The cynics, of whom there are many, will tell you that the Script are like Keane without the dangerous streetfighter edge. The charismatic Irishmen traffic in the sort of piano-led uplift that sounds grand on the radio, and after Danny O'Donoghue's BBC talent show sideline, could be described as all Voice and no trousers. But any band who preface a gig with the cosmic wisdom of Carl Sagan – preaching humbleness on our Earth, "a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam" – have the right kind of self-awareness.

For a group who've already shifted 4m albums, this is a relatively intimate show, the first of three UK dates to launch the Script's pre-hashtagged third album #3. Such numerology extends to the staging: three giant pillars of light burn behind the band, with each of the three principals picked out by their own trio of spotlights. Mark Sheehan's guitar even has an Adidas-stripe decal. You half-expect a cover of Bermuda Triangle.

The new record is expansionist, with booming anthems Good Ol' Days and Hall of Fame crafted with the sonic strictures of stadium echo and near-constant audience screams in mind, but the between-song banter about haggis crisps and malt whisky feels pleasingly off-message. The Script are loud, and slick, but the audience do just as much to energise the show: after a minimal piano intro, the crowd, unprompted, sing back the entire first verse to their breakthrough hit The Man Who Can't Be Moved.

Toward the end of the set, O'Donoghue identifies Nothing as a song about drunk-dialling, and suggests everyone place a call to someone inappropriate. The forest of glowing handsets – usually the bane of the 21st-century gig-going experience – is cleverly recast as part of the performance. When O'Donoghue plucks a phone from the front row to personalise the last few lines, it's a brilliant moment of pop theatre. Somewhere up there, Carl Sagan is nodding sagely.