Snow Patrol - Metro Radio Arena (Newcastle) 10/3/09 (Snow Patrol Live)

Member Name: NinjaBaz

Product:	Snow Patrol Live
Date:	16/03/09 (64 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Performance, atmosphere, lighting, acoustics, facilities

Disadvantages: Getting out of the car park at the end

**Introduction**

Snow Patrol started out 14 years ago under the name Shrug, before releasing their first album under the name of Polar Bear, hence the name of their first album 'Songs for Polarbears'. They discovered another act had already claimed this name so they were then force to be renamed, and Snow Patrol was born.

The bands lead singer/songwriter is Gary Lightbody who hails from Bangor, together with band members, Jonny Quinn, Tom Simpson, Nathan Connolly and Paul Wilson. They released 2 albums before they hit the big time in 2003 with 'Final Straw', reaching no.3 in the UK Album Charts.
They followed up that success with the terrific 'Eyes Open' in 2005 before releasing their latest album 'A Hundred Million Suns' in 1998. Their current UK tour finishes in late March before they set sail on a world tour finishing on July 31st. This will be followed up by appearances at the two V Festival shows in August.


**Venue**

I chose the Newcastle Metro Radio Arena as we live around 40 minutes drive away and it's fairly simple to get to up the A1. After doing some research on parking, we set off aiming for the Times Square multi-storey car-park. We arrived around 6pm (Gates opened @ 6pm) and quickly found a parking space up on the second level. To our delight, the car park is handily situated only a minutes' walk from the Arena and plenty of spaces were available.

Despite arriving at the venue fairly early, there were no queues to get in and they were operating a quick system on the doors, which involved a member of staff scanning a bar code on your ticket. This reduced waiting times and everybody seemed to be getting straight in.

We had a quick Diet Coke (£2.30 for a small one) and a visit to the toilets, which again, were plentiful in supply and weren't too busy. There were two merchandise stalls, one large one for Snow Patrol and a smaller one for the support acts.

Once into the Arena it was easy to find our seats, with plenty of stewards available if you required help. The seats weren't the most comfortable in the world, on a par with most of these types of venues and football stadiums, plastic and not very wide! We were seated in block 212, near the bottom of the top tier. This is situated in the rear corner of the venue, which is just about as far away from the stage as you can get, but you still got a decent view of the stage.

The alternative to seating was to buy a standing ticket. These people were all stood inside the central enclosure and you were free to mill about in there to your hearts' content. Very much the option of the festival goer as the earlier you get there, the closer to the stage you can stand.

I really don't think this venue has any 'bad' seats; it's large, but not so big that you are too far away from the action. It was quite cold in there though, and several people were wearing coats. Stupidly, I was just wearing a polo shirt, but it did warm up once everybody was in and the action got under way.


**The Gig**

It seemed as though we were sat at our seats for an eternity before any on stage action occurred! I think next time we might think about arriving a bit later, as Snow Patrol themselves didn't start until 9pm. Luckily, there were two support bands to build us up to the main act.

The first band was called 'Fanfarlo'. They played 4 songs if I remember correctly and they were pretty good actually. I liked 'Fire Escape' best and they used a lot of instruments such as trumpets and violins during choruses. It worked quite well and was pleasantly pleased with the value for money so far.

Next up were 'Animal Kingdom' who also played 4 songs, including the excellent 'Chalk Stars' and 'Tin Man'. Look them up on myspace where you can listen to those tracks. So 8 pretty excellent songs so far and we hadn't even started.

I thought the acoustics could have been clearer for these 2 acts, and hoped they'd purposely toned it down to make Snow Patrol better!

The excitement was building now as Snow Patrol edged ever nearer. You could sense the anticipation amongst the almost sell out crowd. And then it was time. The Patrol entered the stage and after some brief welcome's they kicked it all off with the classic 'Spitting Games'. WOW! The clarity was way better than the previous acts, and you could feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end as the light show was perfectly matched to the song. A great start followed up by 'Chocolate' and 'Run' which were awesome!

Gary was in good form and had some great banter with the crowd, inducing them into a sing off between the men and woman singing the chorus of 'Shut Your Eyes'. It was great fun! I think the men won ;)

They played some of the tracks off the new album which went down well, but I wasn't as 'au fait' with these as I'd really bought the tickets for my Wife's birthday, and it's her that's the massive Snow Patrol fan! Despite this, I really enjoyed the new stuff, albeit taking a slightly different direction from the anthemic 'Eyes Open' album. Gary then did a solo acoustic performance before launching into the classic anthem 'Chasing Cars' which had the crowd standing, singing, dancing and loving it!

The lighting, acoustics and performance were all top notch and the atmosphere was electric. We really didn't want it to end!

My favourite track of the night was 'Open Your Eyes'. Great guitar riff, piano and fantastic vocals and the light show as the chorus and guitar section exploded into life was absolutely breath-taking! I still get goosebumps when I listen to the song now, as it starts slowly gradually building up into the chorus, then reaching fever pitch when the drum and trumpet finale kick in. It's such an atmospheric song with very emotional feeling, haunting vocals.


**Overall**

I really couldn't recommend this show enough. Seeing Snow Patrol Live was absolutely breathtaking and they were well supported by two very good support acts. The venue was an ideal size to provide an excellent atmosphere and a great view of the action.

The only down side was we didn't get home until midnight as we were trapped in the multi-storey car park for a good 30 minutes. Everybody tried to get to the exit quickly but the sheer volume of traffic meant a long wait. Of course, many people only looked after number one and wouldn't let you out so we had to be patient. We used this time to good effect though by putting our Snow Patrol CD on and singing our hearts out again!

Brilliant!!!

Summary: Didn't want it to end!!!