Following a sold-out Academy Main Room, Dublin earlier this year, London four-piece KEO have just announced their return to Ireland, bringing their ‘Put A Smile On For Me’ headline tour to 3Olympia Theatre, Dublin on Tuesday 16th March 2027.
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There was always a sense that ‘Put A Smile On For Me’ was capturing Keo in motion. A band still finding themselves, making sense of things as they went, while everything around them seemed to be moving at an entirely different speed. Now, little more than two weeks since the release of their debut album, the world around Keo has expanded once again.
Today, the London four-piece announce their 2027 ‘Put A Smile On For Me’ headline tour, taking them across the UK, Europe and North America from February through to May. Beginning at O2 Academy Leeds on 19th February, the run moves through two nights at Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom, O2 Academy Birmingham, Dublin’s 3Olympia Theatre and an already sold-out O2 Academy Brixton, before stretching across Europe and, finally, the Atlantic, culminating at LA’s legendary Troubadour on 20th May.
LISTEN TO ‘PUT A SMILE ON FOR ME’
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The announcement comes in the wake of a remarkable first week for ‘Put A Smile On For Me’. The album entered the UK Official Albums Chart at #2, while taking #1 on both the Official Physical Albums Chart and Official Vinyl Albums Chart. In doing so, Keo became the first UK band in over two years to surpass 20,000 week-one sales with a debut album.
Numbers like those tell you how far Keo have travelled, but not quite how they got there. Long before the album arrived, something was already happening in the rooms they played. Songs were finding their way through crowds before they had properly made their way into the world; venues sold out and were upgraded; voices came back at the band louder each time. Their upcoming October UK headline tour shifted more than 9,000 tickets in 24 hours, while O2 Academy Brixton sold out before Keo had even released their debut album.
That connection has always been at the centre of Keo. With very little reliance on social media, they have built their audience through word of mouth, relentless touring and the simple exchange between a band and the young people standing in front of them. The rooms are getting bigger now, and the distances between them greater, but the thing pulling people towards Keo remains much the same.
Released via Island Records, ‘Put A Smile On For Me’ sits at the centre of all of this. Raw, restless and deeply personal, it captures Keo finding themselves in real time. Recorded mostly live and self-produced by Finn Keogh alongside guitarist Jimmy Lanwern, its songs turn shame, accountability, memory and vulnerability into something physical: ragged guitars, bruising dynamics and towering melodies, with all the uncertainty and contradiction left intact.
Written and recorded in a matter of weeks, there is an immediacy to the album that now feels strangely prophetic. Keo made a record about being caught somewhere between who you were and whoever you might become, only to find themselves living through that same transformation as it made its way into the world.
The critical response has followed suit. Kerrang! awarded ‘Put A Smile On For Me’ called it “exceptional debut album”, while Rolling Stone UK declaring “as far as debut albums go, it’s mission accomplished and then some.” MOJO, The London Standard, DORK, DIY, Clash, NME, Wonderland, Man About Town and more have all championed Keo’s ascent. From Main Stage Reading & Leeds appearance, supporting Wolf Alice, a completely sold-out headline tour and now a #2 debut album, the past year has seen Keo move from one of British guitar music’s most exciting new prospects into something increasingly difficult to contain.
‘Put A Smile On For Me’ captured Keo in a moment of becoming. Already, that moment is beginning to open out into something larger. New rooms, new cities and entire continents now stretch out in front of them; the songs that began their lives in small London venues are travelling further than ever before. And somehow, it still feels like they are only just getting started.
