Melanie Chui

For all you Keane fans out there, I hope you were able to attend the show recently at the Sound Academy. If you didn’t, you sure missed an amazing show!!

There were 2 opening acts kicking off this show, The Helio Sequence and Mat Kearney. The first band “The Helio Sequence” started building the energy in the crowd as the music was similar to music from Keane where the rock genre has a fun twist added to it.

Second act was Mat Kearney, a singer/songwriter whom you’ve probably heard on shows like “The Hills”, and most prominently “Grey’s Anatomy”. I was utterly amazed at how amazing his music and his voice was. He reminded me of Jakob Dylan in the early days. His performance didn’t seem like an opening act since he performed as if he were the headliner. His music was very catchy and had a very marketable sound. I was inspired to buy his CD myself after the show. Definitely an up and coming artist who will one day be a household name. He closed his set with his current radio track “Nothing left to lose”. The audience loved him!

Keane came out with a bang as the crowd patiently waited 30 minutes after the Mat Kearney set. The anticipation of the audience only brought us to scream louder. The lead vocalist Tom Chaplin came out in a silver track jacket with a red and black stripe on the side that reminded me of a flashy 80’s jacket as he danced and jumped around on stage. The energy he had was unbelievable. The crowd went completely wild and sang along with him. The second track he sang was “Everybody’s Changing” and from where I was standing in the front row, I could hear the crowd sing just as loud as he was. Many of the songs on his latest album “Perfect Symmetry” had an 80’s flare to the sound and coincided perfectly with his outfit and the way he danced. Most of the audience were obviously hard core fans as they knew every word of every song.

When Tom spoke to the audience, he made sure to tell us how amazing Toronto was and that the men in this city were lucky to live among such beautiful women.

He ended his set with “Somewhere only we know” and “Under the Iron Sea” the title of their second album released in 2006. When he performed “Under the Iron Sea” the audience was dancing and was extremely excited. His vocal performance as well as his high energy put the show on a whole other level. The lights dimmed after the song as the audience belted “Keane, Keane, Keane…” pleading for an encore. They came out again singing their first hit off of the second album “Is it any Wonder?” and the crowd went crazy. They ended the show with their classic off the first album “Bedshaped” and the audience was definitely not disappointed.

It was my first Keane concert, and definitely not my last. Their music often perceived as mellow and calming on CD, was almost an entirely new experience Live. They put a whole new spin on a Live show and will definitely go down in my books as a must see Live band!  

Keane ended the first leg of their North American Tour on May 27^th, 2009 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, but revisits Canada and the U.S. in early September, 2009.

For more information on the rest of their 2009 North American Tour, visit their website.