"Chicago bursts to life" Rather predicatably Snow Patrol left the song Hands Opens to last, last night as Gary Lightbody had everyone at The Aragon eating out of his hands when he bellowed out the line "Chicago bursts to life and your sweet smile remembers you" (it's one of his favourite cities he'd explained earlier) at the finale of the Chicago leg of their North American tour.

But in truth, although Gary Lightbody's vocals were superb, the band often failed to nail some of the songs from their excellent last two albums Final Straw and Eyes Open. A bit ultra critical perhaps because it was still a great night out and the very personable and chatty Gary Lightbody, dancing like a cross between Jarvis Cocker, Mick Jagger and my Dad at a family wedding, gave a consumate performance. Funniest moment was Lightbody looking around at the fort-like arena, and telling the audience that all the band members lived "in castles like this." All around me people nodded knowlingly.

Songs from both albums were played kicking off with Spitting Games and Wow plus Set the Fire to the Third Bar, at which point a girl was pulled out of the audience to replace the absent songbird Martha Wainwright, and bloody good she was too. Later in the 80 minute set came two of my personal favourites Open Your Eyes and You Could Be Happy.

Snow Patrol's songs are often heard on TV shows here, such as Grey's Anatomy, which might account for the docile crowd. People around us were chatting and texting and the band deserved better. Bloc Party it wasn't, but I was very pleased I went.

If you have tickets I would recommend staying in the bar and avoiding support bands Silversun Pickups and Ok Go, who were both poop.  ¶ 10:50