 | | Keane |
You’re doing your job, selling millions and delighting Radio 2 listeners, but there's always the sniping, those suggestions what you're doing is not nice, not pleasant and, whisper it, might even be wrong. You know those people. You might even be one of them – the music fan. It's not Keane's fault. Arriving in a flurry of hype in 2004, they were quickly hailed as the sensitive side of indie. But, seemingly alarmed by their lack of guitars, the questioning soon started and their sensitive, heartbreak rock was snapped up by MOR radio stations quicker than you could say, "Go on Tom, just try it." Thankfully, Keane ploughed on regardless of the arbiters of cool and now find themselves playing their biggest solo gig to date in front of 15,000 Mancunians. And doesn't Tom Chaplin appreciate it? After a well-documented torturous second album and spell in The Priory, he bounds on stage like an excited puppy and doesn't stop for an hour. Manchester, it seems, loves him for it. With only two albums under their belts and three people on stage, Keane should easily have been swamped by the massive space but they effortlessly fill it, thanks mostly to the blanket airplay that got them in this position - practically every song is instantly familiar and a sing-a-long anthem. Songs like Everybody's Changing, Bend And Break and Bad Dream are tossed out with ease - the audience eagerly lapping them up and singing them back. But it’s the voice of the singer rather than that of the crowd that elevates Keane from the bland pap we’re fed on the radio to a band of often poignant, emotional intensity barely hinted at on their records. Cock your head slightly and at times Chaplin’s pitch is almost too perfect, reaching a level that few bands that started life on an indie label can hope for. Tonight’s set closer, Bedshaped, is a case in point. Of course, it's not just songs that fill arenas and Chaplin has clearly been studying the Bono school of rock clichés. A walkway gets him in amongst the impeccably behaved crowd during Can’t Stop Now, but when a sea of hands reach out, ready to pinch those perfectly rounded cheeks, sensing danger, he retreats. But these are minor quibbles. What cannot be disputed is that Keane came, saw and conquered Manchester tonight. And even some music fans, standing on their chair with their arms around their wife, can’t help singing their lungs out. | 
