Taking Back the Cities Tour
| Tour by Snow Patrol | |
Official logo
|
|
| Associated album |
A Hundred Million Suns Up to Now |
|---|---|
| Start date | 26 October 2008 |
| End date | 5 June 2010 |
| Legs | 9 |
| No. of shows | 169 (2 cancelled) |
| Snow Patrol concert chronology | |
The Taking Back the Cities Tour was a concert tour by Scottish/Northern Irish alternative rock band Snow Patrol. It was launched in support of the group's 2008 album A Hundred Million Suns. The band visited numerous arenas internationally from 2008 throughout 2009. The tour was the collective name of many smaller tours and festivals Snow Patrol played in support of their album. The tour has spanned 9 legs and had over 150 shows. The tour commenced on 26 October 2008 with the band playing a short whistle-stop tour of four capital cities.
The tour has seen the band visit continents like Europe, North America, Australia and Africa. The band has mainly toured as a headlining act, though they have also supported Coldplay and U2 on their respective tours. Tour dates have included a number of summer rock festivals. Often, the band's set on tour has included playing the sixteen-minute-long "The Lightning Strike" in full, though sometimes only the first part is played. The official end date of the tour is not known, though the last scheduled concert will be held at Ward Park on 5 June 2010.
Keyboardist Tom Simpson has said that the band has wanted to tour Asian countries like Singapore. They haven't yet done so because they wish to give justice to UK and Ireland, as they feel they've been "neglecting them". He also said that there's a possibility of Snow Patrol touring Asia in 2010. Lead singer Gary Lightbody has written on the band's website that they'll be returning to headline their own mini-festival at Ward Park next year. He has also revealed that it will be one of few concerts they'll play in the UK and Ireland in 2010, as they intend not to play any festivals and only "special occasions".
The lighting for the tour was done by UK lighting company HSL, which also supplied the crew. HSL previously worked with the band for their tours in 2006 & 2007. The lighting on the tour is based on the concept of "creative synergy", which employs four visual mediums – lighting, digital lighting, video and movement. The initial ideas came from the band itself, who pitched them to Davy Sherwin, lighting & visuals director. Sherwin had previously worked with the band on their tours in 2006 & 2007. He came up with a simple arrangement of LED and moving lights, which he felt went well with the music of the album. A metalwork layout of five trusses running upstage/downstage was then added, referring "sun rays" from the album title. The trusses are hinged down at upstage end, so they are freely movable into the performance area. After the design was finalized, Sherwin started to program the show on an ESP Vision visualizer system. He then recorded every song onto a hard drive, and made QuickTime movies of the lighting scenes. These were used by Robin Haddow (live visuals director) and Blue Leach (video director) to program the screen looks, colors and effects, referring to Sherwin's cues. They rehearsed the show for six days at Wembley Arena. In live concerts, Sherwin, Haddow and Leach work together to ensure all four cues (lighting, digital lighting, video and movement) work properly. Sherwin and Haddow operate two WholeHog 3 consoles each, and Rupert Reynolds works the Kinesys system, which produces the effects. The tour is the first ever to use Barco's digital moving lights.
...
Wikipedia