KEANE

A blog from Tim 02 February 2009

Bonjour! We’re in Paris to film our appearance on the excellent French music show Taratata. In fact, we’re filming not one but two episodes in one day. We’re doing two Keane songs and two collaborations with other artists, so it’s going to be extremely exciting and somewhat chaotic.

We drove all the way here from Nottingham overnight, so full credit to our drivers Chris and Paul for negotiating the snow and getting everyone here in one piece. I noticed a little bit of wheel-spinning while we were in the Parisian suburbs this morning! Hopefully the return journey to Bournemouth tonight will be equally smooth. I keep thinking of the end of The Italian Job.

It’s been a great tour so far. I have to say the crowds at these gigs have been exceptional. We were reflecting the other day on how strange it is that we suddenly (or it feels sudden, anyway) find ourselves saying "It’s one of the smaller arenas tonight – just the 6,000 people"! Pretty incredible really. It’s hard to pick a highlight, but I would have to say that the singing along in Glasgow was spectacular, and playing in the giant cauldron of humanity that is the Manchester MEN Arena is always a magical experience. I remember playing at the Night & Day club in Manchester in 2002. It was our first gig as a three-piece band, and pretty much the only people there were Mark and Lard from Radio 1. Strange.

Tom and I went to see Slumdog Millionaire on our day off in Glasgow on Wednesday. It really is a brilliant film – very funny in places, gruellingly tragic in others. Excellent soundtrack too.

Favourite song at the moment: Money by NASA. Actually, that’s my second-favourite song; my favourite song at the moment is The River by Bruce Springsteen. We’ve been playing a little snippet of it every night on the tour and now I’ve become slightly obsessed with it. I think it might be the greatest song ever written. If I could write lyrics like "For my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat" without sounding like an utter twat, then I would.

Other than all that, we’ve been busy making plans for the rest of year. We should have some exciting tour announcements soon, and then there’s the world of summer festivals to sort out too. In fact there’s quite a bit of exciting stuff coming up, now I come to think of it. But most of it is secret at the moment! It’s going to be a good year.

Tim

Want to hear more from Tim? Check out this video interview from Sunday’s live blog in Nottingham (all the questions were emailed in by you folks).

 

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