Snow Patrol

Snow Patrol

The boys from Snow Patrol have come a long way from the days when they posed as members of the band Belle & Sebastian to infiltrate the student union club at the Glasgow School of Art. In fact, the indie darlings (from Glasgow by way of Dundee) are big fat stars — and they have prime time television to thank for that.

The quintet has been a phenom across the pond since the release of Final Strawin 2003. In fact, the band has been around in some form since the mid-Nineties, and has produced four LPs, all lauded by critics. But worldwide domination only came after they started landing catchy tunes on various American medical dramas. First it was "Chasing Cars" on Grey's Anatomy. Then the folks at ER used "Open Your Eyes" for their season finale. Not to be outdone, the producers of the new Irish mafia soap opera The Black Donnellys use the same song on their pilot. The net result is that you basically can't escape Snow Patrol if you own a television, which is why the band's most recent disc, Eyes Open, has gone multinational and multiplatinum.

The band gets tagged as Coldplay imitators, and it's true that singer Gary Lightbody tends toward lush melodies and melancholy lyrics. But the band's arrangements are not quite so grandiose and far more surprising. After spending a year opening for U2, the members of Snow Patrol are glad to be headlining some American gigs of their own. The hope is that a few of the local fans might even know the words to the songs not on TV.