SNOW PATROL – BRIGHTON CENTRE 24.11.19
Snow Patrol were performing in town tonight at the Brighton Centre as part of their 25th anniversary tour. Our concert was number 9 of 14, having already performed in Cardiff, Plymouth, Oxford, Llandudno, Nottingham, London, Ipswich, and Leicester.
Not surprisingly the concert sold out, more than likely on the account of their 2006 ballad ‘Chasing Cars’ being crowned the most-played song of the 21st Century on UK radio. I know that you probably won’t believe me, but the song never actually got to No.1 in the UK singles chart, having only climbed as high as No.6. Having said that, it did actually remain on the charts for three years and it has become the most popular song of the last 20 years. In fact I’m not actually sure if it made No.1 anywhere. The nearest I could find was No.2 in Austria, then No.3 in Belgium and New Zealand, then No.4 in Switzerland and No.5 in the USA. It should actually be pointed out that ‘Chasing Cars’ can be found on the 45 minute ‘Eyes Open’ album, which DID make it all the way to the top, which is not surprising really as it’s almost a greatest hits album having had no less than six of the eleven songs from the release turned into singles.
The latest Snow Patrol release is ‘Reworked’ which includes three new songs as well as 13 re-envisioned versions of classic songs and was released on 8th November and so far has peaked at No.3. But there’s no point in feeling sorry for the band, due to lack on No’1’s as over a twenty-five year career, they have carved out a unique place for themselves. Since their 1998 debut, ‘Songs For Polarbears’, the band have racked up an impressive number of critical and commercial accolades, including over 17 million global album sales, 1+ billion global track streams, 5 UK Platinum Albums, an Ivor Novello award and have been nominated for a Grammy and Mercury Music Prize.
The band was founded at the University of Dundee in 1994 by Gary Lightbody, Mark McClelland, and Michael Morrison as Shrug, but Lightbody is the sole surviving band member. The current studio band are Gary Lightbody – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, piano, keyboards (1994–present), Jonny Quinn – drums, percussion (1997–present), Nathan Connolly – lead guitar, backing vocals (2002–present), Paul Wilson – bass, backing vocals (2005–present), Johnny McDaid – keyboards, rhythm guitar, backing vocals (2011–present), (Touring: 2007–2011).
Tonight at the Brighton Centre there are no less than 14 people on stage, who are all fully drilled as to where to move around in between tracks. With so many souls on stage you would think that it would be a loud performance, but this wasn’t the case. Myself and my colleague could easily converse with each other without really raising our voices. The drumset was positioned within perspex soundproofing, so that would partially account for it and I guess the sound engineer just didn’t feel the need to slide the controls up to max.
The audience spanned across the generations, which is encouraging for the band, but I would suggest that the majority were middle aged couples. This evening the punters were to receive just 21 compositions spread across two sets, having dropped the two opening numbers from several previous performances. So the downtempo part one didn’t start with ‘Dark Roman Wine’ but ‘You’re All I Have’, and the more uptempo part two began with ‘Spitting Games’ instead of ‘Time Won’t Go Slowly’. Therefore part one had 8 tunes during the brief 42 minute set and part two had the remaining 13 tunes and lasted 1 hour and 9 minutes. There was no support this evening.
The lights were dimmed at 8:01pm and on strolled the musicians. The lighting was initially rather pleasant during the opener which backlit vocalist Lightbody, although they didn’t really do anything spectacular after that. Snow Patrol are certainly not a band to have banks of lasers firing out at you. It wouldn’t really go with the music. It’s not dance music, although two ladies in front of us stood up and had a bop with drinks in hand!
Bangor born 43 year old Lightbody is a likeable fellow, who certainly knows how to charm an audience and quickly gets them on side. Although he met his match near the beginning of their 2004 No.5 single ‘Run’, when a lady shouted out “I love you Gary”, which made him burst out laughing and thus everyone stopped playing! Well done lady. Lightbody thanked Leona Lewis for giving the band their first UK No.1 as she covered ‘Run’ in 2008. That was arguably the lightest moment of the set, other than Gary quipping about someone running fast out of the auditorium, in a concerned way. We didn’t get to the bottom of what happened there. Was it an emergency call, a desperate toilet dash, were they not a fan of the ‘Reworked’ material, were they at the wrong concert …who knows?
Lightbody also joked about the online poll that they had held prior to the tour for fans to choose a tune for them to play, one per set. Nobody really acknowledged knowing about this, which made it all the funnier, especially as he said that they get the same response each night.
Anyway, going back to ‘Run’ and after the unscheduled comical pause, Lightbody encouraged the crowd to get up out of their seats, which a vast majority duly obliged. This livened up the night a bit, but we were far from a mosh pit starting! Can you imagine that? A mosh pit at a Snow Patrol concert, now that would be funny.
The hits and and went and the punters clapped until the end which was 10:20pm, although the sign’s around the building suggested the approximate ending to be 20 minutes later at 10:40pm.
I had finally got to hear ‘Chasing Cars’ performed live, however, I was also slightly partial to ‘Crack The Shutters’ from their first set as well.
Snow Patrol’s setlist:
First set:
‘You’re All I Have’
‘New York’
‘You Could Be Happy’
‘Warmer Climate’
‘I Think Of Home’
‘Crack The Shutters’
‘Lifening’
‘Take Back The City’
Second set:
‘Spitting Games’
‘Chocolate’
‘A Dark Switch’
‘Run’
‘Heal Me’
‘Set The Fire To The Third Bar’
‘Empress’
‘Called Out In The Dark’
‘Shut Your Eyes’
‘Chasing Cars’
‘Open Your Eyes’
(encore)
‘What If This Is All the Love You Ever Get?’
‘Just Say Yes’
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