat have, of course, long since stopped keeping this tour diary. The newer incarnations of their website has removed this cool aspect of the site. How good would it be if Dan and Pat could at least return to posting every now and then on The Black Keys’ website? I’m sure many fans would look forward to the day. For now we’ll just have to look back.

What’s so good about the diaries is that they are written so openly and honestly; they deal with some mundane moments as well as some sweet excitement. As ever the trademark humor shines through.

Enjoy reading them, and finding a few nuggets from the early days. Like old band photos, they capture a spirit and a moment and should be received as such.

A Selection of Dan Auerbach’s Tour Diary posts 2003 – 2005

(formatting and spelling has been left as it first appeared on The Black Keys site)

thursday october 9, 2003

hey all, just got back from australia. big thanks to boche, B.T., sloany and J.B for making it happen! we had such a good time there…australia is the shit! all of the shows were exciting and the people were all really genuine. got to hold a koala and hand feed some kangaroos. i know, i know cheesy but f u we did it anyway. patrick was afraid the koala was gonna claw his eyes out. our man B.T. brought his 4 year old daughter gracie to the beach with us and she sang a beautiful song about it as we drove away…hopefully we’ll get back there soon. but for now it’s the road as usual. we just did the shortlist awards in los angeles (beck introduced us and that was really nice of him) and now we’re starting our east coast/midwest tour. boston was great to us – al kooper got on stage and played the hammond organ on a couple of songs there. that was cool and definitely surreal. also, the magic magicians are touring along with us and they’re really good. you should check them out. they’re great guys too. we’re in nyc now and we’ve checked into the gramercy park hotel under an assumed name we’re gonna try to get thrown out again…we’ll keep you posted. i like the new site hope you do too. p.s. i miss my dog, hunter…over n out.

-dan

saturday october 25, 2003

it’s saturday and we’re in dallas playing at a club that’s on the same street where JFK was shot. other than that creepy fact, our tour of the states has been uncreepy so far. we’re so tired but we keep moving forward, i hope… our plane leaves for the UK tomorrow. we’ll be there for three days then it’s back to the US to finish the tour! we’re on the road right now with thee shams from cincinnati. come early to the show to see them play. hopefully you’ll catch zach pull out the violin bow and step on the reverse tape loop mind melter, what? i don’t know either… when i get time off this winter me and joe from the magic magicians are gonna go on a tour of the southern states’ waffle houses. i wanna thank joe and john for being the nicest dudes on earth. and thanks so much to ben for helping out too. over n out for now, see everyone on the road…

p.s. i still miss my dog.

thursday november 13, 2003

so we had to postpone our european dates. not only were we exhausted and way too stressed after this insane year of non-stop touring, but little shit like missing planes and fracturing toes added to our decision to take a break. as for the toes, i was at a motel unloading my bags out of the van in the middle of the night during our recent U.S. tour and the fire exstinguisher rolled out of the door and dropped right on my foot. i screamed and woke everyone up and it hurt like hell but i didn’t do anything about it cause we were in the middle of a tour and we were so busy and all that i just didn’t. went to the doctor after the tour and she said that i fractured my big toe and second biggest toe and that i should take it easy so that they heal correctly. anyway, that’s the ridiculous true story. sorry to anyone who bought a ticket to a november show but the LAST thing we wanted to do was to travel all the way over there and play half-assed! and that’s what we felt would have happened. sorry if this caused anybody major complications. we’ll get over there soon though to make the shows up and your tickets will be redeemable. our european booking agent, jon, is working on putting those dates together as we speak. in the meantime me and pat are busy in the basement trying to remember what it’s like to practice. all of our recording equipment and musical junk has a nice thick layer of dust on it. so we’re gonna wipe the dust away and get to work on writing some new songs – i’m excited.

p.s. hunter was happy to see me but not as happy as i was to see him.

monday february 16, 2004

well, what can i say. we’ve been locking ourselves away at the spot every day. the songs are coming along. i think we might even start playing some at our shows, although i haven’t memorized all of the words yet. pat got an mg roadster. i haven’t seen it yet but i think that’s dope. he told me that he can’t wait for summer when he can shine up his ride and go park at gd ritzy’s in the valley and just open the hood and let the passers by know how sweet this kitten purrs. when we’re not working we’re definitely having a cheese, ham and onion omelette and a pattie melt and two coffees at the Post on east market street. we get waters too but we never drink them. england was great, thanks to the cato salsa experience for being cool as all get out. they let me borrow one of their coil guitar cables after some asshole in manchester stole mine from off the stage. he/she is on my list of people to kill along with the dude who stole my car stereo. shit… before i go i gotta say thanks to ben our numero uno tour manager dude in europe. i wanna thank him for introducing us to the office. god damn that shit is funny. also, i wanna let everybody know that the black keys are now officially official. we have taken on management, and said manager goes by the name of boche billions. you can reach him at boche@billions.com. he makes power moves…that whole janet jackson boob thing, that was him. genius. i forgot to mention that we got to hang out with andy from the gang of four at our london show. pat told him that when we got back to the US of A we’d go get his royalties from the rapture. one last thing. i’d like to share an experience with you all, ya’ll, all of you. we stayed at this crunked up hotel called the queens in gypsy hill. and the first night as i tried to lay down to sleep, the people in the room to the right of me started having crazy sex, banging on the wall and shit. this was like 3 or 4 in the morning. then out of nowhere, the people in the room to the left of me starting doing the same thing. my hand to god. i was in the middle and it was cheap motel sex in stereo. thanks england… we’ll speak soon everybody.

tuesday march 2, 2004

had a great time in boulder this weekend. the show was great, the crowd was extra great, and the guys at the boulder theater are real nice. and going to boulder has an added bonus for me, my aunt caroline lives there and i got to hang with her and 3/4 of her family. my cousin pearl made me some of the best scrambled eggs iv’e ever had, no joke. i just got a copy of our thickfreakness japanese release. it’s the same cd but there’s a sleeve on the cover that says some stuff in japanese and on the inside there’s more stuff, i wonder what they’re saying about us? and it’s weird cause somebody transcribed the lyrics on the liner notes too. it’s funny, i’d say about one twenty-fifth of it is right. it’s about as right as it would be if the songs were sung in japanese and i transcribed them. i watched “play it again sam” last night. that has to be one of my all time favorite movies. last thing, i scored a couple of great records the other day here in akron. i got a 7 inch of booker t. and the mg’s ‘green onions’ and ‘behave
yourself’ on the flipside and another 7 inch on king records (cinci what!?) of james brown and his famous flames – ‘i can’t stand myself” (when you touch me) backed by ‘there was a time’. but the best one is a columbia records 78 of “travellin’ blues” by lefty frizzell. it’s so good i keep listening to it over and over and over. his voice is so perfect…alright, goodnight all.

wednesday march 24, 2004

hey everybody…we had some great shows this past week. lexington, memphis, little rock and austin. thanks to everyone who made it out. one of the non-show highlights was me and patrick hung out in memphis for a whole uninterrupted day and it was the shizzle. we got to see the old stax records – bought myself a stax coffee cup – hot damn, twasn’t cheap neither!
hit shangri-la record shop and got a cool 70′s psych funk compilation. call them and order one, it’s crunked up. if that store were in akron, they’d be rich and i’d be broke. also, got some bar-b-q at payne’s, also the shizzle!

matthew, the president of fat possum, insisted that we go take the 2 hour tour of graceland and when we showed signs that we weren’t likely gonna do it he accused us of being commie, unamerican, red, hippies.

we played a couple of new songs too while we were away. they went o.k. i think. it’s always weird playing something in front of people for the first time.

in the end, we drove back home from texas, straight 23 hour drive me and pat taking turns driving and sleeping. got home sunday morning completely zombified and we were back in the studio today recording. i think my dog might have ticks or something i think i gotta take him to the vet tomorrow. bye everybody…

tuesday april 13, 2004

australia = sweet …we had a bunch of great shows and sloanie and b.t. once again were our A number one’s. first we played a little practice show at the cherry bar. it was pretty much unannounced cause we needed to practice some of the new songs before the forum show. thanks to bill at the
cherry. the forum in melbourne was beautiful and it reminded me of the civic theater in akron with the faux nighttime ceiling. the show there was great and the crowd was a lot of fun. some dude tried to stage dive into the middle of a group of girls. it was like jack black in school of rock, he dove in and the people stepped aside as his drunk ass fell to the concrete floor.

melbourne is a fun city, me and pat sat in the kitchen at pelligrini’s while grandma cooked us dinner – probably not the safest place to be with all of the mob hits going on there. and what the fuck, can you even get bad coffee in australia, i’m so jealous. oh well,

byron bay was beautiful. pat’s thinking about buying some property there so he can chill out. the show was fun and we had a great time. usually we see ninjas while we’re on tour, for some reason, i don’t know it just always happens, we see at least one ninja fully dressed. this tour however we saw something even better – we saw a group of RALIENS! what the fuck? no shit, they were de-baptizing people on the beach. the leader wore an alien mask and red sequined slippers! it was awesome! well, i gotta go to sleep this jet lag is killin’ me.

October 11, 2004
Fall 2004 US Tour Notes

hey everyone. just got home two days ago and already i don’t know what to do with myself. that’s not entirely true, iv’e been to the new dog park (bark park) everyday with hunter since i’ve been back.
we had an incredible time out on the road. the shows were some of the best we’ve ever played and you guys that came out really made it great. i’m glad to be out of the van for a while, though. there were so many surreal moments this time around, i don’t know where to start.
the aclu show at lincoln center was fun in a very strange way. being around “stars” is strange. everyone was pretty nice, though (except for lou reed who was an asshole) but i’ve gotta say that philip glass was one of the nicest guys iv’e ever met. not at all the bleak, introverted avant-garde artist i was expecting. just a sweet guy.
we got really sick right after we played detroit and didn’t know if we were gonna be able to even play our shows in nyc. thankfully matthew from fat possum sent us some antibiotics from mississippi that brought us back to life.
i had ethiopian food and espresso at a cool little bar in dc where they were playing incredible east african soul music. justin timberlake and his bodyguards were at the club in la after our show when it turned into a dance club – lame. i had a great pastrami sandwich at katz’ in new york city then walked across the street to punjabi and got a coffee to go. billy gibbons was at our show in santa fe, beard and all (and i listened to dylan and the bands’ basement tapes version of “santa fe” as i drove into that city at night – corny or cool, you be the judge. i’ve never been to santa fe!). i walked by maggie gyllenhall backstage at lincoln center and i could swear she whispered “dan, i love you” as she passed by. my amp blew up on me during the last show in cleveland, how about that! it’s not a black keys tour if something doesn’t break down or blow up on us.
thanks again to everyone. i’m gonna try to write a little more often than never. take care.
-dan

October 27, 2004
Report From London

hey, all. more strange days for the black keys. first of all, we did an interview for mtv where patrick and i talked about some of our favorite bands like metallica and korn. we finally met zane lowe and he was super cool – he shreds on the guitar by the way. we got back to the hotel and then the day took a u-turn when we found out that john peel had passed away.
i don’t know if many kids in the states would really know how influential he was because we didn’t get his show there. i know i didn’t know of him until we got to play england for the first time, mainly because of his support playing our record on BBC 1. we were fortunate enough to have been invited to his home where we ate dinner with his family and played soccer in his back yard. i wanted to hear some obscure song so he searched his record collection for twenty minutes until he’d found it for me. yesterday, the audience at scala in london joined patrick and me in giving john a big round of applause.
you know, it was one year to the day yesterday that we played One Live in brighton where we’d been invited by john. he was the mc and said some really nice things about us before we played. i feel very lucky to have known him and to have had his support.
we’re off to bristol today with tomorrow behind us. i’ll check back in soon.
-dan

November 18, 2004
Malmo and Hamburg

hi. we’re in malmo right now. that’s in sweden. never been here before. i am extremely worn out. i think frazzled is the word. ben would say “absolutely nackered”.
we played a show last night in hamburg at a cool rock club where the dj played really great nuggets-type rock. it was a weird city, though. the whole street was filled with sex shops and prostitutes and coca-cola and cowboy clothing stores. really strange.
i can’t believe we’re almost through this tour. this has been by far the most strenuous yet. long drives, little sleep. i have to buy a phone card almost every day. i broke a string in the middle of “grown so ugly” the other night. i hate when that happens. i had to stop playing and change guitars and straps but the upside was that while i did that, patrick played one of his first extended drum solos. you shoulda been there.
well, i gotta go now. i can’t believe old dirty bastard died. but, shit, if you’re gonna go, what a way to do it – right in front of the microphone. i wonder if they’ll release that last verse. i bet he hit the floor on the downbeat, too. RIP
talk to you guys later.
-dan

November 27, 2004
Only London to Come

hello everyone, i’m sitting down at an internet cafe in koln. we went past the dome cathedral last night. it looked like the kind of place dracula would hang out in. beautiful – built in the 12th century they told us.
i got up early this morning ’cause i thought i’d walk around and ’cause i haven’t been sleeping so good lately but i think it might be too cold for a hike. after five weeks on the road, i can only take so many elements.
our manager, boche, just told us yesterday that our show in london is sold out – the biggest show we’ve ever headlined in europe. i’m really thrilled about that. i can remember being seventeen and walking, with my teisco del rey 4-pickup blue guitar loaded with switches and without a case just like hound dog taylor played, down to pat’s dad’s house – just down eagles nest drive. we were trying a new thing that day that pat said he’d heard was a good
idea. we took a cardboard box and faced it towards my amp with a microphone in it that was facing away from the amp towards the back of the box. then we taped a cheap radio shack microphone (the kind with the on/off switch) to pat’s chin. he would be doing the singing on this number while he drummed and we didn’t have an extra mic stand. if i remember correctly, we wanted the song to sound like jesco white, the dancing outlaw, driving a military issue motorcycle with a sidecar. pat didn’t really sing it, he just hollered jibberish about “woman, don’t make me no sloppy eggs”. he just made the words up as we went along. i still have that tape. it’s some of our best work. you can even hear right at the end when the tape slips off pat’s skin and the mic falls on the ground right before we finish the song trainwreck style. i still have that microphone, that guitar, the amp and the tapes we made. this whole experience has been so unexpected, it really is a bit overwhelming.
we’ve got one more show. we’re gonna give it our all and then i get to go home and take my dog for a walk. i can’t wait.
-dan

April 18, 2005
Here We Go Again

just when i finally got used to home, here we go again… it’s ok though cause i’m excited to play some shows. i’m also looking forward to going to shangri-la records in memphis on our way south. that reminds me, we’re doing a couple of instores on this tour. keep your eyes open for those. the first one is in louisville. when i get back home i swear i’m gonna get a little boat to do some fishing this summer. that means i’m gonna have to get a hitch for my car. i wonder how much that’s gonna cost? i woke up at 5:00 am this morning and went to the medina flea market with my dad and i can say that i experienced a first – i passed on a cheap 1960′s japanese guitar. it had three pickups too and a bunch of switches. i couldn’t believe it – restraint. i’m really growing up. the benefit for mark price in akron went well and we were glad to be asked. i hope he’s doing alright. oh man, i gotta take my guitar to my friend, dan johnson, before this tour. he works on guitars and mine’s really in rough shape from the last tour. why do i always wait till the last minute? ok, take care…

April 28, 2005
Salad Days in Memphis

so, i hit the road with the hentchmen for two days off. we left little rock after a great time and great show and headed straight to memphis. even though it was back-tracking almost 2 hours, memphis is worth it. i called up my new friends at shangri-la records and they helped me set up a last-minute show at a little place called the buccaneer lounge. it’s kinda like the beachland tavern in cleveland but smaller and it’s covered with pirate artwork! well, i met a lot of great people in town who i’d never known. we spent an entire day going from music store to record shop, to barbecue pit to record shop, to music store to record shop and on, and on, and on… i could really blow a lot of cash in memphis. really, it’s pathetic. still absolutely no self-control when it comes to musical things. anyway, met eric from the oblivians at his cool store, goner records and got a really incredible gospel cd there, solo singing and loud, loud electrtic guitar. i can’t remember who it is. i’ll let you know later. well, before i go i gotta say again how much fun the show at the buccaneer was. i got to play a bunch of link wray tunes that i love but never get to play and we did some sonics covers with jack oblivian on drums. also, david rawlings came into town from nashville with his electric guitar and he and i did an even later last-minute show after the hentchmen were long gone – moved on to another bar. dave’s friend, a guitar player, played drums. and he sounded to me like a really good drummer! who knew? to the four people who stayed around for that, i hope your ears stop ringing this year. we played a bunch of junior kimbrough songs, dark end of the street, some fred mcdowell stuff. i think dave played a tom waits tune but i didn’t recognize it. something dark about carnival workers, it had to be tom waits. ok, gonna go now. i need to rest. oklahoma city is about six and a half hours away and we have a show there tonight. but, as for the two days off, i don’t think they could have been much better. thanks to everybody – especially the hentchmen. bye.

May 19, 2005
Southern Tour Recap

hello, i’m back from the south. it was really, really nice to be there. spanish moss is my favorite. whitney and jay were our helpers on the road and they were the best. couldn’t have done it without them. well, we probably could have, but you know what i mean! whitney and his starbucks addiction was a little hard to handle sometimes but jay, pat and i dealt with it. and then there were the hentchmen – spelled with a “t”. they were great to watch every night and especially great to hang out with. hope to see them again soon. i got to spend time with my grandma on this trip. believe it or not, she lives in florida. i told her i wasn’t hungry so she made me a huge lunch – some things will never change. also, my uncles, who taught me how to play guitar and sing, live in florida and came out to a couple shows. it was great to see them too. i’m home now and slightly out of my mind. slightly is probably an understatement. i don’t know what to do with all the free time. hopefully i can get something accomplished. i went into my basement today and dusted off the eight-track. i think i’ll be down there for a while when i’m not walking hunter. alright, thanks to everyone who came out to the shows. it was really nice meeting you all. hopefully we’ll see you again soon. take care. -dan

September 11, 2005
Ready for the Road

hi everyone,
i just cleaned and loaded up the van for the west coast tour. it looked like two homeless people were living in it which is kinda true. i also got the brakes fixed. slowing down was frightening there for a while. our good friend jamie is gonna drive it out to seattle to meet us. i hope i remembered everything i need. i always forget something – strings, batteries, socks, etc…

thanks to everyone in knoxville and chatanooga for coming out to see us play last week. we really enoyed ourselves. pat went to some bar in chatanooga after the show. he said it was one of the coolest places he’s been to. velvet walls, sketchy location, and they served fried chicken all night.

and i can’t forget to mention how much i enjoyed arthurfest. i saw lots of great music – i really liked josephine foster, dead meadow, marissa nadler, and jack rose. lots of others. they were all amazing. and wolfmother were, and still are, the shit. we played with them in london and i was happy to see them again. thanks to andrew for letting me use his amp on stage. besides music, i saw some of my friends who i never get to see. jay, peter, bt, richard, steven mcdonald, janet, corin, carrie and so many others. and t-model! i have’nt seen him play for years. and with spam on drums to top it off! i sat down backstage to chat with t-model and the first thing that he said to me was, “fat possum ain’t payin’ me my money”. and you gotta take into consideration that he hadn’t seen me in years so i was basically a stranger. that was the first thing that he decided to say to a stranger! it was priceless. (note: fat possum is paying him) way to go jay…

by the way, we’re excited to have this band callled SSM out on the road with us for the west coast tour. john from the hentchmen plays all kinds of crazy keyboards and david from nathaniel mayers band and the sights plays drums and drum machine and marty from the cyril lords is the guitar player. they all sing, which i like the most. it’s kinda funkadelic punk rock with some detroit twist to it. and they are touring with one of the most fragile and expensive instruments ever made, a mellotron. should be fun. i don’t really know how to describe the music, but i like it… they came to akron and i recorded them. they did 13 songs in one day! john says that all of his friends in the detroit area think the recordings are very “vibey”. you be the judge. they’ll have it on sale at shows. their website is www.ssmothership.com
see you guys soon. i’ll check back in later. take care. RL R.I.P.
-dan

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1. The Black Keys Cancel New Zealand and Australia Tour 2011
2. Dan Auerbach Solo Australian Tour Dates 2009
3. Dan Auerbach Tour Posters
4. The Black Keys Tour Dates I’ve Been To
5. Dan Auerbach and Hacienda On The Road Video

Tags: dan auerbach, the black keys