Keane

Keane played at Radio City Music Hall last night.  They have put out one album, Hopes and Fears, which has recieved rave reviews and many awards.  We were only able to get 2 tickets and since Emily and I are the biggest fans, we got them.  Seems fair, right? You can see from the picture, we were way up in the nose bleed section.  Truth is, from Radio City, any seat is fine.

I have seen a lot of concerts this year of young bands and this group was by far the best concert I have seen.  There are 3 "mates" in the band.  They grew up together in the suburbs of England.  Tom does vocals and piano, Tim does piano and Richard is the drummer, no guitar.  The music is incredibly melodic but stil rocks. 

Tom connects with the audience which is why the concert was so great.  He spoke with the audience after each song.  He couldn’t get over that they were playing in NYC.  He literally soaked up the crowd.  He told small stories about each song.  He told a story about how when they were all kids, they’d drive around in Tim’s parents station wagon and the parents favorite tape was Simon and Garfunkel in Central Park.  That seemed like something so far away for them and now here they were playing in NYC.  He said we were all so lucky to be living here and when he makes billions of pounds he is coming back to NYC to live.  The audience ate it up.   

They played 3 new songs.  The first 2 I liked instantly.  The 3rd one was the encore and we bolted to get a taxi home.  Oh well. 

One thing which was very cool is that there was a large screen panel behind them that showed different drawings or photographs during the song.  One song actually showed live footage, black and white, of the pianist, Tim and the drummer, Richard’s feet and hands while they played.  It was great. 

Even their t-shirts are artistic.  The one I got reminded me of the fantastic t-shirts that Josh Rubin always post on Cool Hunting.  FYI – one of the blogs I read daily.  Very happening, cutting edge stuff.  Impressive. 

The best part is Tom’s voice.  He has some serious pipes.  Based on last night’s performance, and the 2 new songs I heard (which he asked the audience for their response) I can hardly wait for the next album to come out.  These guys should be around for quite awhile.