Djo returns to Chicago with sold-out start

Djo returns – Joe Keery brought his Djo project back to Chicago with a sold-out show at Chicago Theatre that leaned heavily on “End of Beginning,” offered a homegrown thank-you to the city’s music community, and featured a lineup of songs drawn largely from 2025’s “The Crux

The moment Joe Keery stepped into Chicago Theatre on Friday, it felt less like a stop on a tour than a homecoming.

His Djo project sold out the venue. and the crowd—decked out in homemade shirts like “I (heart) Djo. ” “It’s no use. Djo!” and “I (heart) the babysitter”—turned the show into something closer to a street-level civic ritual. Bartenders joked with fans about how good-looking the actor and musician is. And before the music fully took over. there was another mystery buzzing through the room: a shadowy. mop-topped figure DJ’ing under the name DJ b.i.g.s.h.r.i.m.p. spinning Fergie and other 2000s throwbacks.

It wasn’t Keery. It was actually Jake Hirshland, Keery’s bandmate in Post Animal, who has been opening on and off for Djo since 2019.

Outside the stage, fans pressed into photo ops in faux sunflower fields, a take-home backdrop pulled straight from the imagery plastered across the venue.

Early on, Keery let the night breathe—then he made the Chicago part of it unmistakable. “As a young. interested musician I saw so many bands here that I loved and adored and aspired to be like. And to be able to travel across the country with my friends and play on some of these stages. meet these bands. see these bands and be enabled by the community that fostered it here. this really wouldn’t have been possible without any of that. ” he told the crowd Friday night.

For many in Chicago, Keery’s arrival hasn’t just meant another headline show. Ever since “End of Beginning. ” his ode to the city. went viral. Chicagoans have claimed him—adding him to a familiar orbit of worshipped local luminaries like Roger Ebert and Tom Skilling. On Friday. he performed “End of Beginning” toward the end of the set. bidding the audience “Let’s go!” as the recognizable verse landed and the whole room erupted in a singalong.

With no disrespect to Robert Johnson. “End of Beginning” now sits in the same cultural lane as “Sweet Home Chicago” for this generation. The song has become so central that people even seemed to treat it like something permanent—one lyric. one memory. one identity—so complete it didn’t just play. it finished a task.

Chicago’s own reach into pop life is hard to miss elsewhere, too. United Airlines has capitalized on the popularity of the song, syncing it for marketing campaigns. And even outside the city. the night carried a clear message: the track hits differently when you’re standing in the place it helped define.

Keery kept the mood moving, but the show had its edges. After the singalong arrived and the room lifted together, he followed with an encore of the melancholic “Chateau (Feel Alright),” a song about being homesick for Los Angeles.

Before that, though, he spent time grounding the set in the Chicago he remembers. He recalled his fertile years in the city around 2010 to 2017. when he studied theater at DePaul University and made his first bedroom pop songs in his North Side apartment. He introduced “Roddy” by saying. “This song was written right here in Chicago. Illinois. at my desk on Ashland and Addison.”.

He then turned to something larger than his own biography: the way communities build people. Later. he gave a heartfelt speech about Chicago’s music community. describing how it helped carry him from the psych rock band Post Animal—before Hollywood came calling. He also noted that a couple of the band members perform in his backing band today.

“I want to say one more thing before we close this thing out and that’s to say thank you so much to the Chicago music scene. ” Keery said. “As a young. interested musician. I saw so many bands here that I loved and adored and aspired to be like. And to be able to travel across the country with my friends and play on some of these stages. meet these bands. see these bands and be enabled by the community that fostered it here. this really wouldn’t have been possible without any of that. I have great. great love and admiration in my heart for the people and for all the venues and people that work the venues. It was so formative for me, and I hope that I can help someone else too.”.

The band helped sell that message with momentum. Keery’s harmonizing five-member group fired electro-pop-rock into the room for an 80-minute show on Friday. largely pulling from 2025’s “The Crux.” The set moved from the gothic introduction of “Awake” to the Beatles-esque whimsy of “Charlie’s Garden. ” a song about his “Stranger Things” costar Charlie Heaton. and into the passionate synth ballad “Egg.” Through it all. the night played like proof he isn’t stuck in one lane.

Even his alter ego carried that retro pressure. Keery’s musical world is stuck in the ’80s and a couple decades before. with his songbook throwing back to ELO and Steely Dan on “Figure You Out. ” Hall and Oates on “Link. ” and Simon & Garfunkel’s folk spirit on the plucky acoustic number “Potion.” The blinding strobe lights. thick fog. and electrified sound also felt like arena rock theater—grand enough to hint at bigger rooms ahead. even if it landed with a little extra scale inside the intimate Chicago Theatre.

Friday night’s show itself was billed as a one-off warmup. with Keery set to head out on tour with Tame Impala in early July. Keery called it a “big show” and said there were lots of family and friends in the audience. suggesting there could be more coming from it. Crews recorded the performance, and fans left with complimentary art pop posters, taking home another piece of the night.

If the city’s influence was the theme, it also sounded like the promise: you can take Keery out of Chicago, but not the city out of Keery.

Djo set list for June 26, 2026 show at Chicago Theatre
Awake
Change
Basic Being Basic
Link
Lonesome Is a State of Mind
Potion
Roddy
Fool
Figure You Out
Charlie’s Garden
Gap Tooth Smile
Delete Ya
Fly
Egg
End of Beginning
Encore
Chateau (Feel Alright)
Back on You

Djo Joe Keery Chicago Theatre Chicago music scene End of Beginning The Crux Post Animal Jake Hirshland Tame Impala