For a girl in the audience to wave a pair of floral granny pants isn't very rock'n'roll. But then Keane, with their earnest name, guitarless dynamic and choirboy haircuts, aren't a very rock'n'roll band. If the tuneful, melodramatic power pop on their multi-million selling debut album, Hopes and Fears, doesn't sound like coffee-table music, it's only because you feel like offering it a nice cup of tea instead.

Live, Keane seem to think they're the missing link between Motorhead and Queen. Opener Can't Stop Now sees singer Tom Chaplin spread his legs, thrust his mic stand rakishly and raise his fist-clenched hand to the sky. Tim Rice-Oxley hammers his keyboards and headbangs. "Oh Glasgow," says Chaplin. "We're going to have some fun tonight."

What fun exactly is hard to ascertain. Keane's sound (keys, drums and vocals) is often woefully thin, and, for all the eerie lights that precede its arrival, Sunshine sounds like a Christmas carol through tinny speakers. At times the disjunction between Keane's excitable gestures and underwhelming music is risible.

Yet suddenly it starts to catch. The crowd are excited: small fights break out at the front. It may be Chaplin's dignified response (he speaks about feelings and everyone claps); it may be that critical faculties are eroded by over-exposure to emotional indie pop, or maybe Keane saved their best till last. But by the time encores This Is the Last Time and Bedshaped are roared out by Chaplin and a euphoric crowd, Keane feel magnificent.

· At Birmingham Academy tomorrow. Box office: 0870 771 2000.