It’s three hours until Snow Patrol are due on stage at the Bonn Museumsplatz, and Gary Lightbody is trying to persuade an overzealous security man that in the interests of 8,000 people having a good time it might be better if he’s not forcibly ejected from the venue.
“I’m the singer, mate,” Gary says to the less than convinced bouncer. “Is that okay?”
Apparently not.
“The singer… with the band… that’s playing here… tonight.”
Pfennig finally dropping, we’re left alone to discuss the serious matter of Tony Blair failing to include a knighthood for David Healy in his Resignation Honours List.
“Personally, I think David Healy should be made Imperial Emperor of Northern Ireland for scoring the goal that beat England at Windsor Park, but if that’s not doable a ‘Sir’ would suffice,” Lightbody deadpans. “I’ve already told our management people, ‘Don’t arrange for me to do anything next June because I’ll be in Austria and Switzerland cheering Nigel Worthington’s Green & White Army on to Euro 2008 glory.’”
So, Gary’s recommending that we all nip down to Paddy Power’s and stick a hundred euro on Norn Iron qualifying out of Group F?
“Perhaps a fiver! It all depends on whether Nigel Worthington inherits the luck Northern Ireland had under his predecessor, Lawrie Sanchez. I’ve never seen so many opposition attempts on goal strike posts, bars and defenders’ arses.”
You’d think that all this striking of posts, bars and defenders’ arses would merit some serious analysis but, no, the media here has been more interested in silly handshakes between Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness.
“Priorities, eh?” Gary laughs. “I can’t remember where we were at the time, but my heart jumped for joy when I saw the picture of a smiling Martin telling an equally smiling Ian, ‘Good luck’, and Ian going, ‘Ditto’. I never really thought that would materialise. I’d always hoped it would and that there could be not only a cessation of violence, but also reconciliation and some sort of political future for Northern Ireland. It looks like we might have a chance, which is extraordinary.”
While yet to exchange bon mots with Northern Ireland’s First and Deputy First Ministers, Gary was part of the Oh Yeah! music centre delegation that went to meet Peter Hain in Whitehall.
“The rest were smartly dressed, but I looked like a vagrant who should be detained under the Prevention of Making The Place Look Untidy Act,” he noted afterwards in an article he wrote for, get him, The New Statesman.
“Believe me, I wasn’t being self-deprecating! Yeah, we met the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in January to tell him why this studio and rehearsal room complex in Belfast is so badly needed. He was very enthusiastic, and far more knowledgeable about the subject than I thought he’d be, given all the stuff he has to carry around in his head. Drips and drabs of private investment have been coming in, but we really need some public money now to do the place up.”
Self-confessed Snow Patrol fan that he is, don’t be surprised if Hain blags his way on to the guest-list for the band’s September homecoming show in Bangor’s Ward Park. A place, incidentally, where an irate peacock once flapped at me.
“There are a lot of peacocks and other exotic fowl in the park, but I don’t think they’ll be on the festival site,” Gary says nipping complaints from the RSPCB in the bud. “I played football and went on general family outings in Ward Park as a kid, so staging a mini-festival there with bands we’ve chosen ourselves will be absolutely brilliant.”
Is it somewhere he’d have gone during his teenage years for a canoodle?
“No, what limited early teen mischief there was occurred in places closer to my house. Ward Park was too much of a schlep.”
They may have been on the road continuously since February 2006, but that hasn’t stopped Snow Patrol stockpiling over 20 songs for the follow up to Eyes Open. If that profligacy continues, they’ll have to do what the Clash did with Sandinsta! and make it a triple.
“I wouldn’t put it about that it’s a triple or people will be jumping ship pretty quickly,” Gary laughs. “We – as in myself, Nathan and Paul – have all been writing a lot. We won’t know exactly what we’ve got until we go through ‘em one by one, but the early signs are good.”
Having gone for the everything including the kitchen sink last time out, his nibs reckons it’s going to be, “An exercise in restraint for us. Maybe minus the strings and the choirs so that would be back to the first two records. Sometimes you strip a lot of stuff off, and suddenly it becomes more powerful.”
As somebody who has to listen to When It’s All Over We Still Have To Clear Up at least once a week for medical reasons, the prospect of a back to basics Snow Patrol is jolly exciting.
“Melody, lyrics, honesty – those are the keys to our music, and things you don’t necessarily need gigantic production to put across,” he expands. “In fact, it can bleach it out a little, which is why a return to simplicity mightn’t be a bad idea.”
Although the makings of album number six are all there, Gary is adamant that, “We’re going to take a year off at least. From the recording of Final Straw to now, it’s been four years of non-stop work and we need to recharge a little. We’re very close to burning out.
“I don’t see any shame in saying that we need a rest,” he continues. “Snow Patrol isn’t going to end, but we do need to do different things.”
Past experience has taught us that as soon as Gary puts one record to bed, he has to start work on another.
“I know, I’ve already promised people a side-project,” he says referring to his teaming up with Garrett Lee under the Listen…Tanks! banner. “If you’ve decided to stop playing because you’re close to saturation point and maybe bugging people, you don’t really want to be going, ‘Here I am still!’ On one hand I’m trying to rein things in, and on the other I’m going to be working again with Freelance Hellraiser and Cut Le Roc. The answer perhaps is to leave a good six months between the recording and the release.”
According to my esteemed colleague Ed Power who was holidaying there recently, it’s impossible to go more than five minutes or 50 yards (whichever’s the shortest) in America without hearing ‘Chasing Cars’.
Indeed, its ‘Song of the People’ status is such that Nashville A-Listers Faith Hill and Tim McGraw are opening with it on their current tour, which has yet to play to less than 20,000 people.
“Where did you hear that?” Gary inquires.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nocAxQ61ho4
“Wow, I’ll have to have a look. I know it was what the winner of the Thai or Vietnamese Stars In Their Eyes sung, which is probably even more surreal.”
Although one suspects that Gary’s getting a little weary of it – “It does seem to be the karaoke song of choice at the moment” – ‘Chasing Cars’ will be present and correct on Saturday July 7 when Snow Patrol play Oxegen. Looking forward to it?
“Hugely,” he nods. “To go from supporting Turn at the DA Club to headlining Punchestown is fairytale stuff, which will never stop blowing me away.”