Revisiting Keane after two decades

I recently went to see Keane at the Co-op Live arena for their 20 years of ‘Hopes and Fears’ anniversary tour.

The tour was a must see for me because back around 2004-2010 I was beyond obsessed with this band. They were my numero uno towards the end of high school and all through college.

Discovery

I got in to Keane when I first heard ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ on the music stations, and it was a BIG deal for me, because they were the first band I ever really loved who weren’t pure 100% pop. I know indie was kind of the pop of the early 00s but for someone who exclusively listened to Steps, Enrique and Westlife finally finding some ~grown up~ music to like felt like a big breakthrough.

Everyone in school had already diverged in to their adult music tastes, the metal, the moshers, the sexy RnB. I was still listening to the same bands I listened to in primary school and just never really vibed with much outside of the cheesy boy and girl bands on offer.

Finally I found indie music, and I was early amongst my peers. By college everyone was mad in to Arctic Monkeys and The Killers, but ngl I felt slightly superior with my entire year earlier knowledge of ‘Hopes and Fears’ and Snow Patrol’s ‘Final Straw’. Indie was mine first and the first acceptable music I could share with friends.

That said, Keane were hardly popular with most people LOL, outside of ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ there were just cooler bands on offer.

In the only way a pop princess like me knew how, I become obsessed with Keane… Like… One Direction fangirl omg I love these bitches level. It was pretty bad lmao. Because I was on the scene just early enough I was on their special mailing list and got promotional merchandise every other month. I had posters in my room, I was all up in their forums sharing lyric discussions, photos and all that crap.

Keane did super well off the back of ‘Hopes and Fears’ and I remember being stoked to see them take away three Brit Awards in 2005. Other celebrities I loved were listening to them, I remember Brian McFadden saying he bought the album so many times because he kept leaving it in random places because it came everywhere with him.

I saw them live for the first time on the ‘Hopes and Fears’ tour, and was front row! I remember a lot of the visuals and because they were a one album band at the time they played a lot of rare demo songs and b-sides that I’ll probably never hear again.

Under The Iron Sea

Eventually Keane announced a second album, and it went on to be my absolute favourite by them. Under The Iron Sea was a HUGE deal for me, I liken it in my mind to the release of the second generation of Pokemon, because it was one of those ‘Okay so I’ve exhausted every ounce of knowledge of this content and FINALLY there’s more!’ moments.

It came alongside the release of their ‘Strangers’ documentary and there was a lot of background information about all the new tracks.

The vast majority of songs by Keane are written by their pianist, Tim Rice-Oxley, who’s work is pure magic. I honestly think he’s one of the best song writers out there and he’s done a lot of work for other artists.

Under The Iron Sea was released in the middle of Tom Chaplin’s cocaine addiction problem, which is well documented online and I don’t have a ton of opinion about, other than it wasn’t great. I saw Keane at V Festival during this time and then again at the MEN Arena for the album tour, and yeah, Tom was very clearly struggling at the time.

Under The Iron Sea has my favourite Keane song on it, ‘Hamburg Song’, which is a song Tim wrote about Tom’s addiction, and the strain it was having on their friendship. A lot of Keane’s songs are about these childhood friends and their relationships with each other and I dunno, there’s something really nice about that. I’m also a sucker for a totally stripped back vocal and piano performance, so yeah, ‘Hamburg Song’ is the shiz.

My obsession with Keane started dwindling down to a much more reasonable level after the high of ‘Under The Iron Sea’. But something I always found amazing about the band was just how good they are live. Honestly, you hear Keane on the radio and it’s like ‘Oh this is simple and pleasant, isn’t it?’ But live it’s completely different. Tom has a ton of stage presence and performance skills, as well as vocals which recorded music really doesn’t give justice too.

The fans and atmosphere is great too, Keane aren’t like a lot on indie bands who had ‘That one MASSIVE’ song that everyone goes to see. So when you see a Keane concert and a Keane audience you’re getting a crowd who OWNED ‘Hopes and Fears’ and everybody knows every song.

The Anniversary Tour

I admittedly missed seeing Keane the last time they were around and then they broke up for a little while to pursue solo ventures. I’m not a huge follower of them outside of the band because tbh I think the thing that made Keane so good was the sum of their parts. Tom’s a perfect performer, but he’s not the same without Tim and Richard’s music and song-writing skills.

I got an email about the 20 year tour and it felt like the perfect time to revisit them, my brother knew I’d want to go and bought me the tickets for my birthday.

And what a treat it was!

Keane played the whole of ‘Hopes and Fears’ at the concert, but what amazed me was how fucking lucky I got with the rest of the setlist. I’d been stalking the setlist online and the songs that were interchangeable were a lot of my favourites.

They played Hamburg Song (as if!), Perfect Symmetry, Crystal Ball and You Are Young. These were possibly the best combination of non Hopes and Fears songs I could have hoped for.

Tom’s well out of his addiction these days and looked the healthiest I’d ever seen him, and it was good to see the three of them performing again after so long, I think I share a lot of love for the band members with the audience, because I remember the individual cheering each band member got when they mentioned memories between songs.

I don’t think I’ll be missing Keane again if and when they next tour.