Keane, Glasgow review: 'endearingly dorky'
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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Hide AdKeane 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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Hide AdI 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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