Keane are to undertake a European tour of intimate venues, ahead of the release of their new album, 'Under The Iron Sea', on 12 Jun. Keyboardist Tim Rice-Oxley told NME.com the reasoning behind the tour, saying: "We're doing a tour of Europe, just playing small clubs. I think we want to avoid the trap of saying 'Yeah, right, we're a big band now, we're going to go out and play arenas and stadiums to let everyone know how big we are' because we feel that it's really important to go back to square one and start again."
He continued: "The songs are very different, the sound is very different and we're going to have to go out there and get people excited about it. Playing live is a huge part of that and always has been for us. It's important for us to go out there and do that again, connect with people again and you can only really do that in smaller places."
Keane fans' excuses for a trip to the continent as follows:
9 May: Madrid Heineken Club
11 May: Lisbon Aula Magna
17 May: Berlin Kesselhaus
18 May: Milan Rolling Stone
23 May: Paris Trabendo
26 May: Amsterdam Paradiso
27 May: Oslo Sentrum