Keane, Lost and Bono Strikes Back

I made the trip to Cincinnati last night to see Keane at the Taft Theatre. The Taft is a nice venue; I've been there three times before for Dave Matthews Band and Big Head Todd & the Monsters, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and the last Kids in the Hall tour. Last night, the sound was pretty good, our seats were terrific and the crowd response was surprising in its ferocity. You could tell the band felt it. They played most of Hopes and Fears as well as a few b-sides (like my favorite, "Snowed Under") and a couple of new songs, but generally stuck pretty close to the album arrangements on the songs I knew and didn't mess with the formula too much on the new stuff. Overall, it was an entertaining but short set that just seemed to be missing that little bit of magic that turns a great show into an amazing one. Doves had it, Keane didn't.

So tonight was the two-hour season finale of Lost. At some points during the show, it was obvious that they really didn't have enough to fill two hours, but there were enough twists to keep me hooked for next year. The fact that I got through the entire season and still had no idea what was going to happen in the finale speaks to the quality of the show.

And finally, I found this article to be very interesting. Apparently, Greg Kot, the music critic for the Chicago Tribune has a long-running relationship with U2, and has recently published some articles questioning the direction the band has taken since releasing Pop in 1997. Well, Bono took issue, and decided to hash it out face-to-face. The man is either total class, or the biggest media whore in the history of the world. More likely, it's some combination of the two. Either way, I have more respect for him after reading this.