Keane to make history with 3D web broadcast

Patrick Foster, Media Correspondent
Multi-million selling British band Keane are to enter the history books by making the first live broadcast over the internet in 3D.

Keane, whose three number one albums have sold nearly ten million copies worldwide, will perform for 20 minutes on April 2, at Abbey Road, from the studio where the Beatles made the world’s first live satellite broadcast, in 1967. The event will cost nearly £100,000 to produce and has been in development for six months.

The band will play four tracks from their latest album, Perfect Symmetry, which viewers will be able to see in 3D on their monitor screens by wearing anaglyph glasses, with red and blue frames, which will be given away with their latest single, Better Than This, released next week.

The desire to bring 3D technology to the home, considered the Holy Grail for television manufacturers and film producers, has stepped up in the past couple of years, with Sky pouring money into research and development of the format. A number of television manufacturers already have 3D sets on the market, using new methods that require polarised glasses, rather than the traditional bi-coloured lenses.

That technology can not yet be used over the internet, as computer monitors are not able to render the images. But now that broadband internet has become widespread across UK, observers are keen to gauge public appetite for 3D web broadcasting.

Adam Tudhope, Keane’s manager, said: “It’s going to be all about 3D in the not too distant future. The band felt like they wanted to be doing something when it’s at its early stages, and doing it in a way that no one has ever done before. It’s about exploring every single possible creative outlet.

“They’re approaching it like a live music video. They have a large fan base all over the world and with stuff like this on the internet they can be everywhere at once.”

Keane are known in the music industry for being at the forefront of technological innovation, and were the first band to release a single on a USB memory stick, as opposed to a CD, because of the dominance of the digital format among young people.

Tom Chaplin, lead singer of the band, said: “We believe that the tradition of rock’n’roll is to always innovate, to bring new ideas and concepts into music. We hope that this will become a similarly powerful new way for music to connect people all over the world.”

The performance, which will go live on at 8pm on April 2, will also be the first live broadcast of music in three dimensions. U2 led the way in the format, releasing a film last year, U2 3D, that featured footage from nine of their concerts spliced together into what was the first live-action film to be shot, produced and screened in digital 3D.

Vicki Betihavas, head of Nineteen Fifteen Productionm, the company that will produce the broadcast, said she was working with other major bands to perform in three dimensions.

She said: “3D seems to have a buzz about it. We thought it would be really cool to up the stakes and take the technology to the next level, and Abbey Road was the ideal place because of its heritage with the Beatles satellite performance. That was groundbreaking for its time."
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