Keane • September 8, 2024 • Red Butte Garden Amphitheater
Reviewed and Photographed by Kevin Rolfe
Twelve years. TWELVE YEARS! It’s been twelve years since Alternative Rock band, Keane made a tour stop in Salt Lake City. It’s been about that long since they’ve played most cities. A lengthy hiatus, solo projects, and conquering a myriad of issues in their personal lives have kept the boys from Winslow, England away from the road. But on September 8, 2024, Keane triumphantly returned to Utah. Red Butte Garden Amphitheater was jam-packed. In speaking with some of the venue’s employees, I was informed that this was one of the shows that sold out the fastest. That didn’t surprise me at all. Keane is a band very high on my list of favorite bands. I had heard rumblings that they’d be touring The States over the summer and I had my fingers crossed that they’d be playing SLC.
As is typical of a concert series, Red Butte announces all of their shows over the summer on one specific date. This will happen with the Twilight Concert Series, Deer Valley, and others as well. Artists will usually announce their entire tour in one announcement. So what will often happen is that for the series to make their announcement, an artist will announce a tour, but when it gets to Salt Lake City they’ll withhold the venue. So when Keane announced their Hopes And Dreams 20th Anniversary Tour, I was really hoping when I saw that the venue said “TBA”, that it meant Keane would be coming to Red Butte Garden. No offense to any other Utah venue, but I felt like Keane and Red Butte would make the perfect match. And they did! This show was incredible in every way.
Everything Everything
The show started with English Art Rock band, Everything Everything. I’m ashamed to admit but I hadn’t heard of Everything Everything before seeing that they’d be supporting Keane. They seem like a band that I should have been listening to since their inception in 2007. I noticed that there were a lot of people much more informed than me inside Red Butte Garden Amphitheater. Everything Everything had a great contingent of their own fans at this show. Fans of all ages at that. There were some teenagers near me that were dancing for the entire set as if they were watching the headliner. In fact, after the set, they picked up their stuff and appeared to be leaving. Which would have shocked me. Happily, they were just relocating to be closer to their parents. But for this band, they wanted to be as close as possible. Who could blame them?
Everything Everything zipped through their nine-song set. They opened with “The End of the Contender” and finished with “No Reptiles”. They appeared to leave the audience transfixed on what had just transpired. If encores were common for openers, Everything Everything would have definitely received one. They did a great job. I’m for sure doing my homework to get caught up with the rest of the cool kids who love this band.
Keane
The moment had arrived. Keane walked on stage greeted by a huge sign rolled out in the front row saying “We Love Keane!” Lead singer Tom Chaplin smiled big and pointed to the sign. I have listened to these guys, watched their interviews, and been to multiple concerts. When they walked out I felt like I knew them. I wanted to wave and have the wave back saying, “Oh Hey, it’s Kevin!”.
Tom stepped up to the mic, looked to the sky, raised his hand as drummer Richard Hughes counted in the opening song, “Can’t Stop Now”. The elation was immediate. I mean instant joy filled my body. I could not stop smiling. It felt impossible to focus on photography because I was looking around at everyone else giving in to their perma grin. What a perfect opening song. First of all, it’s fantastic. Second, it reminded us of the reason we were all there.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of, in my opinion, one of the greatest albums ever, start to finish, Hopes And Fears. It took less than ten seconds to hear that Keane was still in good form. They sounded as amazing as ever. This was one of the few times I was eager to stop shooting and get back to my seat and take this show in more fully.
Chaplin addressed the audience by saying, “What a place to come and play music! We’ve got grass. The right kind of grass.” The audience laughed. “Looks at these flowers as well. We should have these every night. We are absolutely delighted to be back. Because the shows here in the past have been incredible. A beautiful warm passionate atmosphere. And we want more of the same from you good people if we can.” He encouraged us to dance while making sure we had enough room to “Boogie”. Most of all he encouraged us to sing along. Neither of these things was a problem. The night was filled with both.
As I was taking pictures I just kept thinking to myself, “Please don’t do “Bend And Break” while I’m shooting!”. For some reason, I had a feeling they were going to do it early. And sure enough, they did play it third in the setlist. I usually get to shoot for the first three songs. So what I thought was unfortunate turned out to be one of my most enjoyable experiences of the night. While I didn’t get to personally dance and sing as freely as I envisioned getting into the song, I was moving around the crowd and saw person after person completely taken over by the song. It was a beautiful thing to watch. And besides, Keane had 18 more classics left for me to enjoy.
Keane played through great song after great song. Songs like “Nothing In My Way”, and “Spiraling” filled the garden. I started to think about six songs in, ‘This is going way too fast!’ I couldn’t wait to hear what the next song would be but at the same time, I didn’t want the show to end. All that being said, I found myself lost in the songs. Memories of when I first heard them came flooding back. But I was also right there in the moment totally blown away at how fresh the songs still felt and how great they sounded
If you’ve been to Red Butte Garden Amphitheater you have no doubt seen the patio area on the left side of the stage (When you’re looking at it). This area is typically where people go when they want to perhaps get a little closer to the stage but also, really dance and get into the show. Tom Chaplin was perplexed by the area. He asked what it was. “Is there some reason you’ve all come together?” The fans in the area began shouting their reasons for being over there.
Tom couldn’t make out what they were saying so he stated that he’d just “I’m just going to imagine that you’ve all come together tonight. And if you’re super fans over there, then it will not have passed you by that today is the birthday of Mr. Richard Hughes our lovely drummer. The entire venue cheered for him as different groups throughout the garden began singing “Happy Birthday”. He joked that Richard asked that he not encourage people to sing to him. Chaplin in his defense kept his promise.
Tom then reminded us that they were celebrating another birthday. The birthday of Hopes And Fears. He shared that they’ve had a blast celebrating the record and everything it means to them and to us the fans. “What’s lovely is we get to do a few deep cuts off the record and this is one of them.” Keane then proceeded to play “Sunshine”. A song I’m pretty sure I’ve personally never heard them play live.
It’s hard to have a favorite moment during a show where you love literally every single song. But if I had to choose it was a moment when Tom shared with us that at any point his voice was going to disappear. This brought fear upon the audience, but he assured us it would be fine. Tom told us we needed to be properly warmed up. He sang a melody from a song I absolutely love. He sang part of “You Are Young”. Then asked us to sing it back. In that moment, I had no fears of Tom’s voice giving out.
The man’s vocal range is mind-blowing. We went through it until Tom felt like we were loud enough. “What it really needs is more drama. Your inner Freddie Mercury.” We got to the right place of volume and drama and the song began. The moment was so interactive that it was impossible to not sing at full voice for the song. It’s moments like this that make live music the beautiful thing that it is
Things did not slow down following “You Are Young”. Keane followed that moment with their first hit, “Everybody’s Changing”. Wow! What a sequence of songs. I couldn’t hold back. These songs are for sure too high for me. But I found myself just totally going for it. It was a blissful moment that I will for sure remember for a long time.
Following “Hamburg Song” and “Your Eyes Open” I received a text from my Red Butte Garden buddy, Connie. She texted me that she had been saving me a spot in the very front row. Connie goes to every single show at Red Butte. It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. So I moved down and stood there front and center watching Keane play “Bad Dream” basically in my face. It was a jaw-dropping experience. I would be happy watching Keane from the back row so I’m sure you could imagine how much I was loving the new location.
Now this is the moment where I realize that I can’t go through each and every song. As much as I’d like to, and I do have thoughts on each of these moments. However, to prevent this simple review from turning into a book, I’ll just summarize and say that time did in fact fly by. It was impossible to slow down. People never stopped either singing along or dancing or both. And I don’t think anyone stopped smiling. There was a great feeling in the air that night.
While Tom Chaplin did sound amazing, it was clear at times that his voice was a little thin on the extremely high falsetto notes. Like when he sang, “She Has No Time”. The strange thing is he still totally hit the notes, it was just clear that he’s been on tour for a while. But there’s something about that that I like. Again, the live music experience is the best. So when something sounds very live and still impressive, it’s pretty great.
The show did seemed to come to a halt when Keane played “This is the Last Time”. I think there was this collective, “We’ve heard a ton of amazing songs, what else can they possibly play?”. Then this song began and it felt like everyone was like “Oh my gosh, I love this song!”. People swayed and sang and took in the remaining moments of the night. Tom pointed out signs that people had made and joked that he didn’t remember the words to “Frog Prince”. But he’d relearn it and play it next time.
To finish out the main set, Tom reminded us that we made a deal at the beginning of the show to clap, dance, and sing. He told us we kept our end of the bargain. So as a token of their gratitude, he dedicated the next song, “to each and every person in this crowd. This is for you!”. Right at that moment, piano player and principal songwriter, Time Rice-Oxley played that ever so familiar intro to “Somewhere Only We Know”. The night’s biggest sing-along was now in full force! It’s a great song! I sang so loud. Everyone sang so loud! These songs have so much heart. It felt impossible not to put all of ours into them when we sang with the band. I absolutely loved this moment.
Keane returned to play a three-song encore. Tom Chaplin left shared with us that is was always the band’s dream to do what they do. “Even though we dreamed of it, we never really imagined that it would happen. And that all these years later we’d be traveling to these far parts of the world and singing to people whose faces seem to be so full of joy and love for our music. The older we get, more now than ever, we really genuinely appreciate everything you give to us as our fans.”
As has been a tradition at a Keane show, “Bedshapped” was the final song. One last moment to take in another great song from the just about perfect album, Hopes And Fears. While I still wasn’t ready for the night to end, I had come to terms with what felt like the perfect way to end a perfect night. The audience roared as Keane made their final bows and left the stage.
I don’t think I’ve appreciated a show this summer more than I did this one. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, it’s impossible for me to be objective when it comes to this band. I have loved them for twenty years. And I spent twelve of it waiting for them to come back here. The delight of them still sounding incredible was almost overwhelming. It was a joyus reunion to say the least.
