For five years now, Keane have been maligned as boring, simpering, about as rock ’n’ roll as a bridge club. If Coldplay were bedwetters, this tidy Sussex trio were swimming in it. So why, just as they’re getting interesting, are the public losing interest?

Latest album Perfect Symmetry spent 17 weeks in the charts, less than half as long as its predecessor, which, in turn, spent less than half as long there as their debut, Hopes
And Fears.

These diminishing returns are the result of increasing inventiveness, from a band who once limited themselves to a piano-drums-vocals template that meant earnest ballads were virtually the only possibility.

Now pianist and songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley sites himself among rows of synthesizers, bassist Jesse Quinn has become a fourth member and singer Tom Chaplin, long mocked for his apple cheeks and habit of thanking the audience from the bottom of his heart between every song, has morphed into a strutting rock god with a guitar and an ego ramp stretching far into the crowd.

The album may be less popular but the live set is far more compelling.

At the first of their two biggest London shows to date, Keane were full of movement and energy and some surprising new sounds.

Better Than This used rubbery synth riffs to mimic David Bowie’s Ashes To Ashes. Spiralling’s Eighties exuberance had something of Duran Duran about it.

They were fun, from the Tron visuals that stretched around the arena like a football advertising hoarding, right down to Rice-Oxley’s silver trainers.

A campfire section, where the band headed to a smaller stage to play low-key versions of old ballads, reeked of the past tedium. But mostly, with Chaplin’s guitar work and Rice-Oxley even playing standing up, they were unrecognisable as the old band.

The fans who can’t identify them any more don’t know what they’re missing.