Keane's many tricks

Quartet surprise with strings, brass and choir for Electric Proms

24 October 2008 - Keane had a box of tricks to entertain the crowd at London's Koko last night that included strings, saxophonists and a choir.

"You have an idea and you think of getting a few violins, and the next thing you know you've got thirty people running around on stage," pianist and keyboard player Tim Rice-Oxley told 6 Music after the gig. "It's nice when things snowball like that."

The band - complete with bassist Jesse who is joining the trio on their current tour - showcased several songs from their new album as well as reworking some of their biggest hits from Hopes and Fears and Under The Iron Sea.

The crowd responded with loud cheers and sing-a-longs to many of the hits from their debut album including Everybody's Changing and Somewhere Only We Know, but most fans pointed to special collaborations on their newest tracks as the high point.

"There are a lot of things on the new record you can't replicate with just the four of you," Tom said. "So it was a great way of being able to indulge ourselves and have that for one night."

New single Spiralling was buffeted by two saxophonists while the string quartet was used to give extra body and clarity to Love Is The End, which singer Tom Chaplin said he felt summed up the theme of their newest work - love.

The set alternated between older and newer tracks, with the musical arrangement changing very frequently - Tom played guitar on most of the newest tracks with Jesse on bass, while older numbers gave Tom the chance to play piano while Jesse played backing synths.

But the band waited until the three song encore to unveil the choir - which sang on Perfect Symmetry.

The quartet stuck with the habit of finishing the set with Bedshaped, which closed to rapturous applause.

Keane's next one-off gig is the Little Noise Sessions at London's Union Chapel on 15 November, which the band played at last year.

"[Last year's Little Noise] was the first time we'd broken out of our little gang of three of us on stage, so we're really excited about it," Tim said. "I think we might try and do something a bit more acoustic."

Rodrigo Davies