Last Saturday, Feb. 19, the British group Keane took the spotlight at the Pageant. The band didn't stray much from their latest album "Hopes and Dreams," which was released in May of last year.

In the past, Keane has been classified in the same group as Coldplay and even Radiohead, employing a more relaxed, almost soaring sound, without a guitar. Their stage, therefore, combined three main elements: keyboards, drums and the polished vocals of Tom Chaplin.

I was actually pretty skeptical about going to the concert. Although I had heard "Somewhere Only We Know" repeatedly on the radio, I was only somewhat familiar with the album. Any uncertainty I had quickly vanished as the opening notes of "This is the Last Time" flooded the hall and everyone's gaze focused solely on Chaplin and his leather pants.

In addition to his pig-skin pants, Chaplin gave much attention to wooing the ladies in the crowd. On numerous occasions he would stray to the left or right of the stage, leaning out over the audience while extending his hand to a loving girl. He also had many awkward gyrations and mic grabs, with a propensity to jump into a head-bowed hunch, just inches from screaming fans.

After about five songs from their current release, Keane began introducing its new material. These two songs, they claimed, were written while on tour in Europe this past year. For the first, "Hamburg Song," Chaplin joined pianist Tim Rice-Oxley on another keyboard, creating a dueling pianist sound with Chaplin's lyrics softly voiced over.

The band made great attempts to involve the audience, inviting everyone to "help out" with singing. Chaplin made the traditional rock claim, "It's not about who's around you, it's about being true to yourself," and kept encouraging the fans to lose themselves in the music.

The songs "This is the Last Time," "Everybody's Changing" and "Somewhere Only We Know" garnered the most applause from the crowd, with the latter being the band's final song before the encore. Keane was definitely successful in creating a cohesive sound that showcased Chaplin's pure voice. And I mean pure: I'm pretty sure I saw a guy with tears in his eyes at one point.

Although Keane put on a great show, the groups that preceded them deserve some attention.

The first band to take stage was a Chicago-based group, the Redwalls. This band opened with a catchy tune titled "Colorful Revolution," and by the end of their act, their classic rock melody undeniably paralleled that of the early Beatles.

The second act, the Zutons, is straight out of MTV2, with the added feature of a chick saxophone player. They did little to involve the audience, and although they could rock, they were somewhat of a buzz kill.

My biggest complaint overall for Keane was that every song sounded exactly as it did on the album. Not one note or drum beat strayed from the original recording, which got predictably boring, aside from Chaplin's side stories or narrations. One of the things I love about concerts is the ventures away from the original songs, and Keane didn't exactly fulfill that bit. This does not in any way undermine them as one of the most talented British acts of the year; they simply need to deviate from a scripted performance and rock out.