Snow Patrol @ Colston Hall, Bristol
Friday, 20 November 2009
Snow Patrol at Colston Hall, Bristol ~ Jedz
There was a sense that it was going to be an informal and intimate affair at Colston Hall when Snow Patrol’s lead singer Gary Lightbody came onstage with a mug in hand at 8:00 pm – an unusually early start to an already unusually long set by just one band. This was definitely not a typical rock gig either when he started with Finish Line accompanied primarily by a harpist, of all instruments.
The almost 3-hour long set included songs from their first two commercially unsuccessful albums from the first 10 years of their career before the success of Final Straw and from Lightbody’s obscure Scottish side project, The Reindeer Section. Billed as the “Reworked Tour”, even famous songs like Run and Chasing Cars were re-arranged to accommodate the band’s orchestral additions. Some to the point of sounding completely unlike the original, as in the case of The Planets Bend Between Us and Grazed Knees.
Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol ~ Jedz
Thankfully, the Snow Patrol guys knew what they were doing when tinkering around with their songs. The enthusiastic Bristol crowd was even treated to being the first on the tour to hear a newly reworked sound for their megahit Chasing Cars. This went down incredibly well with the crowd quickly taking to singing the chant worked into the reworked song instead of the familiar chorus. Gary was on top comedic form also that night, picking out people in the crowd to tease and occasionally laughing at himself when he forgot the words to his own songs.
