Keane, Glasgow review: 'endearingly dorky'

They may not be cool, but Keane are still very good at what they do, writes Paul Whitelaw
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Keane | AFP / Getty Images

Keane, Hydro, Glasgow ★★★

The piano-bothering pop-rock band Keane have never been cool. During their ubiquitous mid-‘00s imperial phase, they were habitually sneered at for being terminally bland Radio 2-friendly “indie” chumps who made Coldplay sound like Radiohead at their most challenging.

Reader, I was one of those sneering naysayers. After witnessing this performance – a 20th anniversary celebration of their enormo-selling debut album Hopes and Fears - I’ve changed my mind. Well, a bit.

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Keane are very good at what they do – big, strident, yet clearly genuine declarations of hope and affirmation - and it would be foolish of me to deny that.

Tom Chaplin has a great voice. He may even have perfect pitch. Watching this polite, charming middle-class man strike semi-ironic Freddie Mercury poses while hitting notes Sir Fred himself would approve of was rather lovely.

Chaplin is self-aware, he gets it, hence why he urged the crowd to unleash their inner Day-O during a mid-show a capella call-and-response routine.

Song-writing piano-man Tim Rice-Oxley – the Billy Joel of Hollyoaks rock - has an undeniable talent for writing anthemic jingles with universal sentiments the masses can get behind. He’ll never top the genuinely affecting twenty-something angst of Everybody’s Changing, but that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

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I was also struck by the way in which they managed to create some intimacy within the alienating constraints of stadium rock.

Chaplin engaged with his ecstatic fans while scampering around a T-shaped gantry. An in-the-round segment brought them even closer. They were visibly moved by the rapturous response.

Keane aren’t cool, they never intended to be cool; they’re an endearingly dorky bunch of touchy-feely secular hymn chanters. I get it now.

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