Snow Patrol at First Avenue, Minneapolis (08 May 2019)

Irish rock band, by the way of Scotland, Snow Patrol, headlined First Avenue’s mainroom on Wednesday, May 8th.



Opening up the sold-out show was Northern Ireland’s Ryan McMullan, accompanied by Paul “Hammy” Hamilton (Foy Vance’s drummer). He is a young singer, and in fact, this was his first U.S. tour, and his first time in Minneapolis. Hearing one note from him, you can tell that he’s clearly a talented singer and natural performer. He’s charming and easily manipulating the audience to help him sing his song, “In the Back of My Mind”.



McMullan arranged his brief 30-min set with the first three songs using the piano, and the remainder of the show on guitar. McMullan ended his set with a sad, breakup song called “Oh Susannah”, dedicated to We Are Scientists, as it was their last night of the Snow Patrol tour.



Next up was New York, by the way of Berkeley, We Are Scientists. The duo features Keith Murray on lead vocals and guitars and Chris Cain on bass and backing vocals, but for the live shows, they’ve added Keith Carne on drums.



I’ve told this story before, but I first discovered the band in 2006, when the band had a massive breakthrough success with their debut With Love and Squalor. Just simply listening to the album for the first time, we were all singing along – that’s to show you how catchy their songs are.



Their set seemed shorter than usual, but that’s probably done on purpose. Since it’s their last night of the tour, they spent a few minutes thanking Snow Patrol for bringing them on tour. Often their banters were incoherent (something about “baby be damned”??), but the gist of it is, if the band asks you to support them on tour, “take that opportunity!”. They sure seem to have had a lot of fun on this tour.



The band dedicated “Tonight” to Ryan McMullan, stating, “Since he dedicated a breakup ballad to us, we wanted to return the favor with ‘Tonight’.” (which, in turn, was another sad, breakup ballad).



We Are Scientists ended strong with a marathon of medley of “After Hours”, “Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt” and “No Wait at Five Leaves”. You’re not quite sure where and when the song ended and when the next one started, but the way they played the song(s), it felt like one epic closer.



It’s good to have Snow Patrol (singer/guitarist Gary Lightbody, guitarist Nathan Connolly, bassist Paul Wilson, drummer Jonny Quinn, and guitarist/keys Johnny McDaid) back. Although technically, the band came here last year with the very popular Ed Sheeran, the First Avenue show marked the band’s first headlining gig since 2012. The reason for such a long gap (seven years), was that the band was experiencing writer’s block (according to singer Gary Lightbody’s interview in the NME). Eventually the band overcame their creative struggle, and their seventh studio album Wilderness came out last year. With the new album, the band’s been hard at work getting the word out with this headlining world 2019 tour.



I have to say that the long break was good for the band, they seemed happier and excited to perform and meeting their fans face-to-face. Singer Gary Lightbody’s voice is still amazing, and their hit songs like “Chasing Cars” and any songs from Final Straw (“Chocolate”, “Run”), went over incredibly well with the audience.



With Wilderness as Snow Patrol’s first album in seven years, the band did sprinkle in a few new songs: “Empress”, “Life on Earth”, “Heal Me”, and first encore song “What If This Is All the Love You Ever Get?”. Based on feedback from the crowd, I would have to say that the band might have another hit on their hands.



Normally, Snow Patrol play stadium-size venues or hanging out with Ed Sheeran, so this 2019 tour is really a great way to experience the band. Like We Are Scientists said earlier, if they’re coming to your town, you should “take that opportunity” and see the band (unless you’re slow and they’ve sold out).



Remaining tour dates:

05/10 – Denver, CO – Paramount Theatre 05/11 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Depot 05/13 – Vancouver, BC – Queen Elizabeth Theatre 05/14 – Portland, OR – Roseland Theatre 05/15 – Seattle, WA – Showbox SoDo 05/18 – Las Vegas, NV – The Joint @ Hard Rock 05/20 – San Francisco, CA – The Warfield 05/21 – Los Angeles, CA – The Wiltern 12/05 – Newcastle, England – Metro Radio Arena ^ 12/07 – Belfast, Northern Ireland – The SSE Arena * 12/08 – Belfast, Northern Ireland – SSE Arena* 12/11 – Dublin, Ireland – 3Arena* 01/14 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Ziggo Dome 01/15 – Hamburg, Germany – Barclaycard Arena 01/16 – Berlin, Germany – Velodrom 01/18 – Munich, Germany – Zenith 01/19 – Zurich, Switzerland – Samsung Hall 01/20 – Oberhausen, Germany – Konig Pilsner Arena

01/22 – Brussels, Belgium – Forest National 01/23 – Paris, France – Zenith 01/25 – Birmingham, England – Birmingham Arena % 01/26 – London, England – O2 Arena % 01/27 – Bournemouth, England – Bournemouth % 01/29 – Leeds, England – First Direct Arena % 01/30 – Manchester, England – Manchester Arena % 01/31 – Glasgow, Scotland – The SSE Hydro % 02/02 – London, England – Wembley Arena % 02/08 – Frankfurt, Germany – Jahrhunderhalle 02/09 – Vienna, Austria – Gasometer 02/11 – Milan, Italy – Fabrique 02/13 – Barcelona, Spain – Razzmatazz 02/14 – Madrid, Spain – La Riviera 02/16 – Lisbon, Portugal – Campo Pequeno % Special Guests: Kodaline And Roe ^ Special Guests: Foy Vance And Roe * Special Guests: Ryan Mcmullan And Sam Fender

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