Keanu Reeves lived out a fan’s dream in San Francisco, introducing Peter Hook & The Light onstage before being spotted dancing enthusiastically to Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” — a song the actor has called his all-time favorite.
The moment came at the Warfield on Sept. 21, where Hook — the co-founding bassist of Joy Division and New Order — performed with his band The Light. Reeves took the mic to bring them on, telling the crowd, “The one, the only Peter Hook and the Light! Playing the music we all love from then, today and tomorrow,” before embracing Hook as he took the stage.
Reeves is a longtime Joy Division fan and once told The Late Show With Stephen Colbert that “Love Will Tear Us Apart” would be his desert-island song. Fittingly, Hook dedicated the 1980 classic to Reeves late in the 26-song set, which ran through Joy Division and New Order material along with a couple of tracks from Monaco, Hook’s mid-1990s project. Footage shared online shows Reeves losing himself to the song from a private box.
The appearance came the night before Reeves’ own band, Dogstar, played San Francisco’s Fillmore on their All In Now tour. Reeves formed the alternative-rock trio — completed by vocalist-guitarist Bret Domrose and drummer-actor Robert Mailhouse — in Los Angeles in the early 1990s, and the group has drawn on the same post-punk lineage Hook helped define. After breaking up in 2002, Dogstar reunited in 2020 and returned in 2023 with Somewhere Between the Power Lines and Palm Trees, which reached No. 6 on Billboard’s Vinyl Albums chart. Their latest album All In Now, released this year via the band’s own Dillon Street Records, produced the single of the same name, which gave Dogstar its first appearance on a Billboard songs chart in more than 25 years when it debuted on Mainstream Rock Airplay in April.
For Hook, the night lands during a milestone year. He is set to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this fall as part of the class of 2026, honored for his work with both Joy Division and New Order. The class also includes Phil Collins, Billy Idol, Iron Maiden, Oasis, Sade, Luther Vandross and Wu-Tang Clan.
