Snow Patrol

First two albums - Loud angry and funny
Third album - Good in places
Forth album - Basically meh
Fifth album - cannot even be arsed

Sarah wrote:

First two albums - Loud angry and funny
Third album - Good in places
Forth album - Basically meh
Fifth album - cannot even be arsed

Sarah, I could not agree more without becoming slightly mental

The big single from them has grown on me quite a bit, think I'll get hold of it.

Chocolate, Spitting Games and especially Run are great songs. Final Straw is a decent LP but everything since then bores the pants off me. For people to compare them to Elbow is a complete insult to Garvey and co.

I heard an acoustic version of Run (a song I like anyway) on radio 1 the other day and i have to say Gary Lightbody sung beautifully. Enjoyed the performace tremendously, but haven't liked anything from them since Final Straw, sadly.

ChrissieInFL wrote:

I quite enjoy them as well. Would have liked to have seen that live double bill, though I have to say, I think it should've been the other way around, with Elbow headlining. Just sayin'...

I was there, and it was a bust. Not helped my my usual 90 minute journey taking 3 and three quarter hours. Friday in December on the M62, yuk. So was late, stuck way back, venue magnificent but soul-less. Crowd was the "1-gig a year, I'll look up from my text/stop talking to my mate when I know a song" variety. It appeared no-one had heard of elbow apart from me and the students next to me, and the odd pocket of other fans scattered around. We earned a couple of nods from Guy for singing and dancing loudly.

Thought that the atmosphere would improve when Snow Patrol came on, but the crowd were similarly silent and still. Took a good hour for them to get warmed up, when they played the song that was current in the chart at the time. I think I was the only one in the whole audience that knew Starfighter Pilot.

Very disappointing - I'd seen Snow Patrol do a couple of smaller concerts previously including a stonking charity gig at Rock City in Nottingham that summer and I'd gone expecting similar (helped that Elbow were announced as support after I got the ticket!). However, I've not seen them since. They've got too... corporate for want of a better word. They don't raise any emotion in me other than apathy and I didn't even get their latest album.

Very disappointing really. They've sort of lost their character and become an Irish Coldplay.

Amen.
My relationship with the band can be summed up thous - I watched a guy kiss his mrs at a gig in Glasgow and film chasing Cars over her head. At that point, i was done!

Ok. Well, I still like them.
Or rather, I still believe in them and that they will one day return to form.
I just saw them live recently and going to see them again fairly soon and believe it or not, I find that some of the new songs work far better live than on the album.
That's what's making me hang in there...

Hilaryg - I was at that gig at the G-Mex. Fortunately we were nearer to the front than the back. It was the first time I had seen them live. I loved it, so did my daughter and her boyfriend who wasn't a fan of theirs until that gig. The majority of the people around us were also loving it. I have seen them at the festivals in 2007 and on 6th March this year at Liverpool and loved every gig but the first time at G-Mex will always remain the best one for me. Maybe it's because it was the first time I saw them having been a fan of theirs for a long time before then.

But - more importantly, it was at that gig that I first heard Elbow

Jones - Agree with you absolutely - I'm hanging there with you

Me too Jones.
Saw them in Birmingham recently (between Blackpool & Wembley Elbow gigs).

Apart from a few technical problems, they were great.
I like the new stuff-in parts it's a bit like The Reindeer Section (Gary Lightbody side project)

I love the Reindeer Section, but just don't like the newer bigger, built to be an anthem stuff.

My enthusiasm dipped but came back with latest album - which is brilliant. Saw them few weeks ago in Manchester with White Lies supporting and the gig was one to be remembered. Not up to ELBOW gigs but Gary is fantastic with audience and his voice hasn't lost any of its appeal.

D'accord

AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! was this the gig on 14.12.2006 at Gmex? I went to that but got there late and didn't see the support. I never knew I had just missed Elbow I probably only had C.O.T at that time and didn't really get into them till a few months later. f**k, f**k,F**kity F**K (and I dont swear!)

Easy Nellie!
Yes it was and I was absolutely blown away; I remember them playing 'Station Approach', 'Macgreggor' and 'Newborn'. Next day I bought 'Leaders' from a shop in Manchester and the rest is history...

Right-I'm off for a little cry now

This sounds interesting and i'm oddly tempted, if only by the promise of Reindeer Section...

http://zaphod.uk.vvhp.net/consumer/viewemailcontent.pl?con=8027415&cmp=3540&act=103838&sec=33cfd23bf22f

Well done to Gary for cover for Oasis at V.

+ big thanks for extended slot from Guy.

Quote :

From the Interview…

We’re bringing an album out at the end of the year, probably October time, a new single and a new album, a kind of compendium of the last 15 years. [...]

You can’t really call it a greatest hits because we only had two of those, it’s just a look at the back catalogue that people might have missed. We’ve had two Snow Patrol albums that hardly didn’t sale anything, two Reindeer Section albums that people might not have heard before [...]

We’re sort of gathering it all together and putting it into one album that people can sort of have a wee look at [...] the last fifteen years of our lives and we can draw a line under it. With a couple of new songs and then we start fresh next year. Putting it all together as a kind of reported history of it and then doing a tour around it in the UK and we called it the Reworked Tour because it’s literally what it is, we’re gonna rework the songs with [...] crazy instruments, [...] and let people hear some songs live they might never have heard before.The single that’s gonna be coming out is called ‘Just say yes’ and its gonna take people by suprise that’s for sure.

I think the "new" song is this one -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POKuoHkjL9k

I really applaud them for trying to interest new fans in older stuff and not filing it away under "what is passed". It's going to be interesting to see what they put on it!
Olive Grove is a shoe-in! Ab Grav? Ask me how i am? Balsamic Vinegar?!
I'm also interested about how they've sorted out any rights issues with Mark McClelend

Like most people my first exposure to Snow Patrol was "Run", and I got their album "Final Straw" on the strength of it. Pretty soon it was my least favourite track, so I was delighted they had two older albums of pleasingly twitchy indie, even if they were a little patchy.

Having said that, their latest two albums are arguably more up-and-down to me that the older ones, since despite being much better produced, they swerve ever more toward the stadium-anthem-rock approach than their (in my opinion) more interesting earlier work. In particular are the execrable Run-a-likes they've written since; I don't listen to the radio much, but I still knew that that's where "Chasing Cars" and "Crack The Shutters" would be headed.

Despite that kind of write-up, I own 5 albums by this band and some of their tunes are big favourites of mine. I guess I should be pleased they still produce what I find to be excellent tunes (Lifeboats, If There's A Rocket..., The Lighting Strike) rather than focussing on the more mediocre (and not my kind of mediocre!) they nestle among. And it was good to hear Lightbody talking about Garv as a lyrical gold standard in January

Heard my first Snow Patrol record today. It's their third(?) "Final Straw" and I am quite surprised how fast they are. There are ca. 2-3 "typical slowmotion stompers" that I call "nodding dog songs" (under 100 beats per minit) but mostly the Snowies are quite rocking. Are they still? I remember that the tracks I heard in the radio from their new record are quite fast and temperamental.

But I must say I like "Final Straw" especially the "rough nodding doggie" "Ways and means"

They're not really like that anymore, i think you chose the best place to start! For rockier stuff work backwards, for slower stuff, work forwards!

For I know that the "slow" tracks not always have to be soft I wonder which direction is more...umm...rough...
But you wrote "rockier" is earlier so I might check their earlier stuff though I have a fable for slow motion rock (nodding doggies who bite... )

With Snow Patrol, slower tends to mean softer! If its rough you're after I'd suggest the first album, Songs for Polar Bears!

Only really know their two famous numbers but I thought they were great on the Children In Need Concert.