GIG REVIEW: Keane
- Posted on October 8, 2008 11:46 AM
- 0 comments
Keane
Kentish Town Forum, Monday 29th September
Review by Jack Macinnes
We arrived at the Forum last Monday night, amid rumours of crisis in the city, to be greeted by the Robert Smith stylings (and hairstylings) of the Mystery Jets. So when Tom Chaplin, Richard Hughes and Tim Rice-Oxley entered, navigating a copse of synthesizers, to – no shi***** – the theme from Top Gun, I truly felt I had been transported to 1987.
Keane’s shameless embrace of classic Pop melodies and their rejection of that Indie shibboleth the guitar, has led to them being shunned by their natural brethren, the converse-treading, book-bothering college Rock crowd, and to the unkind A-Ha comparisons.
This has not helped by the fact that, for the frontman of a massive global Pop phenomenon, with album sales and a spell in rehab to match, Tom Chaplin has always made an unlikely Indie Rock god. But it wasn’t the chubby overgrown public schoolboy of old who emerged from the dry ice on Monday, but a newly lean, skinny-jeaned Indie waif, brandishing – God be praised – a guitar. Bent over his telecaster, resplendent in an increasingly damp, but ultra trendy lumberjack shirt, Chaplin had the nodding, strutting look of a man who’d found an old friend.
If it was confidence that Keane were missing on their lacklustre second album, Under The Iron Sea, it has clearly returned with interest, if tonight’s sample of new material is anything to go by. New single, 'Spiralling,' combines the soaring choruses and infectious melodies, that are the band’s traditional strengths with broken beats, thumping bass and a vocal line oozing knowing detachment. Keane were, well, funky!
For this one-off club gig offered as part of the build-up to the Q Awards, Keane mixed the sneak previews with the classics. The stylistic leap from the difficult but danceable new material to the anthemic ballads of the debut album 'Hopes and Fears' was marked, as fans were treated to 'This Is The Last Time,' 'Everybody’s Changing,' and 'Somwhere Only We Know.' Gone was the guitar as Chaplin revived his role as conductor of a lurching, yearning sing along – all dramatic gestures, theatrical swoops and mic stands held aloft – like an Indie Elvis impersonator. The crowd, who had come to hear their favourites, and were probably reserving judgement on the band’s new direction, responded with enthusiasm approaching adoration. Teenage girls, with their parental chaperones, looked on adoringly, thirty-something couples canoodled on the recognition of ‘their’ song, and, to the surprise of my date and myself, a hardcore of die hard male fans bellowed along in the style of the 'Shed End At Stamford Bridge.'
According to tonight’s evidence, new album 'Perfect Symmetry' will be a mixed bag – as the break-beats occasionally give way to a more familiar 4/4. We’re not quite talking a 'Kid A' style reinvention, but we’ve now got a sensitive Indie band we can dance to – not something you’d be likely to say of Coldplay or Snow Patrol.
The evening concluded on a surprisingly tender note as the band played us out with an unnamed slow song from the new album, which tickled this reviewer’s sentimental bone – and reminded of the delicacy songwriter Rice-Oxley is capable of. He and his band are back on form – and on this showing may even become cool. Keane? You betcha.
Related Links
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Keane MySpace
Keane's Official Website
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