Last night, The Black Keys kicked off a two-night stand at The Pinnacle in their adopted hometown of Nashville. Near the end of their set, The Black Keyes invited out another current Nashville star, Sturgill Simpson, for a cover of the Gladys Knight & the Pips classic “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”
The Black Keys have covered the song a handful of times since debuting the track at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl in 2023, though yesterday’s psychedelic rendition marked their first performance of the enduring number this year. It also marked Simpson’s first on-stage appearance with the Ohio-bred duo. However, Simpson did record his new Johnny Blue Skies & the Dark Clouds album Mutiny After Midnight at Keys’ frontman Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound.
Earlier in the night, the Keys also welcomed some other familiar faces. First, opening act Eddie 9V sat in on early Keys cut “Just Couldn’t Tie Me Down,” from 2004’s Rubber Factory, and then Greenville, SC-bred, Nashville-based guitarist Marcus King, who has worked closely in the studio with Auerbach, made a surprise appearance on Willie Griffin’s “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire.”
The Black Keys will return to The Pinnacle tonight. Simpson will kick off an extended run at Austin, TX’s Moody Center on September 4. For more on the Keys, please read our recent digital cover.
