Pazartesi 23 Nis 2012, 17:19

Sat 21 Apr – Snow Patrol, Ed Sheeran

Great, great concert! Here are my comments:

Firstly, I was impressed that Snow Patrol was able to sell out the Aragon Ballroom, which fits over 4,000 people! Kind of surprised that The Fray played in the smaller venue (The Riviera) a few blocks over while Snow Patrol got the big one, but props to them for selling it out. :D Also, the Aragon Ballroom is beautiful…it has a very medieval castle-like feel to it, as Gary humorously pointed out to us when he said he would offer this beautiful castle to us if he could. :P

My friend and I got to the concert about 15 minutes before it started, and found a spot stage left in the first dozen rows. I usually tend to stay towards the back in concerts, but my friend wanted to be towards the front. I assumed correctly that Snow Patrol would be a relatively chill concert, so I was glad that we chose this concert to stay towards the front! Being a huge Snow Patrol fan, that was my biggest complaint of the concert though…there seemed to be a lot of casual fans there, and there definitely were a number of people that left after they played ‘Chasing Cars’ in the middle of their set. Nothing I can really do about it and I’m glad for Snow Patrol that they’re still pretty big, but I guess I prefer more intimate concerts.

Anyway, Ed Sheeran was the opener. He was kind of like the British counterpart of Jason Mraz or Mat Kearney, and he was pretty cool! I thought he did a great job of engaging the crowd with his “gospel choir” analogy, where he had both halves of the crowd compete against each other singing rhythms and short lines from his songs. He’s a very talented acoustic rapper, and his repeating sound effects were also pretty cool. I’ll have to check some of his stuff out.

Snow Patrol’s Setlist:
Berlin (Remix)
Hands Open
Take Back The City
Crack The Shutters
This Isn’t Everything You Are
Run
In the End
New York (w/ Ed Sheeran)
Set the Fire to the Third Bar
Make This Go On Forever
Shut Your Eyes
Chasing Cars
Chocolate
Called Out In The Dark
Fallen Empires
You’re All I Have

Encore:
Lifening
Open Your Eyes
Just Say Yes

I’ve been a fan of Snow Patrol ever since “Run” came out when I was in 7th grade, and I’m pretty sure it was the first song that ever gave me chills. “Berlin” was a good intro song to warm up the crowd since it doesn’t have lyrics. They played their two rockiest songs first, “Hands Open” and “Take Back The City”, which were great – it was particularly awesome to hear Gary make that ‘Chicago’ reference in “Hands Open” while performing in Chicago! It was fun making hand motions to “Take Back The City”, and placing ‘Chicago’ in the lyrics was pretty great as well. The piano part with Gary singing at the beginning of “Crack The Shutters” was beautiful, and I sang along with “This Is Everything You Are” including the f word which made my friend give me a surprising look. :P

“Run” was fantastic and the first song that made me fall in love with Snow Patrol – I think they said they were recording this one, so I’m curious as to whether you can hear me singing in the second verse during the a capella parts of the performance. “In The End” was one of my favorites at the concert, it was a great upbeat song and I love the line: “In the end, In the end, there’s nothing more to life than love, is there?” The duet between Gary and Ed Sheeran in “New York” was pretty good, and it was funny when Gary said “the bromance between Ed and I has been greatly exaggerated”.

“Set The Fire to the Third Bar” has never been one of my favorites, but I thought it was really fun to make hand motions to the chorus: “And miles from where you are, I lay down on the cold ground and I, I pray that something picks me up, and sets me down in your warm arms.” I didn’t exactly lie down on the ground, but I did bend over like I was leaning on the ground. “Shut Your Eyes” was AWESOME because he really engaged the crowd in that one. He first told the girls to sing “Shut your eyes and sing to me”, then he told the guys to do the same thing in a round, before we did it all together. It was great!

I was really surprised when they played “Chasing Cars” in the middle of their set (I thought when they said they would play a love song they were referring to “An Olive Grove Facing The Sea”), but nevertheless it was a classic to hear that one performed. I was so excited when they started playing “Chocolate” because that is another of my all-time favorites: “this could be the very minute I’m aware I’m alive”… “Called Out In The Dark” was also a fun one and got a good amount of the crowd going.

“Fallen Empires” was another AMAZING one. I think I was one of the few in the crowd that knew it, but it has a very cool, almost Arabian feel to it. Nathan was playing the ukulele which was awesome, and they was also a great bongo(?) drummer in the background. The light show with the crazy music during this track was awesome! “We are the light, we are the light!”

I actually wasn’t sure there was going to be an encore after “You’re All I Have”, but I was really glad there was one because it awesome! They recorded the performance of “Lifening” to potentially be used in a music video, and it was really cool singing along to “This is all I ever wanted from life”. I was so, so glad they played “Open Your Eyes” because it is quite possibly my favorite song of all time. I love the way the song builds and was singing along to every word, except when my friend decided to record me singing so I had to stop her….hahaha. “Just Say Yes” was a good closer as well.

I think this concert would have to be second favorite to the Yellowcard one I went to in October, but still it was extremely awesome and it was great to finally see one of my favorite bands for the past 8 years!