It’s a truth Universally acknowledged (and probably by Polydor, too) that a band cannot make the transition from obscure indie no-hopers to multi-platinum-selling arena fillers without eventually provoking a backlash of serious proportions.
While the initial critical response to their new album, A Hundred Million Suns, has been begrudgingly muted, Snow Patrol obviously aren’t gonna let that bother them too much. Watching them playing four gigs in just two days, it’s plain that the Northern Irish act have both the songs and the showmanship to confound their critics.
Playing in front of a live audience for the first time in 12 months (not counting underwhelming performances on Later... With Jools and the Late Late Show), the band kicked off their whistlestop Take Back The Cities tour with an invite-only lunchtime show in Dublin’s Gate Theatre on October 26. It was an audience of two halves. Up front were their devoted fans. At the back sat a grumpier, arms-folded, just-outta-bed-on-a-Sunday-morning media posse. Here we are now, entertain us...
Snow Patrol did just that. Proceedings opened quietly, with Gary Lightbody and guitarist Nathan Connolly performing a well-received minimalist version of album opener ‘If There’s A Rocket, Tie Me To It’ (Connolly played keyboards). Then the rest of the band and Belle & Sebastian percussionist Richard Colburn joined them onstage, Lightbody strapped on a different guitar, and they launched into the far more familiar ‘Chocolate’. It was all up from there. The set that followed saw them perform a selection of tracks from A Hundred Million Suns, interspersed with reliable old crowd-pleasers like ‘Chasing Cars’, ‘Shut Your Eyes’ and, as an encore, their breakthrough hit ‘Run’.
While the rest of the band have their own signature moves, Lightbody’s always the focal point. Standing at well over six feet tall, and quite gangly with it, he used his awkward frame to his advantage, jerking erratically like a puppet on a string throughout, and veering between looking very odd and looking like a bona fide rock god. Not that he’s some kind of preening poseur. His inter-song banter was warm, funny and self-deprecating. Snow Patrol rely far more on friendly charm than on studied cool.
The Gate is currently running Brian Friel’s new version of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, and the band played using the play’s set as a backdrop.
“Do you like the special set we’ve built for you?” Lightbody quipped. “This is actually a spot-on replica of [bassist] Pablo’s front porch!”
Midway through the show a quick-witted student threw a yellow No To Fees! T-shirt onto the stage. To the delight of his screaming female fans, Lightbody tore off the shirt he’d been wearing and wore it for the rest of the gig (but not without having carefully scrutinised it first).
They also played the relatively obscure ‘On-Off’ as a special tribute to their Irish fans. “Ireland got us first” the singer explained, gratefully. “We were playing to 500 people in Dublin when we were still playing to 25 people everywhere else. So thank you!”
By the end of the gig, even the cynical media types at the back were applauding wildly.
After the Gate closed, it was straight to Dublin Airport where band, lucky fans (hello to Today FM competition winners Anne and Robert Murphy!) and a select group of journalists flew by private jet to Belfast for an 8pm show in the Empire. During the flight, Lightbody spoke briefly to Hot Press about the band’s somewhat bizarre encounter with stand-in host Gerry Ryan on last Friday’s Late Late Show.
“That was extremely weird,” he laughed. “They were meant to go through the interview with us before the show. It’s just as well they didn’t... I don’t think we would’ve been brave enough to stay!”
Needless to say, Belfast was a sort of homecoming. The set-list was altered somewhat, though not radically, with the livelier tracks being highlighted to take advantage of the standing crowd. As they say in Thailand, it was mostly same, same but different. They closed with first single ‘Take Back The City’ – far from the new album’s best song, but one that just won’t go away once you’ve got it in your head.
Another mad dash to the airport for a midnight flight to Edinburgh, and by Monday lunchtime, they were doing it all over again in the city’s Assembly Hall (where the parliament used to meet). Once again, Gary and Nathan opened the set quietly with an acoustic ‘Set Down Your Glass’. Although it was a seated show, the Scottish audience were on their feet by ‘Chocolate’ (which came third), and they remained enthusiastic until the end.
If the band were fatigued, they weren’t showing it. The same couldn’t be said for their equipment, though. There were a couple of minor technical difficulties, which Lightbody joked his way through. At one point he gently cajoled his guitar to tell him its problems, holding it up so it could whisper in his ear, reducing the crowd to hysterical laughter. In the unlikely event of his rock career faltering, he could always try his hand at stand-up.
The balding and diminutive William Hague was floating around the VIP departures area of Edinburgh Airport, but the band had zero interest in meeting him.
“I don’t really think that music and politics should mix,” keyboardist Tom Simpson observed. “It’s a load of bullshit. I reckon the politicians get a lot more out of it than the musicians do anyway.”
So what does he make of Sir Bono’s activites?
“Ach, fuck off!” he laughed. “You’re not gonna get me to slag off Bono!”
Four hours later, we were in London. For lots of reasons, the storming show in the Bloomsbury Theatre was their best. It was the biggest venue and sound system and, surprisingly, the most enthusiastic crowd. Mostly, though, it came down to the fact that these songs, both new and old, are best suited to larger rooms (if not stadia). Bar a number or two, it was basically the same set as the other shows but, with the end of a gruelling 48-hours in sight, the Patrol gave it their all. But no encore. Enough was obviously enough.
Incidentally, one new song they didn’t play was ‘Disaster Button’ (drummer Jonny Quinn told me, “For some reason, it’s the one track that doesn’t appeal as a live song”). Surprising because the lyrics mention, “lifting the roof off the place”: they most certainly did in London.
Of course, there are many, many more cities for this band to take yet. Fear not, they’re working on it. The following morning they were off to Paris to perform on a TV show. During this brief tour it was (sensibly) decided that ‘Crack The Shutters’ will be the second single, so after France they’ll be filming a video in the UK. Then they’re heading down under for an Australian promo tour. After that, it’s into the arms of America.
Phew! There’s no business like snowbusiness. Just as well they’re no flakes.