Sunday, February 25, 2007

Keane - A Bad Dream (USB Single) + my little Keane collection

I was lucky enough to catch this on sale at HMV a couple weeks ago. I ordered one and got it in the post a week later. This was exciting for me since it is limited, and I happened to catch it still on sale (it's sold out now). I got number 658 out of 1500 (or it might be 2000, I forgot). :D It has the video and single version for "A Bad Dream", "Enjoy the Silence", and the "Luna-C Bangin' Mix" for the single. There was also a competition to the Wembley show in London. I entered it even though I can't fly over to London.. ^^; The USB memory stick is so tiny, and I'm afraid that I'll break it. I haven't used it much anyway.. It has a capacity of 256 MB, but I think the USB single for "Nothing In My Way" has 512.. :( It also came with a cool, shiny wristband. I looped the string on the wristband to the memory stick so I wouldn't lose it. :P Another nice collectible for my small Keane collection. :D


Some other collectible Keane items I have are two other singles:

- Is It Any Wonder?
- This Is The Last Time

I bought these two singles when I went to Tower Records one day... I begged my mom to get these since there was a "buy 4 get the 5th free" deal on anything in the store. So I bought all the Keane singles they had (the above two). I knew they were collectible especially since we don't have singles here in the US, so I'm glad I got them. They surely would've sold out if I didn't buy them right at that time!

- Here's a picture of my copies.





Also, I went to the Virgin Megastore gig on June 20, 2006 for their release of Under The Iron Sea. I bought the album and it came with a limited edition lithograph of the band and the album artwork (mine's number 2844! :D). They had some of the "Is It Any Wonder?" artwork, but I couldn't get one. :/

The lithographs I got:

Oh yes, I also got the advertisement that stood out in front of the store, as well as a window sticker of that same poster.. :P

This Virgin Megastore gig was during the halftime of the World Cup game between England and Sweden. I had no idea it was being filmed for ESPN. It's nice to have the actual boys to look at instead of just their album or single artwork.. XD

That thing in the bottom left corner is talking about how tickets were already sold out for their real gig that was the next day. I didn't get to go, unfortunately...




The best part of my little collection is what I got at the concert I attended last month. Yes, I met them and got their autographs! I'm excited that I got two versions of Tim's signature too (one is just "Tim" and the other is his full name "Tim Rice-Oxley")! :D My mom got my CD sleeve signed and I got the back of an extra copy of my drawing (that I gave to them) signed.. :P Extra bonus: Tim and Rich used my Sharpie to sign my stuff!!! XD Rich actually asked me to borrow it to sign everyone's stuff too. ^^















Well, that's all the collectible Keane memorabilia I have. :D I look forward to adding to this collection, but I am already very happy with it now! ^_^

Saturday, February 3, 2007

KEANE @ THE WILTERN - JANUARY 26, 2007

KEANE - OMG SO CUTE!!! XD

WOW, what can I say about this brilliant band?!?! They blew me away at my first real concert. They are SO GOOD live! I think they sound even better live than they do on their albums, and that's saying A LOT. They're already perfect on the albums, but live... It's just MAGICAL!

I stood for nearly 12 hours straight, but even with my legs almost collapsing the whole time, it was SO worth it! I stood in line to get my PIT tickets for about 6 hours, then 3 hours for the concert (including the opening band and intermission), and lastly 3 hours to wait for KEANE to come out.

Rocco DeLuca and the Burden was the opening band and they sounded unique, but I was there for Keane. I was lucky enough to get front row center-right (but I did stand in line early for it), and it ended up being the most exhilarating experience of my life. Normally I'm shy, but I sang my lungs out for the fast/upbeat/loud songs. Everyone at the Wiltern was screaming and the audience was very responsive to Tom's engaging performance. I heard the Berkeley crowd was pretty weak compared to us, but I guess we're just more crazy.. :P

Berkeley got "The Frog Prince", though! Argh, I was hoping they would perform this song, but they didn't for us. :(( They better perform that one at the next Keane gig I go to! XP So they got that one extra song, but it was still an awesome show at the Wiltern. I never heard Tom run out of breath throughout the whole show, and Tim and Rich were a treat to see play with such emotion and passion. I wish I had a better view of Rich, though, since a cymbal was always in front of his face from my angle. Tim did miss a few keys during their acoustic performance of "Your Eyes Open", but he was laughing/smiling. ^_^ That made me smile too, and Tim obviously knew he made a little mistake. :P

After the perfect performance, I stood out by their tour bus to meet them. I managed to give them some buttons I made and a drawing/painting I did (pencil, scanned into the computer, edited/colored in Photoshop). Tim actually laughed at my button for him, which he called a badge, because it featured his "Shoe of Choice" - the green Dunlops. XD I forgot the little circle in the back part of the shoe, though. x_x I made a "King of SMOOTHIES" one for Tom and a "Hug_A_Hughes" one for Rich. :P I hope they at least found them comical.. I know Tim did because he looked at it after I gave it to him and he laughed. ^__^ I gave the drawing to Tim since he was the first to come out and he was so nice about it: "Wow, this looks frighteningly like me..." XD They're all so nice, and I hope I'll be able to meet them again soon! *g*

I sent in some pictures from the concert for the Keane website and they put one of them up! :D Go to the official Keane site (found in my linkage section of the sidebar) and click on "YOUR PICTURES FROM AMERICA". It should be under "Other News" at this time. My picture is the one with my name, Michelle A, underneath it. They put it in the wrong section, though! They put it under Berkeley, when it should be under the Wiltern. :P

Here are some other PICTURES! :D
Tim is already beginning to rock on his piano as "The Iron Sea" transitions into "Put It Behind You". What a FANTASTIC intro! It was so cool with that lighting and everything... I was in awe... My first concert is THIS good. ;D

Tom gave it his all... I mean, his voice was STRONG for every single song, whether it was fast or slow. His voice reached every high note, and he was just amazing. While he was singing with such passion and strength, he had so much stamina to bounce around the stage too! ^_^ He sounded better than any other live performance (from videos on the internet, etc...) I've ever seen! O__O

Yay, I'm glad I was able to get a pretty clear shot of Rich! :D Look, he's even smiling while he plays the drums too! XD Rich deserves much more attention and love than he's getting now.. :P Glad he came up to the front of the stage during the acoustic version of "Your Eyes Open". ^_^

Here is a picture of that very acoustic performance with all three of them up front!!!!!!!! :D Well, you can only see Tim and Rich here... but Tom was at the left with his guitar! ;)

You know, this looks pretty hot, don't you think? I loved it when Tom went up to Tim and sang like that. ^_^ I think this was one out of two or three times that they interacted like this. XD

Tim during "A Bad Dream". Beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I actually didn't really take this picture... I took a video, and this just happens to be the first frame of it. 8D

And the end... AWWWWWWWWWWW!!! I LOVE THEM! I LOVE KEANE!!! XD

NO STEALING THE PICTURES!!!!!!

Here are some great videos of the performance I found on YouTube... NOTE: These are not mine! Credit goes to the original posters of the videos...

Put It Behind You


A Bad Dream


Hope you enjoyed those fantastic videos! :D Thanks so much to those who shared them! *g*

I can't wait until I can experience this again! KEANE just ROCKS!