Setting the scene for the set with John Cooper Clarke’s a cappella ‘Salome Maloney’ Snow Patrol are a band who certainly know how to grab their audience’s attention right from the start. And though a microphone malfunction left opener Wow a little messy around the edges the band wasted no time in getting into stuck into a stunning mixture of old favourites and new material from freshly released album Eyes Open.  | | Snow Patrol (pic: Andy Stubbs) |
Moving on through the set the band hit straight to the heart of Hands Open with a professionalism, which couldn’t conceal their obvious excitement for the best that their new album has to offer. And while an impromptu rush to the front row of the crowd for a few moments of adoration may have left Lightbody playing out the rest of the set with split trousers, it seemed that nothing could curb the band’s enthusiasm for their new release. At best the new material brought forward rushes of thunder in the form of All That I Have and Headlights and moments of aching clarity and hopeless romance with Shut Your Eyes and Chasing Cars. Lacing the set with essentials like How to be Dead, Run and Chocolate the band carried all the energy from the new album over into the best of what has gone before.
Radio perfect throughout you couldn’t help but feel like the soundtrack of the last two years was swallowing you whole before your very eyes. As they soared from anthem to anthem Snow Patrol make you realise that though the phrase may be widely overused, relatively few bands actually to manage soar. Making this band the exception not the rule. Opening the set Lightbody declared, ‘it’s great to be back in Manchester’, and as the crowd welcomed the band back to an encore of title track Eyes Open, it seemed that Manchester were certainly happy to have them back. | 
