Keane Blow Audience Away At Liverpool Echo

Five short years ago if you mentioned to me I would be going to see Keane in the future I would have laughed in disbelief.
It was during their "Hopes and Fears" period that I openly mocked the band and dismissed them as more dull indie music a'la Snow Patrol, Travis et al.
Then of course the second album got released in 2006 and I didn't mind them too much though I still did not rush out and get "Under The Iron Sea" (and still don't own a copy).
Fast forward to the back end of last year and they release "Spiralling"; the soundtrack to my Cyprus holiday and a track by what surely aren't the same band who did that droney anthem "Everybody's Changing" just four years previously? Well actually, yes. But that is something that I have grown to admire about Keane a lot over the last 6 months; their sheer versatility, to go from a disco-pop choon to a melodramatic ballad at the click of a finger but still sound like the same band.
Their current album "Perfect Symmetry" is fantastic and highly recommended, of course there is the odd ballad here and there, but 95% of the tracks on it are simply really, really good.. and so I had high expectations when I went to see them live last night at the Liverpool Echo Arena.
It was my first trek to the Echo but was pleasantly surprised how nice the place is having only been to the Manchester Evening News Arena for a venue of a similar size.
The Echo is a fair bit smaller but with much better acoustics and making for a more intimate gig. The support act Frankmusik were promising to start with, but the high-pitched squealing vocalist tended to grate on the nerves after 10 minutes or so and every half-decent song they performed throughout their set was followed by an absolute stinker.

Keane came on at 8.30 and kicked off the show with recent single "The Lovers Are Losing" followed by old favourite "Bend And Break" before harking into "Everybody's Changing". Eagerly waiting for more from the new album I was pleased to hear them churn out "Better Than This" followed by an excellent performance of "Again And Again" complete with super-cool retro computer graphics (search Youtube for footage).

They performed all the "big hits" in fact including "A Bad Dream" from their second album, a good song which most casual fans like myself had completely forgotten about.

Mid-way through the set the band walked centre stage and did a few subtle acoustic numbers with guitar and piano, then pumped into a startingly good version of "You Haven't Told Me Anything", my favourite album track and by far the highlight of the night. After 2 encores they decided to end the show with Bedshaped which had pretty much everyone singing along.

There weren't really any low points to the gig, and you really begin to admire the vocals once you have seen them live, which were flawless. The only slight downer was that only the trimmed radio edit of "Spiralling" was played. Given that the track is so popular I can't see why they couldn't perform the full version but other than that it was a gig far better than I'd ever imagined it to be from a band that used to bore me so much!