“Mr McMullan spends a pleasant evening with Lightbody & Co.”
“Mr McMullan spends a pleasant evening with Lightbody & Co.”
The house lights go down. Dry ice swirling, the sparsely equipped stage is suddenly swathed in blue. From the smoky haze three figures emerge, in the shadows you can just about make out guitars being picked up; the quick tuning check abruptly becomes the first strummings of “WOW” and we’re off. With bass beat pumping beside him and drums exploding behind him frontman Gary Lightbody, big cheesy grin on his face, straddles the mic. Launching into the song at speed he manages to breathe the opening couplet before, on cue and with a quick toss of his George Harrison mop, guitarist Nathan Connolly heaps on the ferocious riff. “WOW,” to be fair, is one of the harder pop songs on the breakthrough album Final Straw, but live it is almost a thrash rocker. A storming opener.
As they followed with “Gleaming Auction” (Slow sexy start leading to a volcanic eruption!) and then the first single from Final Straw, the near industrial thump of “Spitting Games, ” I was quite overcome with the overall no fuss, almost minimalist, approach that Snow Patrol take with their live performance. (Ok the Paradiso isn’t the biggest venue in Europe but I’ve seen a bigger lighting rig at my football club annual disco!) The album has it’s fair share of sound-effects and cleverly polished production values and although they employ keyboards and samples on stage the songs are all much more dynamic, ‘volume turned up to 11’, guitar roars live. Loud and obviously proud of it. Without any trace of histrionics they keep the overall sound tight and solid throughout, with a generous helping of rawness. They let the songs do the work and simply get on with it.
It is also clearly evident this is a band on the crest of a wave. 2004 saw Snow Patrol’s coming of age after ten years, with sales of their third album Final Straw passing the million mark in the UK last November. No great surprise then that the band seem deliriously happy with their collective lot. Singer, songwriter, lyricist and guitarist Lightbody (who has wept in grief on stage in the past apparently! Northern Irishmen are complex sensitive souls!) had a big beaming smile all night. Bassist Mark McClelland and Connolly give Lightbody enough space for his spastic dancing and Jaggeresque posturing when necessary, but generally, grinningly, all three equally share the spotlight. They are supremely confident if understated performers, seemingly comfortable in these surroundings (the Paradiso is very similar to Belfast’s Ulster Hall, also an old church, acoustics that make your testicles twitch, and always the underlying smell of debauchery in the air!) and with this set of songs. Moreover there is such a refreshing lack of egotism or pretension present that the music exudes a homely warmth and, dare I say it, a certain familiarity. Cosiness even! Noisy cosiness at that.
I was also stricken with the obvious journalistic quandary of trying to label what Snow Patrol do? Poppy indie guitar rock? Do they lean more toward US alternative guitar pop (in the studio, a bit like The Pixies or at a stretch Placebo perhaps, and on stage a bit like Soundgarden!) or are they just too essentially “British sounding” (it is difficult to leave out Ash, The Super Furries and Supergrass when grasping for comparisons) to transcend the easier Brit pedal rock moniker? Their music is a mess of contradictions. Plenty of hooks, loads to bounce up and down to, a smattering of bubblegum yet chill out numbers, ballads with genuine lyrical depth and anthems laden with operatic choruses, odd chord progressions, massive harmonies all embellished with Lighbody’s heartfelt voice. They can all play, and fuck me pink can that man sing! (He has an onstage coolness that I can only compare to a young strutting Phil Lynott! Remember Thin Lizzy?)
As I watched I didn’t realise they were scheduled to play The Tsunami Relief Concert in Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium, in front of 60,000 people and live on telly, the next day! Thus, the in band joke about “this is our first and only gig this year” before “One Night is Not Enough” went over my head completely. I assumed they were referring to the forthcoming US tour. More older material, “Batten Down the Hatches” followed before a return to Final Straw with the new single, “How To Be Dead” (Does anybody remember dEUS? Well…..they are not quite like them either.) This particular devilish imp of a song, with its offbeat melodies and laidback timing, began a sequence of five Final Straw numbers, (if my editor, the esteemed Mr. Leslie, includes his photo of their set list you will be able to see Snow Patrol played all 12 numbers from Final Straw in the 85 minute set) changing the tempo ever so slightly. “Grazed Knees” followed, amply showpiecing Lightbody’s real vocal depth for maybe the first time, his tone subtle and airy. “Whatever’s Left” brought the chunky rock vibe back before the first anthem of the night, the brilliantly whoozy “Chocolate.” Hand claps, ooh-oohs, big chords and harmonies over a pounding bass drum and steady snare, accompanied by soaring lead guitar and again a superb singing performance from Lightbody. This sequence finished with “Same” the most chilled number in the set. (Elliott Smith lives on!) Another sturdy old tune from second album, “When It’s All Over We Still Have To Clean Up” followed (“An Olive Grove Facing The Sea.”) and then a mind blowing three song segment culminating with the wonderful, ‘song that turned me on to the band in the first place’, “Run”.
Now, in some respects, I may be a bit long in the tooth to get “blown away” by live bands, I haven’t imbibed Tennents Super or that fine monastic brew, Buckfast, at gigs in 20 years or more for example, yet here in Amsterdam’s heaving pop temple, on nothing more than a couple of pints, I did feel more than a tad intoxicated. Giddy even. When you see bands like this in The Paradiso, ‘coming’ rather than ‘up and coming,’ it is always an excellent reminder of just how vital this venue is. (Even though struggling journalists don’t get on the house guest-list!) “Somewhere a Clock is Ticking” is an angry, anti war growl with a slow build up and a raucous climatic ending. I scribbled “Child In Time 2005—no scream/ long ooohs” in my sweaty note book near the end of this song – does that say enough/anything? (Does anybody remember Ian Gillen? Well… they are not like Deep Purple at all. ) The swaggering grind of “Ways and Means,” with its excellent swaying chorus followed and somehow I sensed what was coming next.
A sense of anticipation emanated.
“Run” is a song about boy/girl heartache that teenagers will snog to, twenty somethings will shag to and thirty somethings will tearfully listen to when divorcing. It has simmering intensity, a huge sound and whether played in front of 1200, 12000, or 60000 it is Snow Patrol’s magnum opus and I will be eternally grateful that I saw them perform it here. In a word, awesome.
Old tune, the Quoesque rocker “Black and Blue” ably provided the set with a stonking climax and suddenly the encore was upon us. To what only can be described as a deafening clamour Lightbody & Co. bounded back onto stage. The exuberant dance rock of “Post Punk Progression” followed and, if it hadn’t been already, the roof was well and truly raised! (What did ever happen to Therapy?) I wasn’t familiar with this song at all before the gig, yet had the tune cemented in my head for days afterward. The wall of sound intro’ to the finale, “Tiny Little Fractures” speedily followed, Snow Patrol finishing the gig as it had began, exultant melody over rocking grind and kicking up a veritable storm.
Snow Patrol’s graduation from ‘best student band bubbling under’ to a genuine shot at (super)stardom has taken 10 years. Guitar music is flavour of the month. They are part of the new scene. In fact this show was originally scheduled for November last year, but as the world and his missus were going to see Franz Ferdinand in The Heineken Music Hall the same night (thus hadn’t sold out) they prudently decided to rearrange. Snow Patrol had had a great year cutting their niche but overall 2004 did belong to their fellow Glasgow based musical pals and now both bands enter 2005 with the weight of expectation on their shoulders. From what I saw of the Tsunami Concert the following day, and read in the press after, Snow Patrol took most of the critical plaudits and duly made the best splash, even though the Manics’ stole the show and the headlines in front of the partisan Welsh audience. Monday brought three Brit Awards nominations, including Best British Band and Best Album. The USA awaits.
Snow Patrol are a talented band at the right place and at the right time. I am glad I saw them in this place and time. I hope they get all the luck of the Irish going.
Words : Bill McMullan
Photographs : Damian Leslie
