What: A review of the British band Keane in concert
Where: The Roxy Theatre, Atlanta, GA January 28th 2005
How Much: $20, plus TicketBastard’s “convenience charges”
Don’t you just love falling in love? I think everyone has the same kind of moment… you’re in the car listening to the radio… at a friend’s house listening to CDs… or hangin’ out at a club… and then it happens! Some song comes on and makes all the hairs on your arms stick up. It grabs your attention and holds it completely, just like a beautiful woman. And the next thing you know, you’re at a record store buying every CD from the artist you can find. You’re surfing the Internet looking for fan sites. You’re bidding outrageous sums of money for the artists’ memorabilia on eBay. You even spend the few extra bucks to order their CD directly from the UK, just so you can have it before any of your friends. The next thing you know, you’re even considering naming your first child after them!
OK, that last thing might be a bit much. But you know what I’m talking about. The giddy joy of discovering a new band isn’t something that only teenagers can experience. Us adults can do it too, only much less as frequently as we did back in high school. In fact, the last time I really felt like this was back in 2001 with Saint Etienne. The problem with falling in love with a band is that it doesn’t take long before you’ve listened to everything you can and there’s nothing left. I own most of the Saint Etienne CDs and have the rest of their tunes in MP3 format on my PC. And though I still like them, that warm fuzzy feeling is long since gone. They’re like a comfortable old sweater now, instead of the schoolboy crush I lavish all my attention on.
I’m not that way with Keane yet. As you might know, I’m a *huge* fan of Virgin Radio and listen to their live Internet streams at least a few times a week. And this past summer, one song they played quite often was “Everybody’s Changing” by Keane. I remember sitting here at the computer, typing away at something and just stopping to listen. The world stopped for just a few minutes and I lost myself in the song. They sound a bit like Radiohead… a bit like Coldplay… a bit like Travis… a wee bit like Muse… Of course I went out and found their album online and torrented it. And I liked it. A lot!
And so it was that when I found out that they were coming to Atlanta I freaked. Oh, I acted all cool and stuff. On the outside I was like “Hmmmmm.. I wonder if I should get tickets for this”, but inside I knew that I be on them as soon as they went on sale. Which ended up being a good thing, as the show sold out. That’s not surprising, as the show also featured The Redwalls and The Zutons. The $20 tickets for this seemed to be a damn bargain compared to $150 for an excellent (but pricey) Madonna show or $55 for an excellent (but extremely short) Morrissey show. Why the hell not?
And then… Mother Nature happened. All week the National Weather Service predicted ice for Atlanta. Things had gotten so sketchy that a friend of ours from Charlotte that was planning to go to the show with us backed out, citing a need to be in Charlotte on Saturday (and a fear of being stuck in Atlanta over the weekend). He would prove to be wise in that regard, as the missus and I did end up getting stuck in Atlanta on Saturday. But more on that later.
One thing I really liked about the show – as I mentioned earlier – was that it was affordable. Walking in the door, I was offered an autographed copy of Keane’s debut CD Hopes and Fears for only $15. Since I hadn’t really paid for their album, a wave of RIAA-inspired guilt swept over me and I bought it. “Hell”, I figured “that it’s only a dollar or two more than I woulda paid at the store and besides it’s autographed to boot!” But while the CD ate up most of the funds I had earmarked for souvenirs, the rest of the Keane gak was affordable too – t-shirts for $25, CD\DVD combos for $20. Not a bad deal. As a rule, I don’t have a problem paying exorbitant amounts of cash for concert souvenirs like t-shirts and whatnot – after all, the band makes far more money off the t-shirt than they do from the CD – but I’ve just had it with paying $50 for a crappy t-shirt that won’t last more than a few months. It used to be that concert shirts would last for years, but now the graphic starts to fade and holes start appearing after only a couple of washes. At least the CD should last me forever, no?
So anyway, on to the meat of the matter: the show. It was damn good! The band mostly stuck to playing tracks off of Hopes and Fears, but they also played a few new tunes as well as some non-album stuff. I kept hoping that they’d launch into their kick-ass version of U2’s “With or Without You”, but alas, it wasn’t to be. Regardless, I can’t begin to tell you how good this band sounds live. They aren’t one of those bands whose live performances sound like carbon copies of the studio material (see Duran Duran’s Arena for this) but they also don’t change around the songs so as to be unrecognizable to fans (see most Bob Dylan shows for this). They sound as lush and deep as they do in the studio… just different. Perhaps it’s because of their somewhat unusual setup of vocalist, piano\keyboards and drums. But that alone can’t be it. Lead singer Tom Chaplin (who is sometimes compared to Chris Martin of Coldplay, but to me sounds more like Thom Yorke of Radiohead) has a great voice live. The rest of the band sounds wonderful as well. Of course, Hopes and Fears is one of the most wonderfully produced albums in recent years and I wondered how much of that is due exclusively to their producer and how much of that is due to the band. After seeing the band live, I now know that the band must have had huge input into the album. All in all, it was one of the best shows I’ve seen in ages! And the sold-out crowd seemed to agree with me as well.
Here’s the funny thing about the weather though. On the way down the missus and I experienced a little bit of sleet and rain between Commerce and Braselton, but once we got in to town there was nothing. The streets were bone-dry. After hanging out at my friend’s place for a little while, we drove to the show. Again, nothing on the streets, nothing falling from the sky. But by the time the show was over the car was covered in ice! That was weird. The next day, we probably could have made it to my sister’s neighborhood, but since she lives in a “miniature San Francisco”, we probably couldn’t have made it to her house. So we hung out at my friend’s place… but we *did* make it out to the new Atlanta Fatburger that day!!! I’ll look into reviewing that sometime soon!
MY RATING: A+