Today was an opportunity to lighten things up a bit, as I got to see one of my favourite bands in concert for the first time ever, and from the front row to boot!  Actually, it was a stroke of luck that I even discovered they were in town.  Since I like to give credit where credit is due, thank you again, Mr. Procrastination.  You are hands down my longest term relationship, ever.  Because of you, I still haven’t done my taxes, but I have some pretty amazing new things lined up for the next few weeks, starting with tonight’s show.

In weirdly connected coincidence, I found out that the band wrote many of the tracks for their latest album, Fallen Empires, in Rancho de la Luna Studios in southeastern California.  (You may recall that Luna was the name of the tree Julia Butterfly lived in, whom I heard speak just yesterday).  Spooky!

In any case, it was a really great performance tonight, especially since Snow Patrol played at Massey Hall, one of my most beloved music venues of all time.  Ed Sheeran (@edsheeran) opened for them, as he is reportedly doing on all of their North American tour dates.  He seems to be the UK’s latest incarnation of Eminem.  All of the young girls in the crowd were screaming for his crazy R. Patts styled hair, low-fitting jeans and tattooed forearm.  He represents the nicer type of bad boy you could probably get away with bringing home to Mom.

After the crowd was suitably warmed up, it was time for the main event.  In case you are not familiar with them, Snow Patrol is an Irish/Scottish band, who try hard not to sound like Coldplay, but there does seem to be some similarity to their sound if you ask me, particularly on their latest album.  I became addicted to its hit single, Called Out in the Dark, which got a fair amount of air play while I was still over in Ireland this past year.  Their video for the song is pure whimsy, and the behind the scenes version (in four parts) is even more so:

The front man of Snow Patrol is Gary Lightbody (@garysnowpatrol), the dude in the green t-shirt in the above clip.  He writes down his random thoughts in more or less of a blog format on tumblr, which I love him for, because he doesn’t stay inside the lines and use it primarily for photos, like the rest of the world.  The fact that they write their own lyrics is probably what hooked me on this group in the first place.  I mean, what other band do you know that can use the phrase ‘drunken semaphore’ in a hit single?  Fantastic!  Probably Snow Patrol’s best known song ever is Chasing Cars.  Here is an excerpt from that tune performed during the show tonight, with Gary getting lots of love from the ladies:

They played for a solid hour and a half, with a lovely mix of old and new songs, including a touching ballad about love, which really made the crowd swoon.  What’s not to like?  Thanks for a fabulous evening, guys!  Come back and visit us anytime! xx