All the news before tonight's big show
9.01pm - we're moving to a new thread, cos this one is getting slow.

8.58pm: Way to go Martin McDonald with the correct answer! Very impressive.

And, no Mary-Ann, we won't get to see all that much of the gig, because we've got to keep you folks up to date. Selfless, we know.

We're sitting right behind the stage, though, so we can hear it pretty well from here. They're playing Nothing In My Way at the moment. Actually, it's just finished. Big cheer!

8.52pm: They're on! And the whole place is going crazy!

Tim admitted to being slightly terrified about 20 seconds before he went on, but from the minute they hit the stage, it clicked into place. Really, it did.

Now, who's up for a Richard drum challenge? Click here to view the video. First person to email the correct song title to us at ontour@keanemusic.com gets the glory.

Hello to everyone emailing from Mexico, by the way.

8.36pm: Nine minutes until stage time and our laptop has decided now would be a good time to go *really* slow. Arrrrgh! Anyway, the band are in their warm-up room and everyone is ready and raring to go. Richard has done another drum challenge video, which we'll upload once they're on (it's that that's got our laptop in a tizz). We've got butterflies. The band must have a whole swarm of them.

7.54pm: Hello to fans to Thailand, Spain, France and Peru who've emailed. Lots of you have also asked if Tom really went out to the queue earlier to play 'Vienna' by Ultravox. So we asked Tom. He laughed for about 10 seconds and said, "No, but what a great idea". Maybe next time then!

7.51pm: Ghosts were good - clearly quite nervous to be playing such a big venue (their biggest gig yet, apparently) but they sounded great.

7.35pm: We've just been in the dressing room. Richard's concerned that his hands are flaking because of the climbing (and drumming) he's been doing.





They looked fine to us.

We're off to watch a bit of Ghosts.

7.04pm: Wow, we're getting lots of emails to ontour@keanemusic.com at the moment - loads of you in America, plus folks in Holland, Belgium, France and, of course, Latin America. Like Matheus (and his aunt Sandra) in Sao Paulo, Brazil...



We just showed this pic to Richard. He said, "Awww, that's really nice". Which is pretty much what we thought too.

SAT 6.59pm: Blimey, is it 6.59pm already? We've just been for a spot of dinner and then popped into the dressing room to see what the band were upto. Alex Lake was in there, showing Richard his website (http://www.twoshortdays.com/). Meanwhile, Tim was putting in his contact lenses and Tom was sitting there "having a think about the show". How's he feeling about it? "A bit nervous, but really excited. It should be great". It should indeed. Just 106 minutes until stage time...

SAT 6.01pm: We've just been for a wander around outside the arena. It's massive out there, with loads of restaurants and bars - in fact there's even a beach! There's an awful lot of people out there too. Here's some pics...











Don't they all look cheery! Great display of impromptu waving and smiling!

Lots of you from Argentina have been emailing to ask us whether Gaby (who's over here from over there) will be able to present your gifts to the band. Sorry, but we honestly don't know. We're not even sitting with Beth and Colin today, we're in an office on our lonesome, with only your emails for company! But we're sure that your gifts will get to the band one way or another.

SAT 5.29pm: We just sat in on the band's post-soundcheck meeting. They were talking about things like what to do if a piano string breaks or the lighting stops working. Even just being there made us feel really nervous - goodness only knows how the band and the crew felt.

Happily, though, Tim told us he was very pleased with how the soundcheck went and the band all seem to be in cheery moods.







Yes, that's Richard checking out the Blackle.com website which we told you about earlier (he bookmarked it too).

SAT 5.03pm: Now in the soundcheck they're pretending that it's a full-on gig, with all the lights and proper run throughs of the songs for the DVD crew. It's quite odd seeing the band belting through the songs as if there are 17,000 people there, when actually there are more like 17. More pics...











This last one is Tom watching Tim and Rich belting through 'Crystal Ball'. It was pretty darned loud (to paraphrase Huey Lewis in 'Back To The Future').

SAT 4.46pm: This morning at 11.01am we asked for a review of the new Harry Potter book. To be honest, we'd long ago given up hope of getting one - but then this turned up at ontour@keanemusic.com a second ago (don't worry, there are no spoilers)

Since getting the book right at the 'stroke of midnight', as Jim Dale's automated voice message put it, I have not been able to put it down (although my mom had to pry the book out of my hands in order to make me go to bed). I'm not going to give away anything, but I will say that from the getgo, I was scared out of my pants. Rowling sure knows how to keep you on the edge of your seat! I give this book (so far) 11 out of 10!
Melani

Thanks Melani!

SAT 4.39pm: Here's some pictures from the soundcheck, in artistic black and white (the black saves power, the white less so).















With Alex Lake in the building, we'd like to think we upped our game.

SAT 4.36pm: Soundcheck pics on their way. In the meantime...

Hello blog.
Please could you deliver a namecheck to those reading in the queue by the wonder of wireless communications! In particular - Jen from Taunton, Nicky from Horsham, Em from Battle, Kara from Reading, Rihannon from Crystal Palace, and the huge crowd from America who have come all this way with banners in tow...! They're all listening intently to the soundcheck as I tap.
Andrew

Consider it done Andrew. We'll head out there to take a picture in a minute, too.

SAT 4.08pm: Jennifer has written to ontour@keanemusic.com to tell us that black-coloured internet pages, like km.com, use 20% less energy than bright white-coloured pages like google.com (she has the stats to back it up too). Interesting stuff. Apparently Google have set up a black page in direct response to this discovery. Check it out at http://www.blackle.com/ and do your bit to save some power.

SAT 3.53pm: Here's how it looks from the stage...







The band have just started their soundcheck, we can hear the distant strains of 'Nothing In My Way' from the office we're in, deep in the backstage area (this place is like a maze).

There's a definite buzz of nervous excitement about the band and the crew today. Not only is this Keane's biggest UK headline show yet, it's also being filmed for the DVD. Everyone looks very purposeful and focused, as if Eminem's 'Lose Yourself' is playing in their minds...

"Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted, one moment, would you capture it or just let it slip?"

Um, we'll capture it please Mr Mathers.
SAT 3.26pm: Wow, did it really only take us 14 minutes to find catering and then eat beef stroganoff and a piece of cheesecake? Hmm, we'll probably get indegestion now.

For those of you after stage times, Ghosts are on at 7.30pm (well worth getting here for), with Keane on at 8.45pm (they're ace too).

Anyway, here's a pic of Tim taken in the dressing room earlier...



The soundcheck is due to be starting in a minute, so we're off to have a look at that.

SAT 3.12pm: Right, we've just been out to look at the arena with Tom and Tim, who both seem in good spirits. It's HUGE! Mad to imagine that's going to be full of people in a few hours.

Click here to see a Video Blog we just made out there (we're putting links rather than embedding, because apparently that's helpful for those of you on dial-up).

And here's a picture of how it looks out there...



Right, we're off for some lunch...

SAT 2.16pm: Hello from The O2. Or the Millennium Dome. Or whatever you want to call it. It looks a little bit like this...



And we're pleased to say that the wireless internet speed is jolly quick.

Hello to Monica from Chile and Julie from Colombia, who both emailed ontour@keanemusic.com while we were on our way down here. Bet it's not raining there.

Now, time for a wander...


SAT 12.08PM: Right, we're off to catch the train to the venue. See you when we're there.

SAT 11.54AM: This just in to ontour@keanemusic.com...

Hello Keane 02 Blog, I have tickets for tonight, now going to waste as I'm trapped in my own town by flood waters, train tickets useless as the station is under water and the traffic around here is horrendous! Me and my friend (F'ran) were going to attempt going at 8am today but its just not possible, so very disappointed, had accommodation booked, and everything, I mentioned on the forum whether Tom, Tim or Richard could send us a helicopter but on second thought, realised that wouldn't fit their eco-friendly life style, still at least we can watch the dvd, Just means you're going to have 2 people minus the 20,000 odd singing along, also missing Ghosts to! They were ace when we watched them recently, look out for their cover of 'Don't Cha' if they do it, its very good!..

Pete and Fran (we're very depressed)

:-(


SAT 11.21AM: We've had a couple of emails from folks in the west of the UK who are struggling to make it up to London for the show because of the floods down there. Fingers crossed they can all make it. Be such a pity if they didn't.

SAT 11.01AM: Last night, Keane's manager Adam threw a party at his house in London, for the band and various of the people who work with them. The highlight for us was beating Adam and Tom at darts. Rock 'n' roll!

So, who's read the new Harry Potter book already then? Send your reviews to ontour@keanemusic.com and we'll post them up.

SAT 10.29AM: Here's that breakfast, in all its glory...



And, when we said tonight is Keane's last 'Under The Iron Sea' headline date, we meant in the UK. Don't worry, the Portugal and Spain shows are still very much on!

Sat 10.16AM: Hello again. The big news in our world is that we've just been presented with the most amazing breakfast by our missus (pancakes, maple syrup, strawberries and blueberries!).

Anyway, we thought it was about time we revealed the answer to the challenge set by Richard in the Dublin blog, to guess which song he was drumming along to. Well, the answer was 'Everybody's Changing'. Click here to see the video again...

And hello to Helen who's reading in Australia, Lindsay in Holland and Delora in Portugal.

Sat 9.15AM: Mornin'. We've just been ploughing through the 50+ emails you chaps sent yesterday, which we couldn't read while we were on the road. Thanks for all those - they came from as far apart as Finland and Brazil. Always nice to hear from you folks.

So, tonight is the last UK date of the 'Under The Iron Sea'. From having seen the news this morning, it seems like we were quite lucky to make it back to London at all yesterday - the floods have caused chaos in the UK, with thousands of people having to sleep in their cars, not far away from places we passed in the bus.

Anyway, quite a few of you have asked who tonight's support act is. It's a band called Ghosts, who we're quite big fans of here at km.com. Click here to check out their MySpace and hear four of their pleasingly peppy indie-pop tunes. We'll let you know what time they're on later.

We'll be heading down the The O2 at about 1.30pm today, but we'll try to keep you up to date with bits and bobs of news until then.

And if you want to say hello, drop us a line at ontour@keanemusic.com.