You’ve had the album review, now I’ll bore you with my gig review. I’m on such a high, please just humour me.
The last time (and my first time) I saw Snow Patrol was in 2003, in Birmingham. I’d class it as one of those revolutionary gigs for me. It opened my eyes [no pun intended] to a new generation of music - this British indie-rock malarkey. The show itself was great; it made me hungry for more, etc, etc.
I don’t know the set list so I’m not sure what order things occurred in – sorry it’s a little all over the place.
We set off at 4.00 hoping to get to the venue (Manchester Ritz) early. This paid off as we got pretty much to the front; I was behind some dude’s shoulder, but a prime spot none the less. The venue was pretty small, it was an old ballroom, couldn’t tell you its capacity but it was packed out. After standing for an hour we got treated to the support act, The Ghears, who had supported them the last time I’d seen them. Unfortunately, they haven’t improved and the lead singer still looks like Gollum with a nervous twitch. I was in stitches at one point, but never mind.
About 9.30 Snow Patrol came on stage. Those who know Wow will know that it’s a perfect explosive opener. However, this is where the technical problems that hindered them throughout began. We were treated to the first two lines “Don't be scared of anything at all / Everything we have is all we need”, then it was pretty much up to the audience to sing, as Gary’s microphone cut out. The poor lad was running around the place like a lost puppy, finally shoving guitarist Nathan Connolly out of the way to use his microphone. It was a bit of a pantomime, all to our amusement. Hands Open saw Gary loose the guitar and make his way up to the audience at the front. As you can imagine, cue loads of pushing from mad women trying the get a touch of their favourite lanky Ulster boy. Luckily for me (because I particularly enjoy such pastimes) he came right up to us so I got a cheeky hand on the guy… ‘ahh, my hero’. What a great song though! He even managed to rip his trousers in the process, asked for a change but they never sorted it out, so he played the rest of the set with a nice little rip, nice. Apart from during that song, the crowd seemed a lot better behaved. I noticed that they seem to have managed to gain an older fan base; last time there were a lot more teens and a lot more movement, this time everyone seemed a lot more subdued in a way. Not in a bad way, however, still people were in a fine singing mood and clapped/waved/punched the air all in the right places. More songs from the first two albums would have been preferable, we were treated to An Olive Grove Facing the Sea, featuring a trumpet playing guy from some Manchester band that I’d never heard of. I enjoyed it, but people around me were looking a little clueless. People need to go out and listen to those first two albums, they’re quality. It made me think to Bon Jovi and how we complain that Roulette and The Price of Love are never played, it’s all about the audience reaction, and for songs they don’t know they’re not going to get a response. It was a similar situation with the new songs. They played a few too many from the new album, and given that it was only released the day before; the crowd was a little quiet during those songs. Although, Hands Open, Chasing Cars and You’re All I Have went down very well. As well as not hearing more from the old albums, we didn’t hear Somewhere a Clock is Ticking from Final Straw, gutting. There were techies walking about the stage during the set, sorting out microphones, stands, etc. But it didn’t affect the show, just made it seem more real – if that makes any sense?
The band was on fire though, Gary Lightbody, energetic as ever, was bounding about the place clearly loving being on stage, making jokes throughout and getting immersed in his songs making for a brilliant all round performance. I managed to pick up three plectrums at the end, as well. Bonus.
The whole experience, with the atmosphere, the quality of performance and the enjoyment mean I really want to rate this as one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to.
Click here for some pictures; sorry about the quality, they were taken with my camera phone.
05-03-2006, 05:14 PM
[Gig Review] Snow Patrol - 2/5/06
