THE singer and songwriter from multi-platinum-selling band Keane are reuniting for a one-off acoustic show to raise money for their home town’s October arts festival.

Tom Chaplin and Tim Rice-Oxley are returning home to play the show in the grounds of Battle Abbey on Saturday, August 8.

It will be the first time the pair have played together for two years, since the band went on hiatus following the release of The Best Of Keane in November 2013.

Rice-Oxley is a patron of the Battle Festival, which started last year. As part of the 2014 event he mentored a group of young musicians from the town.

“I think Battle is so full of talent,” he says. “It is such a culturally rich place – the festival is a perfect way to bring people together. Hopefully it will grow every year.

“Tom and I haven’t done many acoustic gigs as a two-piece – we haven’t played at all for ages. The Abbey will be a unique place to play – it will be something no-one has done before, a complete one-off. I’m looking forward to sitting down and making up a setlist with a few quirky ones for the fans.”

The Ivor Novello Award-winning songwriter says the band felt they needed a break after ten years of making albums and touring.

“I really hope that we will make some more music,” he says. “We have a magical thing together that we should never squander. We need to come together and focus.”

The show coincides with a meet-up between international Keane fans exploring “Strangeland” – the places around Hastings, Battle and Bexhill namechecked in the band’s songs – with visitors coming from as far afield as Australia, Japan and The Netherlands.

A total of 100 tickets have been allocated for the international fans, with a further 100 being offered to Battle residents from 7pm tomorrow (Wed 15) at Battle Memorial Hall for a reduced £25. Anyone wishing to buy tickets will need to produce proof of identity and a utility bill to prove they live in the TN33 postcode.

The remaining 260 tickets will go on sale at 8am on Thursday, July 16, from www.battlefestival.co.uk/. A maximum of two tickets can be purchased online or in person.

Keane and Strangeland

PERHAPS the most famous local reference featuring in a Keane song was Sovereign Light Cafe. The Bexhill seafront cafe lent its name to the third single from the Battle band’s fourth album Strangeland. The lyrics to the song reference many roads and landmarks in Bexhill and Battle around where the band grew up. The cafe featured on the cover of the single, while the town provided the backdrop for the band’s video.

The woodland area near Battle Manser’s Shaw was referenced to in the B-side Snowed Under, and is thought to be the location at the centre of their breakthrough single Somewhere Only We Know.

Find out more about taking a Keane tour of Battle, Bexhill and Hastings at www.keanetrail.org.uk/