Snow Patrol have been around for 15 years. Who knew? Looking at the band today you can’t tell. To celebrate this fact (that they have been a band for 15 years I mean, not that they don’t look old enough be have been) they are on a somewhat unconventional tour.
It’s testament to the band’s confidence that they are touring without support – a solo show of two halves with an interval is very suited to the RAH but I can see how it might feel a little off in a conventional concert venue. The first half was very mellow, with some beautiful arrangements of their songs featuring a harp, a string section (who are apparently on loan from Elbow), brass and percussion. The lighting was amazing and really brought the venue to life in a magical way.
Shaggy dog haired lead singer Gary Lightbody‘s style really captivated the audience – he was the only constant presence on the stage, with all the others, including the rest of the actual band, coming on and off as the songs dictated. Gary joked with the audience, dealt with late comings in the same way as a stand up comedian, and burst forth with streams of consciousness about everything from his fear of burning down the RAH to Bill Oddie. He instructed the audience to sit back and relax in the all-seater venue and enjoy the mellow nature of the pre-interval music. And we did. The music was moving and the evening just felt really special. Highlights included a completely unplugged song, which was a masterclass in carrying the audience with you and we were hanging off every note.
After a very civilised interval (Haagan Daz is only £2.50 a tub at the RAH, which I for one think is a bit of a bargain) we returned to our seats in anticipation of the more upbeat anthems we had been building up to. The second section opened with the amazing pipe organ in the Hall making a really robust appearance for the opening. The impressing effect was spoilt slightly when all the other instruments came in as it just turned into a cacophony of noise (I suspect rehearsal had been with the keyboard) that just sounded a bit off. However, they brought it back with my highlight of the evening, a beautiful stripped down version of Run, which actually brought tears to my eyes. Lightbody’s voice is just so warm and true that it can wring gallons more raw emotion out of a single note than any of Leona’s vocal gymnastics can generate, however good her cover of that song is.
After that point I’m afraid that they lost me. Lightbody’s chatty style encouraged audience outbursts, culminating in a slightly embarrassing trip for him off stage into the audience to speak to a guy who had shouted out and sounded like he wanted to propose to his girlfriend. Unfortunately he was actually a fat drunk mad who didn’t make much sense. The ubiquitous James Cordon made an appearance to sing the female part of Set The Fire To The Third Bar, which the vast majority of the audience loved. I, however and probably somewhat grumpily, thought it was a bit unnecessary, Yes, he can sing OK, but so can most of the X-Factor wannabees, and I would have much rather seen a great singer performing than an OK one for comedy purposes. It probably didn’t help that I had seen (and enjoyed, I have to say) a similar “I can’t believe I’m here” routine from Cordon when he went on stage at the Concert for CARE only a couple of weeks before. I don’t mean to sound hard hearted and I’m very happy that he’s living his dreams, but you wouldn’t see me charging him £50 to watch me go up in a hot air balloon now would you. On your own time please…
That really knocked the evening off song for me, which was really a shame. A pleasant but slightly pointless sound-a-like cover version of Elbow followed, and I really felt at a disadvantage after that as I wasn’t hugely familiar with the Snow Patrol back catalogue. A great version of Chasing Cars helped towards the end but I was left with the sense of a fairly self indulgent outing for Mr. Lightbody.
All in all, good enough to make me want to invest in more of their material, but in a way I wish I had left in the interval. I must say that I was obviously in the minority – all the fans in the audience loved every single second of it and lifted the roof off the RAH with their applause. So a guess a job well done and maybe I'm being a bit overly harsh – I was just disappointed that it wasn’t quite as perfect as it was shaping up to be.
Snow Patrol’s greatest hits album, Up To Now, is out now
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