Snow Patrol
3Arena, Dublin
★★★★☆
Snow Patrol have had a tricky start to the year. A few weeks ago their piano player, Johnny McDaid, caught his hand in a train door – an accident that required surgery on the morning of a concert. That mishap has now been followed by Gary Lightbody, the band’s singer, nearly plunging headfirst into the front row at their 3Arena show when he leans over the edge of the stage during All, a new track.
“There’s a line in that song ... something about the pride coming before the fall. And I was right at the edge ... and I just went a little bit too forwards,” he tells the crowd after refinding his footing. “And I thought, ‘Am I about to die because of the power of suggestion?’ If anybody’s thinking, ‘It’s the way he would have wanted to go ...,’ you’re wrong.”
Death-defying dynamics are not typically associated with Snow Patrol, whose 2003 album, Final Straw, saw the Northern Ireland group morph from indie ugly ducklings to arena headliners. That LP remains a defining part of their history – but it has also led to a long and frustrating association with Coldplay, the high priests of stadium soppiness.
You can see why the comparison has stuck: as with Chris Martin’s songs, Lightbody’s wear their earnestness like badges. At 3Arena there are even echoes of Coldplay’s fondness for confetti during the proggy sprawl of The Lightning Strike (What If This Storm Ends?) when a hologram tree is wreathed in swirls of paper leaves.
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A gripping and, at times, incredibly loud gig starts with the rollicking Take Back the City, a warts-and-all love letter to Belfast (“I love this city always / It bares its teeth like a light”) that goes down a treat in Dublin. It is followed by a scrumptious Chocolate, the standout from Final Straw, which is propelled by one of those open-hearted riffs that are a Snow Patrol speciality.
Lightbody’s lyrics often dwell on the possibility of heartache lurking around the next corner; for all his success, his life has had its challenges. Now back living in the North, he has embraced sobriety after a lonely struggle with alcoholism in Los Angeles.
McDaid has meanwhile become one of the world’s most successful hit-makers, having written the megabanger Shape of You with Ed Sheeran (so earning a share of its rumoured €20 million-plus in royalties).
McDaid has resisted bringing that sugary pop touchback to the day job; the band’s 2024 album, The Forest Is the Path, which they recorded after the death of Lightbody’s father, is perhaps their most muted to date.
Their 3Arena performance is thoughtfully paced, with a blitz of singles followed by a pivot into slower, more introspective numbers and then a loop back to Chasing Cars, the maudlin track that became a supersmash after featuring in the medical drama Grey’s Anatomy – a fitting association given the song’s anaesthetising properties.
With the supply of confetti used up earlier in the night, the encore is a frills-free affair that begins with a high-flying new composition, But I’ll Keep Trying. The band finish with the chiming synth escapism of Just Say Yes, which Lightbody initially wrote with Gwen Stefani in mind but, as performed by Snow Patrol, is a magisterial slab of escapist pop and a fine conclusion to a thrilling concert.
