2006年10月英国The Times对曼切斯特演唱会给四星评价

The Times October 20, 2006
Keane
Pete Paphides at Apollo, Manchester
4/5

In Manchester, the town where Roy Keane became a household name, they’ve been shouting “KEANO!” since Tom Chaplin was a boy. Tonight though, the chant found itself a new arena. “Now he’s retired, I suppose we can lay claim to it,” smiled the Keane frontman.

This was only Chaplin’s second show since emerging from a six-week spell at The Priory battling alcohol and drug addiction — and he made no attempt to conceal how much he had missed the validation that the day job brings. “I want to feel some love,” he declared, beckoning the audience to him after a titanically charged Better Put it Behind You.

Often it seemed as though every line that left his lips resonated with new meaning. Even songs predating this year’s Under the Iron Sea album weren’t spared from this sort of emotional revisionism. Everybody’s Changing — the 2004 single borne of an earlier nadir, when the Sussex trio were label-less and broke — assumed a pealing urgency that belied the hundreds of times they have had to play it.

If much of that time has been characterised by intra-band tensions, that’s hardly surprising. However viscerally chief songsmith Tim Rice-Oxley pounded his keyboard (from afar it looked as though he was trying to tenderise a steak with his bare hands), Chaplin remains the main channel of communication between those songs and the audience.

The mutual dependence between introspective composer and exhibitionist frontman was well illustrated by Rice-Oxley’s wartime lament A Bad Dream. As footage of ballroom-dancing couples in gas masks played above him, Chaplin sank to his knees and unleashed a hair-raising delivery of the song.

Undeterred by three years in which detractors have dismissed his group as Coldplay imitators, the singer donned acoustic guitar and pretended to be Chris Martin for a snatch of Yellow. Resisting Manchester’s exhortations to carry on, he played Your Eyes Open and asked the audience to sing along, all the better “to cover up my appalling guitar playing”.

He needn’t have worried. Keane fans sing about as well as Chaplin plays guitar — that is to say, with untutored gusto. Indeed, he was surplus to requirements on Somewhere Only We Know. Sung in unison, the band’s debut single sounded strangely like a Methodist hymn. His period in rehab may have ended, but the group therapy continues on a nightly basis.

2006年10月英国The Times对曼切斯特演唱会给四星评价

泰晤士报
2006年10月20日
Keane 曼彻斯特 阿波罗剧院
Pete Paphides
4/5

Roy Keane在曼彻斯特是一个家喻户晓的名字，当Tom Chaplin还是一个小男孩的时候，曼彻斯特人就高喊欢呼着“KEANO”这个名字。而今晚，这个名字有了新归属。“他（Roy Keane）已经退休了，但我想我们可以将这个称号延续下去”Tom笑着说。

这是Chaplin自The Priory酒精药物治疗所里接受6个月的疗程后的第二次登台演出。他可没有打算隐瞒他有多么想念这份工作。在激情满溢地唱完“Better Put it Behind You”后，他大声召唤观众，示意他有多想念他们：“我想要被爱的感觉”。

似乎每次他的发言都会包含有新的含义。即使是在Under the Iron Sea专辑前发售的单曲也没能免于这种情感修正的命运。2004年时这个来自苏塞克斯的三人乐队还一文不名，在低谷时，他们推出了单曲“Everybody’s Changing”，也即意味着他们今后将无数次地来表演这首作品。

如果这个乐队把大部分时间都花在内部矛盾上的话，那他们恐怕没有什么是可以让我们惊奇的了。然而如今主要曲作者Tim Rice-Oxley依旧重力敲打着他的键盘（从远处看，他好像是在徒手弄嫩牛排），而Chaplin依旧担当着沟通歌曲和听众的主要纽带的角色。

Rice-Oxley所作的有关战争而令人悲伤的作品，A Bad Dream恐怕很好地勾勒出了深沉自省的作曲者（Tim Rice-Oxley）和表现欲望强烈的主唱（Tom Chaplin）之间相互依赖的关系。当带着防毒面具的舞蹈演员在Chaplin前跳舞时，他跪倒在舞台上尽情地释放感情，给这首歌增添了令人毛骨悚然的效果。

这三年来经常有人说这个乐队是在模仿Coldplay，但主唱并没有受到这种诽谤的干扰，反而抱起空心吉他装作Chris Martin来了一小段“Yellow”。当然为了防止在曼彻斯特引起不必要的麻烦，他马上又演奏了“Your Eyes Open”，并且煽动听众和他一起唱，这样反而更好地“掩盖我那令人震惊的吉他表演”。

其实他不用担心。Keane的歌迷唱得和Chaplin弹吉他一样好，当然，这是将他们作为外行人的角度来说的。实际上，在唱到Somewhere Only We Know的时候，Tom已经显得多余。当台上台下合唱这首乐队的出道歌曲时，它听上去就好像是卫理公会教派的圣歌。Tom的康复疗程可能已经结束，但是整个乐队的疗程还将日以继夜地进行下去。

翻译: akia