Broken Toy

Keane played the Orpheum Wednesday night. They were originally scheduled to perform here last October, but the show and their whole North American tour was rescheduled as Tom Chaplin was battling some personal problems at the time.

Rocco DeLuca And The Burden opened the evening. Rocco reminded me of Wil, with his big voice and rock sound that had some twang to it in his songs. He had some nice riffs and put on an impressive opening set.

Keane finished off their North American tour with the last stop being in Vancouver. Keyboardist Tim Rice-Oxley came out first and played The Iron Sea, before his band mates joined him for Put It Behind You.

The set design looked really nice. It had six screens spread across the stage featuring artsy videos intertwined with live performance footage of the band being recorded during the show. The lighting for the evening was solid, especially during the climax in We Might As Well Be Strangers.

Singer Tom Chaplin has excellent stage presence, using the entire surface of the Orpheum stage to convey his lyrics and emotion. Tim Rice-Oxley is such an entertaining keyboardist to watch live as he energetically taps his left foot and swings his head, rocking out to the melodies. Tom also strapped on an acoustic guitar for a different version of Your Eyes Open. It would be the only guitar we'd see on stage for the duration of their performance. For the bass sound, Tim lays it down on the keyboards.

We actually had a surprisingly good Vancouver crowd in attendance for the evening, which greatly added to the atmosphere of the show. Hamburg Song sounded fantastic live. A poem which inspired A Bad Dream was read before they performed the song. Tom also jumped off the stage and sang in the crowd during Somewhere Only We Know. Some other highlights from the 1hr 30min set included Leaving So Soon, Nothing In My Way, and Crystal Ball. At the end of the last song, Bedshaped, all three guys hung their heads down beside their instruments for a few moments and let the lights take over and envelope the stage....it was an awesome way to end a terrific night of music.

Setlist:

The Iron Sea
Put It Behind You
Everybody's Changing
Leaving So Soon
We Might As Well Be Strangers
Nothing In My Way
Bend And Break
Try Again
Your Eyes Open
Hamburg Song
Can't Stop Now
A Bad Dream
This Is The Last Time
Somewhere Only We Know
Is It Any Wonder

Atlantic
Crystal Ball
Bedshaped