As a late birthday gift my friend bought two tickets to see Snow Patrol here in Oklahoma City at the OKC Zoo Amphitheatre. Last March we drove up to Tulsa to see them with Silversun Pickups and Ok Go at the Cain’s Ballroom. That was a fantastic night and more than anything we were hoping for a repeat of the experience.
While the Cain’s is a small venue with its wooden floors and Deco neon sign the Zoo Amphitheatre is a grassy bowl with brown stone steps and ledges leading down to the stage. The setting is not as cozy and the feeling not that intimate; you can’t really feel the beat of the music through your feet like you do in buildings. I have to admit that feeling is something I missed. This was the first open air concert I have been to and it’s amazing how different the music feels.
Hot Hot Heat opened for them this time around. I haven’t listened to them too much but enjoyed them all the same. Steve Bays, the lead singer and keyboardist, had a lot of energy and jumped around the stage in his very 1970’s leather vest outfit. The rest of the band, Paul Hawley on drums, Dustin Hawthorne on bass, and Luke Paquin on guitar seemed to be enjoying themselves as well. They did their best to get the crowd on their feet (most had brought blankets to sit on) and participating.
By the time Snow Patrol (Gary Lightbody (vocals, guitar) Jonny Quinn (drums), Paul Wilson (bass), Nathan Connolly (guitar,) Tom Simpson (keyboard)) took the stage the light was starting to fade from the sky and the grassy bowl was filled to the edges with people sitting and standing. Since we saw them at the Cain’s and were relatively close to the stage my friend and I decided to sit farther back and just enjoy the music. They had large screens hanging from both sides of the stage with a camera guy in the pit before them shooting video.
When they played ‘Hand’s Open’ Lightbody sang ‘Put Sufjan Stevens on/ and we’ll play your favorite song/ “Chicago” burst to life and your/ sweet smile remembers you” but instead of saying Chicago he said Oklahoma and the crowd screamed their approval. They played songs from their fourth album Eyes Open, the entire album except for "You Could be Happy." The duet with Martha Wainwright, "Set the Fire to the Third Bar," Lightbody preformed alone. In Tulsa he had pulled a girl from the crowd to sing with him but the crowd at the zoo was too large and the personal atmosphere was missing. They also played "Run" from Final Straw and "Signal Fire" from the Spiderman 3 soundtrack.
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