KEO PROVE THEY ARE “CONFIDENT, SELF ASSURED AND WELL POSITIONED” FOR BIGGER THINGS TO COME

Catch our gallery from KEO’s Birmingham show.

PHOTO GALLERY | KEO | O2 INSTITUTE 2, BIRMINGHAM | 25th October 2025 by Charlie Wright

KEO have quickly risen to notoriety through their DIY approach, uploading tracks to Soundcloud and TikTok to garner an organic audience and generating enormous amounts of hype before anything official. Their live-first approach and their blend of folk-lyricism and grunge melodies have generated buzz on the indie scene.

The culmination of their efforts can be found in an acclaimed debut EP, SIREN. Singles like I Lied, Amber, Thorn and Hands have seen the quartet take to festival stages and now head on their first headline tour. We headed to their Birmingham show, which had been upgraded from the Sunflower Lounge to the O2 Institute2, to see what the hype was about.

From start to finish, this was an astounding performance, showing a confident, self-assured and well-positioned band heading towards much grander stages. Crowds chanted ‘KEO‘ at every available interval, and the group grinned from ear to ear throughout, watching their dreams come alive.

The setlist had fourteen tracks with largely unreleased material and a rapturous cover of The Doors’ The End.

As the show came to a close, frontman Finn exclaimed, “This has to be the best night of the tour. This should be the last song, but we feel we should play Stolen Cars.” They went on to do so, the packed crowd chiming back every word before launching into I Lied, Amber.