Live Review: Snow Patrol - The O2, London 15/02/2025
Snow Patrol proved they're more than just their greatest hits at the 02; showing why they've kept the staying power all these years where others have failed.
Snow Patrol are a band that know their audience. “I know it’s a new song, but please clap anyway, lead vocalist Gary Lightbody – the band’s sole remaining original member, says when he debuts a song from their 2024 album The Forest is the Path. It’s a band that feels tied down to their legacy hits from Final Straw, and you can’t blame the prolific tourers because how good was that album? It was legendary – released in 2003 and released to a sweeping adulation by fans. Support act Nina Nesbitt came on and thanked Snow Patrol saying she’d grown up with them listening to their music at school – and that was the generation that were at the 02 on the night.
It was a trip down memory lane, a nostalgia, a visit to church – Nesbitt the warm-up, perhaps a bit too soft and intimate for a stage as big as this, but stepped up to the occasion all the same – giving off the vibes that she was happy to be there and engaging with the audience, asking who was their on a date and who was there on a first date – confidently interacting and encouraging people to sing along. Her song Parachute was an emotional highlight – as a song for all the introverts out there and one of her favourites on Mountain Music.
She claims she took the wrong career for an introvert, yet here she was, up on stage at the 02 – and having the time of her life. She talked about the inspiration for Parachute, citing Quiet by Susan Cain as an inspiration. “bring me the clouds and I’ll be the moon shining so bright, but only for you” sums up finding that one person that you can be yourself with; and be embarrassing with and not care – it’s an emotional journey and a really good way to bring the set-list on a high. Nesbitt ended the set with I’m Coming Home, a song that fit cheerfully in with the sing-along vibes of the evening – cheerful and exciting.
And then came Snow Patrol; and the crowd noticeably perked up for Take Back The City, a sing-along that got everyone engaged from track one – start with a noticeable banger and keep them engaged from their 08 album, A Hundred Million Suns. The graphics were suitably bombastic and Lightbody was able to ramp up the energy in the crowd – Lightbody paying tribute to Belfast and the city that he called his home – even when he left for Dundee in the start of the 90s, it was a city under siege. Snow Patrol know what the fans want – they followed with Chocolate, one of their greatest songwriting triumphs. “With a name I'd never chosen, I can make my first steps, As a child of 25” – connects the audience with that growth they experienced in their mid-twenties – roaring and triumphant. And then we get to Called Out in the Dark, another emotional singalong – usually reserved for set-closures, which Lightbody jokes it’s not the end of the set three songs in. He’s an artist that’s continuously self-aware of the hits Snow Patrol have and what they’re known for – and the attempt to integrate new songs from the Forest is the Path into a nostalgia tour feels bold; and daring.
These songs are difficult to date and difficult to put in a time and place. Yes, the mid 2000s are when the band exploded, but they’re still here, still touring, relevant and able to make a longer lasting impact than a few of the bands that exploded at the same time. Lightbody is humble and at his best when interacting with the audience – he owns up to his mistakes “It had to happen”, he tells them, and praises guitarist/keyboardist Johnny McDaid for carrying on after surgery. He brushes off reading a sign that has been hung for the whole set saying that he’s a hall-pass for a member of the audience by pretending to not know what it means – and getting back into the encore in grand fashion. He’s a singer that looks surprised to see that the band are still around and still touring – but delighting in the impact of it all – a 2009 retrospective wraps up the set-list with Just Say Yes, that feels like it sums up the evening nicely. Nostalgia is the watchword of the day and Snow Patrol fulfil that criteria nicely.
What a nostalgia trip it was – Chasing Cars and Run are among their biggest hits – Chasing Cars, one of the more memorable love songs written by a rock band – and no wonder it’s a hit, in 2019 it was the most-played song on the UK radio this century. Emotionally open; simple yet deeply effective. Also inventive was the Set Fire to the Third Bar with Martha Wainwright, beautiful lyrics at every turn – and the heartache at its core is unmatched on stage. The double header of Open Your Eyes and Shut Your Eyes sandwiched before and after Make This Go On Forever made the inclusion of Eyes Open as an album all the more memorable – a band aware that it might disappear as quickly as it came “all this feels strange and untrue and I won’t waste a minute without you” also reads as Lightbody wondering how they’re still relevant. Yet they step up to the big stage and deliver with gusto that has earned them a regular headline slot at UK festivals over the years. They’re triumphant and a firecracker of a band – leaning into the reputation of a Coldplay-like band but making the music their own.
Songwriting is back in the pop genre and Snow Patrol; if anything were set back from the over exposure of Chasing Cars, a megahit that was everywhere leaning to fatigue, when something as natural as that comes. Yet strip back the Chasing Cars stardom and look beyond that and you see a band as good as their prime, even twenty years later – capable of capturing the magic of a generation.
Words by Miles Milton-Jefferies
Photography by Abigail Shii
