Snow Patrol
Only 29, Belfast-bred bohemian Gary Lightbody appears to have it all. Fresh from opening the recent U2 tour and a slot on last summer’s prestigious Live 8 concert, the singer and his popular drone rock outfit Snow Patrol hit San Francisco last month to suitably manic fanfare. Screaming young female fans shoved their way up front at their Great American Music Hall show, while the wraith-limbed, shag-haired Lightbody sonorously intoned singalong hits like “Run” from the Scotland-based band’s platinum ’04 breakthrough, Final Straw (Fiction/Interscope). He also previewed the anthemic tracks “Headlights,” “Hands Open,” “You’re All I Have,” and “Beginning To Get To Me” from Snow Patrol’s truly majestic new followup, Eyes Open. And the girls went even crazier.
Appearing: 6/10 at the Vic Theatre (3145 N. Sheffield) in Chicago.
And the pinup-handsome Lightbody, one would imagine, could have has pick of the groupie litter on such a successful night. But appearances — when it comes to this starkly sensitive soul — are truly deceiving. Lady’s man? Far from it, sniffs the reluctant rock star in a conversely shy backstage chat. On first inspection, songs like “Hands Open” (the jagged-riffed kickoff single Stateside; a chiming “You’re All I Have” leads the overseas charge), “You Could Be Happy,” and “Make This Go On Forever” resemble lovestruck ballads, carefully wrought tributes to some doe-eyed significant other(s). “It’s so clear now that you are all that I have/I have no fear ’cause you are all that I have,” Lightbody intently warbles, and it certainly sounds like he means it. The only things missing are a pipe, slippers, and a Hugh Hefner smoking jacket.
Playboy Mansion lady’s man? Lightbody guffaws at the very notion. “I’m not a one-night-stand type of person — I’m a serial monogamist,” he declares, almost angry fans might view him differently. He can count his long-term relationships on one hand, he adds. “And only once have I ever had an everything-stands-still moment, where you just fall in love instantly. It was before Snow Patrol was anybody, we’d just played a show for 20 people in London, and she was there, working for another band called Witness. She was backstage when I went in there, and I saw her and just didn’t speak to anyone else that night, didn’t speak to the rest of the band. And that was it — it was her. And the rest,” he sighs somberly, “is on the album.”
Yes, it’s true, gals. Lightbody is single. And has been for several years — although his dramatic breakup is documented deep within the grooves of Eyes Open, it actually occurred before the preceding Final Straw was even completed. It has taken this sad sack that long to get over his ex. “So the last record was a lot more spiteful, not toward her but toward my own stupidity. But with this record, I looked at the relationship a lot more objectively and tried to realize what the hell was wrong with me, rather than just chastising myself for being a prick. I actually went down deep inside myself and tried to . . . to . . . fix myself a little bit.”
Talk with this artist long enough, and you’ll find yourself not only sympathizing with his bad luck with women, but wanting to charge him the going therapist rate when you’re finished. The solution at which he arrived? “Stop dating,” he scowls. Which he has. “I wanna get better, you know. And I really think I need to take some time.” He runs through an exhibit table full of evidence, and it’s a damning one. Lightbody stands convicted in noncommittal court.
“With my hands open, and my eyes open/I just keep hopin’ that your heart opens,” the frontman bays on the single. Sure, it sounds sort of optimistic, he agrees. But listen closely, “And you’ll hear me, pleading for her to come back.” In the bass-thumping “Headlights,” he murmurs, “For once I wanna be the car crash/Not always just the traffic jam.” Explains its composer, “It’s a song about something for once just just shaking me out of myself, just being violent toward myself as therapy. Like, I dunno, just hiring somebody to beat the shit outta me. Even though the choruses are kind of an explosion of hope and happiness, I wanted to make the verses tight and insular, like a prison cell . . .”
— Tom Lanham
For more on how Lightbody lives without love, pick up the June issue of Illinois Entertainer, available throughout Chicagoland.
