Las Vegas Weekly

December 18, 2008 · 10:35 AM

Snow Patrol blankets the Hard Rock Hotel

By Robin Leach

Snow Patrol at the Hard Rock Hotel.

Photo: Scott Harrison/Retna/www.harrisonphotos.com

From fall 2006 until May of this year, the Northern Irish and Scottish alternative rock band Snow Patrol literally went into polar-bear recording hibernation. But this past spring, they re-emerged and began work on their newest album, which was released this fall as a follow-up to such prior hits as “Run,” “Chasing Cars,” “Signal Fire” from the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack and their album Eyes Open, which sold 4.7 million copies worldwide.

As part of Snow Patrol’s world tour to promote their new album A Hundred Million Suns, they played to a sold-out Las Vegas crowd at the Hard Rock Hotel, and our contributing photographer Scott Harrison was front row and center to capture the band in concert.

Student Gary Lightbody originally co-founded the group in late 1994, but it was a rocky start -- few gigs and so short of money, he had to sell off his CD collection in order to pay for the rent. But by mid 2005, they toured as headliners, appeared on Live 8 and were the opening act for U2’s Vertigo Tour.

But with back-to-back American Eyes Tours, cancellations in the U.S. and Europe due to polyps on Gary’s throat, terrorist attack threats on their plane flights and injuries sustained by bassist Paul Wilson, the group decided to take a year off from recording rigors even though Eyes Open became Britain’s best-selling album of 2006.

They made sporadic appearances last year, including on Saturday Night Live with Julia Louis-Dreyfus as host and Live Earth from Wembley Stadium. Then in May this year, they returned to the studios, and by Oct. 28 the new A Hundred Million Suns was released in Britain and the U.S. It racked up giant sales and put the band -- vocalist and guitarist Gary Lightbody, drummer Jonny Quinn, guitarist Nathan Connolly, keyboardist Tom Simpson and bass guitarist Paul Wilson -- back on the road with the Vegas pre-Christmas stop.

You can see the YouTube video of Snow Patrol’s first single released from the new album HERE and HERE.

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