{"id":755,"date":"2019-07-25T01:44:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-25T01:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=755"},"modified":"2026-06-25T01:48:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T01:48:17","slug":"snow-patrol-athlete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=755","title":{"rendered":"Snow Patrol, Athlete"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 2005, Culture Room, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a delicate balance with bands as they try to figure out where they stand. There\u2019s the bands playing smaller rooms who, at some point during the tour, realize they should be in much bigger ones. Then there\u2019s the bands playing bigger rooms to suddenly diminishing crowds (think Spinal Tap). You always want to see the former, because the latter can be sad.<\/p>\n

During Snow Patrol\u2019s 2004-05 jaunt through America, touring on the strength of 2003\u2019s Final Straw<\/em> (2004 in the U.S.), it was a band clearly in the former. Final Straw<\/em>, with its four singles and relentless spirit, was a break-out album for the Scottish band and hit the demographic \u2014 18 to 34 \u2014 that means success in the United States.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re never sure with American audiences (see Oasis) \u2014 you can be the biggest thing where you came from but nothing just 100 miles away. But early on in Snow Patrol\u2019s set, as Gary Lightbody sang the ending refrain from \u201cHow to Be Dead,\u201d the crowd of 500 or so was loudly singing along. I\u2019ve grown up with South Florida audiences, and they\u2019re always a tough room, and yet here, Snow Patrol had them. Lightbody lit up, he knew this was just a start of something big.<\/p>\n

I would see them years later, in a room six times this size, as it roamed the world on another hit album. But there\u2019s nothing better than seeing a band on the cusp of wider success in a tight room with 500 fervent fans.<\/p>\n

This show was meant to start the band\u2019s tour through America, with an original date in September 2004. But hurricanes inundated South Florida at the time, forcing the show to move to this later date. Lightbody greeted the audience by asking if everyone was OK, which was a nice gesture, but it got me thinking what this show would have been at the tour\u2019s outset.<\/p>\n

At this point of the tour \u2014 nearly nine months in \u2014 the band had clearly gotten into a routine.<\/p>\n

But if it did, it didn\u2019t show.<\/p>\n

The set was heavy on Final Straw<\/em> \u2014 as it should be \u2014 with \u201cSpitting Games,\u201d \u201cChocolate\u201d and \u201cWow\u201d in full display. The band\u2019s shining, epic ballad \u201cRun\u201d was as massive live as it sounds on the album, a six-minute crunch of guitars and soaring lyrics. I was with my wife Kristen, and during the song she held up the phone for a friend of ours to hear.<\/p>\n

Opener Athlete proved the perfect choice for Snow Patrol, as the English band was touring on its sterling second album Tourist<\/em>. Tourist<\/em> is the album Coldplay should have made to follow up A Rush of Blood to the Head<\/em> (you know, before Gwyneth Paltrow destroyed the band), a selection of alt-pop wonder with a killer song (\u201cWires\u201d) and a lasting ballad (\u201cTwenty Four Hours\u201d). I remember lead singer Joel Pott as an earnest and interesting frontman who was clearly into his art.<\/p>\n

This was one of those lucky shows where I can say I was an early adapter, seeing a band before the masses take it over. In my many years of shows, those are the ones to cherish the most.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 2005, Culture Room, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. There\u2019s a delicate balance with bands as they try to figure out where they stand. There\u2019s the bands playing smaller rooms who, at some point during the tour, realize they should be in much bigger ones. Then there\u2019s the bands playing bigger rooms to suddenly diminishing crowds (think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":756,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[66,65],"class_list":["post-755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-athlete","tag-snow-patrol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":757,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions\/757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}