“I appreciate a few songs ago I told you to sing ‘open your eyes’ and now I’m asking you to sing ‘shut your eyes’… but… fuck it.”
To be honest Gary Lightbody could ask this crowd to sing ‘Half a Pound of Tuppeny Rice’ and they would gladly comply. And that’s quite something when you consider we are all of us – band, audience, shared good vibes and all – in the largest indoor arena in the UK. Manchester’s new(ish) Co-Op Live. To have a crowd like this – what looks like a sell-out – singing your songs back to you, so that you yourself can fall quiet and just smile, absorbing the collective love… well that’s a win right there. But that is also a feather in the cap for the arena, which – despite its scale – manages to somehow stay intimate, the balconies like a cuddle around the central floor.
To be fair, Snow Patrol tend to pen quite accessible, route one, anthemic songs. Imagine, if you will, that Coldplay went away for a dirty weekend with U2… well then, they might possibly name their resulting offspring Snow Patrol. (Or Inhaler, obviously). Tracks often crescendo to a sing-along rabble-rosing chorus – from the opener ‘Take Back The City’, the next one ‘Chocolate or ‘Crack The Shutters’… these are celebratory tracks constructed for nights like this… for band and audience to share in the moment, sing their hearts out, hold their phone torches up and just… well, just forget the world.
That’s the wonderful, magical thing about live music. And that magic touched me the first time I really experienced live music myself – aged 14 – when my Dad took me to my first concert. To be fair, I was second row at Wembley Arena and the band was Queen… Freddie Mercury so close he could pretty much spit on me… so yes, that wasn’t a bad start, not a bad way to lose your musical cherry. But that moment… that night… that experience… was the start of a life-long love for music that carried through my career as a music journalist and out the other side as a music academic and writer. I didn’t know exactly what happened on that mid-80s night during Queen’s The Works’ tour, but I knew I wanted it again… and lots. My Dad is gone now, but that magic… that moment lives with me. So it was a special circle of life moment that I was able to share this evening with my own son – also now 14 – seemingly the age when you can go to such gigs, attending his first proper live show.
Even Lightbody would acknowledge, I am sure, that he is no Freddie Mercury (apparently Kurt Cobain also acknowledged as much, bizarrely, in his suicide note). But it’s an impressive night non-the-less: the warm thump of the drums gets you right in the chest, the instrumentation is thick and tight, and Lightbody’s broad vocals soar around the room. In the anthemic, gorgeous ‘Run’ the crowd once again pick up the vocals for him – the whole room singing, their torches on, and goose bumps pop all over me.
At one point Lightbody duets with a projection of Martha Wainright. Throughout, he’s funny – like Chris Martin can be… even Bono, when he’s in the mood. He messes up his vocals, he accidently cuts the sound of his guitar. But like he says – fuck it – this is what the live experience is all about, right? An anathema to AI-digital, insubstantial fakery. But it’s a passionate performance – at other points he drops to his knees as if in awe at what he himself calls “this incredible venue”. And it is, and it’s ours.
The visuals complement the soundtrack beautifully – video footage of nature, of woods, and then also graphics of growing trees, the leaves of which are blown off their branches, to then transmogrify into live confetti falling gracefully from the ceiling of the venue. Lasers carve through the air, a vapour trail love heart curls lovingly. It’s my first time at the Co-Op and its impressive – as impressive as the drink prices are eyebrow raising. But a new arena, like a new football stadium, has to have its nights… its music… its sweat… to burn in its newly made memories. I will be back to add my transcendental touch to that journey.
Older tracks – some now 25 years old, as Lightbody admits – are mixed with new slices from the last album – 2024’s The Forest Is The Path – such as its opener ‘All’, ‘The Beginning’ and ‘Talking About Hope’, which Lightbody dedicates to keyboardist and guitarist Johnny McDaid, who conspired to shut his hand in a train door (not a great move for a musician). It’s a compliment to say the new songs sit well with the classics, Edge-sounding guitar chopping into the musical tapestry. But of course we’re all waiting for ‘Chasing Cars’ – the one even the Mozz Jnr knows and, arm in arm, we sang our hearts out, and just forget the world.
Simon is a writer, broadcaster and countercultural investigator. Over the last 15 years he has written for everyone from The Guardian to Loaded magazine, presented television for Rapture TV and hosted radio programs for the likes of Galaxy. He has also found time to earn a Masters Degree in Novel Writing and write three books (a collection of journalism, a guidebook to Ibiza and one on financial planning for young people – the most varied publishing career it’s possible to have) and establish and run a PR company, Pad Communications, looking after a range of leisure and lifestyle clients.He currently splits his time between researching his PhD at Leeds University, looking into various countercultural movements; consulting freelance for PR clients; writing for the likes of Marie Claire in Australia, The Big Issue and the Manchester Evening News, where he reviews concerts, theatre and is their Pub & Bar Editor. He is also broadcaster, appearing regularly on Tony Livesey’s late night 5Live show for the BBC, and also for BBC Radio Manchester Gourmet Night food and drink show.Simon’s main focus has been music and travel. His career has included editing Ministry of Sound’s magazine in Ibiza for two summers and also writing two long-running columns for DJmagazine – ”Around The World in 80 Clubs” (which took him everywhere from Beijing to Brazil, Moscow to Marrakech) and “Dispatches From The Wrong Side”. A collection of the latter was published in the UK and US as the book Discombobulated, including tales as varied as gatecrashing Kylie Minogue’s birthday party, getting deported from Russia, having a gun held to his head by celebrity gangster Dave Courtney and going raving in Ibiza with Judith Chalmers. He has recently written for the likes of Red magazine, Hotline, Clash, Tilllate, Shortlist and the Manchester Evening News. Pad Communications has recently consulted for clients as varied as Manchester nightclubs and New Zealand toy companies.On a personal note, Simon is a Londoner who left the capital at the age of 18 and never looked back. He sees himself as a citizen of the global dancefloor having lived in Sydney, Los Angeles, Ibiza and Amsterdam. However his life is now rather more sedentary. After all his adventures he bumped into and subsequently married his highschool sweetheart from their North London Grammar. They now live in Stockport with their four children and four chickens, trying to live the good life. Simon recently turned 40 and is steadfastly refusing to have a midlife crisis – as in, growing a ponytail and buying a shiny red sports car.OK, maybe he’ll buy the sports car…
