I Radio Heaven

A friend of mine treated me with tickets to the Snow Patrol, OK Go, and Silversun Pickups show at Key Arena last Tuesday.  I was most excited about Silversun Pickups, as they were firmly entrenched on my Top Ten of 2006 list, but I was curious about Snow Patrol as well.  When Final Straw was released, I pointed at them as a potential successor of Coldplay.  Unfortunately, I thought that their follow up, 2006’s Eyes Open placed them on a career trajectory closer to that of fellow Scots Travis (really, does anyone remember the lackluster 12 Memories?).  However, I have several friends that enjoyed Eyes Open immensely, and one in particular (who is definitely my musical superior, by the way) has been to every single Snow Patrol concert here in Seattle. 
Earlier in the day I suddenly realized that Silversun Pickups would be on stage first (since OK Go was my least favorite portion of the bill, I subconsciously penciled them into the opening slot), making a timely arrival at the arena very important.  We made it just as they took the stage for their first song, settled into our seats, and began to take it all in. 
I forgot to bring my Moleskine to take notes with (tsk, tsk, tsk), but they played 5 or 6 songs from Carnavas, which I think included "Little Lover So Polite", "Melatonin", "Future Foe Scenarios", "Waste It On", and "Dream at Tempo 119".  Please don’t think that my poor memory reflects on the quality of their performance, which was excellent.  Vocalist Brett Aubert snarled like Billy Corgan, played as hard as Jim Adkins, and even evoked two of my personal favorites, Aaron Sprinkle, of Poor Old Lu, Rose Blossom Punch, and the stellar new Fair, and Scott Hunter of the aforementioned Poor Old Lu.  Their set wasn’t flashy - it was just really good.

About three songs into the OK Go set, I started thinking of the most witty ways I could describe the drivel I was listening too.  The song "Volvo Driving Soccer Mom" was the first thing I came up with, along with "Radio Disney wants their shit back" and "What?  Was Bowling for Soup unavailable?"  I mean, it was truly a set meant for 8 year old girls and their mothers.  The crowd was as motionless as any I had ever seen - I think Celine Dion would have had more people bobbing their heads.  Even their YouTube hit "Here It Goes Again" met with stoic silence from the crowd.  And another thing - I have never wanted to punch someone so much as I did after watching bassist Tim Norland do the same electric slide/two step thing ALL EFFING NIGHT.  I must give them this: they are pretty snazzy dressers.   Not exactly a rock-and-roll complement, but it’s the best I’ve got.

Snow Patrol finally rescued us.  Lead singer Gary Lightbody was very engaging with the crowd, speaking after nearly every song.  He thanked Silversun Pickups and OK Go, saying that OK Go lead singer Damian Kulash did an incredible job for someone that had "the foken’ flu." Of course, he got it from the "long night of shagging" that the two of them engaged in together. 
Musically, they fell somewhere close to A Rush of Blood to the Head-era Coldplay.  They were tight, energetic, professional, and extremely entertaining.   Towards the end of their nealy 2 hour set, Lightbody asked the girls in the crowd if any of them knew the words to "Set The Fire To The Third Bar" and selected one to come up and sing the Martha Wainwright part.  He said that the previous night in Portland, they tried this for the first time and the girl that they chose kept adding "Christina Aguilera parts to the end of every line."  This poor girl wasn’t exactly the world’s greatest singer, but she held up pretty well and Gary and the rest of the band were very gracious.  They closed out with a memerable performance of "Hands On", with other highlights being "Chocolate," "You Could Be Happy," and, of course, "Chasing Cars".