Keane at 9:30 Club: Sad, Syrupy and Satisfying By Hoya Saxa 03
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 3, 2005; Page C05
So cute, so earnest, so positively wussified, the sensitive men in the band called Keane make their fellow Brit-poppers in Coldplay sound like a bunch of hairy headbangers. And let me tell you, that isn't an easy task. Arguably the hottest new group on the planet, Keane -- whose debut full-length CD, 2004's "Hopes and Fears," has gone gold in the U.S. and platinum in the U.K. -- doesn't use a lick of guitar in its painfully pretty tunes of love and lovesickness. That, apparently, would be far too macho.
But lest anyone think this trio of lonely hearts from Battle, East Sussex, makes its lush, swoony soundtrack strictly for the ladies, let's just say there were a whole lot of tall, strapping dudes at a sold-out 9:30 club Tuesday night, hanging goofy, puppy-dog faces throughout the hour-plus show. Why, it's a wonder no one fainted from the dreaminess of it all.
With Coldplay, Doves, Oasis and Travis all due for albums this year, the music charts are about to be overcome by a new Brit-pop invasion -- and a lot of music to help you get over that nasty breakup. Keane, scheduled to play on "Saturday Night Live" this weekend, has the potential to outsell every one of those hook-loving blokes.
Because, for all its unapologetic wimpiness, Keane is as catchy and likable as "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."
Piano man Tim Rice-Oxley is the band's chief songwriter. From the very first swirls of the opening tune, "Can't Stop Now," he thrashed away at the keys as if each note were causing him extreme emotional anguish. Drummer Richard Hughes's job was to provide a steady, uncomplicated beat; the band prefers to work in the mid-tempo range, but there's no mistaking that each tune is a big anthemic ballad designed to make you blubber.
Named after a mutual babysitter from the old neighborhood, the band is fronted by the ruddy-cheeked redhead Tom Chaplin. His voice is a rich, high-reaching joy, and he delivers variations of his "I'm so lonely tonight" mantra with such a sincere intensity -- it's almost operatic at times -- that it's hard not to buy the undiluted syrup he's selling.
Where Coldplay's Chris Martin prefers indecipherable poetry and math-geek arrangements -- he seems to forever be chasing Radiohead's experimental nutter Thom Yorke -- Rice-Oxley prefers to write mush for the masses. Over soft, simple synth melodies that hearken back to Elton John's best years, Keane indulges in bittersweet crescendo after crescendo, up-and-down drama that goes a little like: Things are getting better, things are getting better, no they're not, no they're not. And repeat.
Although by the end of the night the sentiment was starting to blur together, Keane delivered a host of doozies that stood out and glistened. The she's-gone gem "Sunshine," which sounded like a mainstream offering from the Alan Parsons Project, has a shimmering chorus of "Oh, oh, oh, can anybody find their home?" that Chaplin unleashed with such pure sweetness that you expected someone -- perhaps one of those tall, strapping dudes -- to run onstage and hug him. The epic "Bedshaped," a slow, gauzy rumination on a relationship gone kaput, is nothing short of a suicide special ("I know you think I'm holding you down / And I've fallen by the wayside now"), and it just might be the song for which Keane is forever remembered.
"I really feel that a good song should change the way you feel or think," said Chaplin before brushing the hair from his eyes, cradling the microphone like a baby bird and rearing back to deliver the night's big singalong: "Somewhere Only We Know," recently used in a Victoria's Secret commercial and as hopeful as these guys get. In a rare bit of rock-star posturing, Chaplin held the microphone over the crowd so everyone could croon the chorus: "This could be the end of everything / So why don't we go somewhere only we know?" Pass the Kleenex, pal.
For all you hipsters looking for the Next Big Thing, Keane wasn't the only up-and-coming act on Tuesday's bill. Opening band the Redwalls, a Chicago quartet who like to show off Beatles influences in both their songs and their hairdos, blended guitar jangle and sweet harmonizing -- then mussed it all up with feedback and punk thrashing. And you'll no doubt be hearing a lot more from the night's middle act: the Zutons, a shaggy Liverpudlian quintet with schizoid tastes in ska-pop (think Madness), classic rock (think the Kinks), and surf music (think Dick Dale). Led by singer-songwriter David McCabe, the Zutons throw one heck of a party -- and only a band as persuasively ooey-gooey as Keane could get the crowd to stop smiling and start swaying.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59200-2005Feb2.html
