Snow Patrol fall softly on Tweeter Center

By Kevin Kennedy
Collegian Reporter
March 28, 2007

Sometimes, crowd behavior is all it takes to ruin an otherwise decent concert, like at the recent Snow Patrol performance at the Tweeter Center. After I got over the facts that the two people in front of me sat through the entire show and that at least one-fourth of the audience left during the last song of the regular set before the encore, I was able to reflect on how great Snow Patrol is in concert. But still, before I could do that, I had to get over the opening acts.

Silversun Pickups opened the night with a short set that couldn’t get the small amount of people already there very excited. But it wasn’t their fault really; they had the always difficult task of being the first of three acts, and on top of that, the sound was awful. Opening acts rarely have great sound anyway, and the Tweeter Center doesn’t have the best acoustics.

After Silversun Pickups tried their best to set the stage for the night, OK Go came out for 45 minutes of playing their instruments and dancing around in true power pop fashion. The crowd seemed to enjoy some of the set, but the sound system ruined singer Damien Kulash from the very beginning. The vocals were hard to hear and understand.

The set got off to a slow start, as the crowd just simply didn’t seem to care, and the band seemed to know it. Kulash tried to get the crowd into it a number of times, calling for people to stand up, hold up their lighters or cell phones and, in the oddest request, do the wave. On all three accounts, most of the crowd obliged — then promptly sat back down. But OK Go still managed to set the stage well, as they finally kept the crowd up for their last couple of songs.

Snow Patrol went on stage around 10:05 p.m. and rocked all the way until 11:30 p.m. with a quick encore break. They opened with “Spitting Games,” off of their breakout album Final Straw. Right away, the sound was great, surprisingly and thankfully enough. They quickly went into “It’s Beginning to Get to Me” off of their latest album, Eyes Open. The crowd was loving every minute of it when they began the fan-favorite “Chocolate.” Likewise, lead singer Gary Lightbody was ecstatic over the band’s first Tweeter Center gig. Lightbody was very talkative in between songs, and went nuts all over the stage during them.

A mid-set performance of their smash hit “Chasing Cars” got anyone who was still sitting down to stand. However, I still amazingly witnessed the two people in front of me sit through every other song played. It was almost as if these people shelled out 40 dollars to hear “Chasing Cars.”

Snow Patrol almost lost the audience during “Set the Fire to the Third Bar,” as Lightbody picked out a woman from the audience to get up on stage and sing along. Unfortunately for Snow Patrol, the audience and the woman, it quickly became apparent that she didn’t know half of the words to the song. But Lightbody saved the moment as he tried to drown her out with his incredible voice. Afterwards, Snow Patrol quickly got the crowd back into the show with “Somewhere a Clock is Ticking” and another fan-favorite, “Make This Go On Forever.”

By the end of the set, which closed with hit “You’re All I Have,” it was easy to forget all about the woman because attention had to be shifted to the large amount of people leaving before the encore.

It’s not Snow Patrol’s fault, though; it happens at every concert. All I know is that whoever left early missed one hell of an encore. Started off by an amazing rendition of “The Finish Line,” which showcased both Lightbody’s voice and his lyrics, Snow Patrol segued into their latest single, “Open Your Eyes,” which got the crowd dancing and singing along, despite the flubbed lyrics in the first and third verse by Lightbody. The night came to a close with the hit “Hands Open,” which had whoever was left in the Tweeter Center rocking out.

Besides “The Finish Line,” Snow Patrol’s set list was pretty standard, but they don’t need to surprise you with any songs to blow you away. Lightbody’s voice was dead on all night, and the band played flawlessly. They didn’t need to pull out old favorites (as some people in the audience were shouting for) for the show to be great; they just came out and played their songs as good as they know how, and it made for one amazing concert.

kennedyk3@lasalle.edu