Customer Reviews

Live and Acoustic at Park Ave.

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Certain EPs can be found mainly in indie music stores, and few other places -- usually crammed with live performances.

One such tiny store is where I stumbled across Snow Patrol's "Live and Acoustic in Park Ave.," a charming little EP that shows off Snow Patrol's skills in a less rock-oriented, more folky kind of sound. Though only a few songs long, it shows that these guys have real talent.

"Hello everybody. How've you been?" Gary Lightbody asks, and gets some cheers and applause. Then he launches into a pleasantly pensive acoustic version of "Spitting Games," marred only by his tendency to start humming "mmmm-hmmmmm" between verses.

He follows it up with the rather more simplistic "How to Be Dead," the charming ballad "Grazed Knees," the bluesy "Chocolate," and a slow version of "Run." In between songs, Lightbody banters and jokes with the audience, in a pleasantly self-deprecating way.

After the first song, Lightbody announced that they've never played these songs acoustically because "they don't work acoustically." I don't have a trained musical ear, but personally I think they work. Here the Britpop is turned into a bluesy-folksy kind of music, rather melancholy in tone, and it works quite well.

Lightbody in particular gets to shine, with his cheerful self-mockery ("Didn't have to grow my hair to cover my bald spots...") and friendliness to the fans. And his voice is steady and pleasant to listen to, whether he's singing harmony with the other guys, or singing on his own.

The "Live and Acoustic at Park Ave." EP lets Snow Patrol fans hear the band in a different way -- folky, bluesy, and without studio polish. A nice listen.

Snow Patrol says on this EP that they've never really had success playing their songs live acoustically. They're wrong. This is an excellent album, which could only have been made better by making it longer.

Buy this EP. All five songs are well performed, Gary's voice sounds clear as the acoustic guitars, also the sound quality is excellent. Too bad other great songs are missing here. If you like Snow Patrol you should buy this.

I love the record because I'm a huge snow patrol fan. Don't expect anything out of the ordinary. The songs that they play here sound pretty much the same acoustically as they do electric. If you want a variety of snow patrol music (no covers, disappointingly), this is a good purchase.