2007年5月Liverpool Daily Post:要留好印象

Keane to make a good impression
May 11 2007
Liverpool Daily Post

Local fans were among the most ardent in the early days – now Keane plan their most spectacular gig at Knowsley as a thank you. Emma Johnson reports

by Emma Johnson, Liverpool Daily Post

THE first time Brit rockers Keane met The Who’s Roger Daltrey, having two multi-million-selling albums was the sort of stuff they dreamt of while jamming in each other’s living rooms.

A little over a decade later and the Sussex trio are following the ’60s legend’s lead as headliners on the second day of Liverpool’s inaugural Knowsley Hall Music Festival.

“It’s weird,” says Keane’s key- board player and songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley. “Through my parents record collection I listened to The Who a lot, I still do. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them play live, so I’m really looking forward to that.

“We had a run in with Roger Daltrey back when we were first starting as a band. He lived just down the road from us and one day we went and knocked on his door. I don’t know what we were thinking actually, but we played him one of our abysmal early demos.

“This was back in ’95 or something like that – anyway, he was very nice about it and he lent us a guitar. He was telling us how Keith Moon had set his drums sound using cardboard boxes instead of drums, which is very weird. We’ve occasionally bumped into him since so it’s great we’re headliners with them.”

That Keane, who have topped the UK album charts twice, first with Hopes and Fears and then Under the Sea, and have two Brit awards to their name, are playing Knowsley at all is quite a coup for our region.

Playing gigs everywhere from Guadalajara, Mexico to deepest Chile, the lads are making it their mission this summer to ditch the obvious festivals in favour of more unusual locations. And headlining the new Merseyside event was a top priority.

“A big show for us in the North West is long overdue,” declares Tim.

“A lot of the people up there were the first people to really sup- port us. Over the years, we’ve played loads and loads up there. Liverpool and Manchester are definitely the big music cities of the world. When we were starting out, in both of those towns but especially in Liverpool, we went back time and time again to play.

“The first few times it was just the three of us in our little van and there was hardly anyone there but we went back each time and there were a few more people. Having gone there a lot in the early days, I don’t think we’ve actually been back and played there for ages, so it’s long overdue.”

“It looks very posh,” adds Tim of the location – the historic family home of the Earl of Derby. “I think it’s quite nice to play in strange places, it adds a twist to the whole festival experience.”

Although Tom Chaplin and Tim attended the same public school, Keane first came together when Tim, now 30, was studying for a degree in classics at University College, London. Back then they were known as The Lotus Eaters and the line-up was Tim, guitarist Dominic Scott and drummer Richard Hughes. Tom joined the group in 1997 taking over from Tim on lead vocals and, while Richard remains in the line-up, Dominic departed in 2001.

It would take another two name changes (for a short spell they were called Cherry Keane) before Keane finally landed the record deal they had been chasing.

In 2002, mini record mogul Simon Williams, the man who discovered Coldplay, caught a Keane gig in London and offered to release the band’s first commercial single.

That single was Everything’s Changing and within a year the band had a deal with Island Records.

While this summer is looking peachy for Keane, last summer could hardy have been more differ- ent. Despite massive success and a pending tour of North America, the band found itself temporarily grounded when lead singer Tom Chaplin checking himself into celebrity rehab hangout the Priory for drug and alcohol addiction.

Earlier this month the cherub-faced 27-year-old spilled all about his addiction in an interview with Q magazine, in which he confessed of the period: “My bandmate Tim would come to my house and I’d refuse to answer the door. I was spending a lot of time at home crying in front of Cash in the Attic. I felt really depressed. I was taking a lot of drugs and drinking.”

Clearly the band are happy to now be back doing what they do best.

“Last year musically was amazing, but on a band level or a personal level it was pretty terrible. So to get out of that at the very end of last year and do the UK tour through to the big arena tour and then go to America this year everything has just got better and better,” reveals Tim.

“I feel we’ve grown a huge amount as a band to the point where we really feel that we’re up there punching our weight with the best. It’s great to feel that rather than imploding and giving up we’ve survived and channelled all that into being a much bigger and better band. It’s a relief and it’s still very exciting.”

Although their identity is bound in being that rare breed – a rock band without guitars – Keane warn that anyone who, listening to the gently melodies and angst-filled lyrics of tracks like Bedshaped and Somewhere Only We Know, expects the Keane show to be a lighters-in-the-air-affair, could be in for a shock at Knowsley.

“We love playing live,” says Tim. “Those big festival gigs they’re really huge, there’s a mass of thousands and thousands of people ranked up back as far as the eye can see, it’s a very exciting, almost tribal thing,” he says.

“When we’re playing that excitement and adrenaline works us up and we’re really going hell for leather on stage so, you know, it’s a good work out.

“Anyone who has never seen us play live would expect it to be a lot more polite and restrained than it is. It’s a very thrilling and energetic rock show. I genuinely believe that it’s one of the best shows that anyone’s going see anywhere in the world at the moment, and I’m very proud of that.”