Keane’s tech man/photo hero reports from the final gigs of the ‘Under The Iron Sea’ tour

Well, that’s the end of that then.

I’m off to the job centre now but before I go here are a random selection of pictures from a fabulous and sleep deprived final weekend Under The Iron Sea.

(Oh .. note to booking agents: send bands to hot countries more please. Thanks!)


This is what Tom sees during the final chorus of ‘A Bad Dream’ – but in colour. I feel a fact-ridden blog coming on, I’m afraid. Tour facts: Keane performed 104 shows in 15 months.


Tim’s gear awaits Porto – a town rich in sun, heat and beer. But obviously horrible traffic – the promoter assured us that the generator technician was ‘in his car and nearly here’ for 8 whole hours. We almost forgave him when he eventually arrived – but only because he looked like Earl from My Name is Earl.


If you want to play the piano like Mr Rice-Oxley then here are those all important CP70 settings. I can’t tell you the difference between the black and white keys though – sorry.

Simply because we could we took a mid afternoon break and nipped down to the beach.


Here video genius and ladies’ favourite ASBO gets splashed about by the Atlantic. He’s still looking for love and any last minute requests for dates from female (that bit is important) Keane fans would be appreciated.


Handsome production manager Ant and stage manager Mickey dip their toes in the ‘refreshing’ (read: freezing) surf. Mickey fact: those big boys need size 14 shoes – special order items.

Back to work: Kinks fans will know why I call this one ‘Portaloo Sunset’




Last match of the season for Keane Crew FC. L-R: soundman Iain, audio tech Tom, single video tech ASBO, stage manager Mickey and drum tech Scott – who seems to be on the phone.


Keane get to the last B stage of the tour.


Richard on the plane to El Ejido the next morning (it was too far for our trusty tour busses to manage unfortunately).


Tom catches up on sleep…


… while Richard and I swap lenses and make the time fly by talking about cameras (geek fact: I’m using his Nikkor 85mm f1.4 and he’s got his mitts on my pinholey lens-in-a-cap) …


…. and Tim’s watching a dvd. And smiling. In fact that’s more of a grin isn’t it?


Tom’s now blocking the aisle. Hmf.


On arrival Richard takes advantage of a delay at the half-built airport to take some pictures of bricks.


Keane own two sets of gear so that we can make logistically difficult shows like these. A few specialist pieces ‘float’ between the two systems, like the laptops that run all Tim’s sounds (shown here – well the boxes that contain them are shown here, to be precise) and .. um .. ASBO’s camping chair.


Tim’s enjoying the atmosphere on the airport bus. That’s a lame caption isn’t it? The full story features a locked gate, a man in a stripey shirt, some runaway baggage carts and a policeman on a moped.

*fast forward a few hours*


Guitar tech Sideshow Bob has whittled a bow and arrow out of the pot plants in the crew room. A fine effort.

*fast forward still more*

Apologies to the citizens of El Ejido. I didn’t get any pictures of the show. Oops – it was a final scorcher though.

*fast forward again through not enough hours sleep and yet another flight that had run out of tikka wraps – boo!*

We’re back at Gatwick and waiting for bags for an hour.



Can I ask a favour of BAA, operator of Gatwick and other UK airports? Hire more baggage handlers. If that’s not possible then open a coffee shop in the baggage hall and you’ll soon make even more money without improving the utterly lamentable quality of your customer service.

Sorry for the rant but at least I now feel better.


Richard takes a picture of me taking a picture of Tom and handsome production manager Ant.


And here she is: my final shot of the tour. It’s of merch man Kyle, Tim, some random holiday maker and Tom.

Until next time,

Rob