Bangor boy Gary Lightbody and co are finally ready to unveil its successor, entitled Eyes Open, and they decided to warm up for its release with a sold out US club tour (you can catch them in Dublin Castle at the end of the month). Here, they still generate more curiosity than sales, although that might be about to change.

Played live, and interspersed with lashings of Final Straw favourites, the new record sounds like Monsieur Lightbody is keeping his eyes on the prize, effortlessly banging out one euphoric indie charmer after another, piling on the charm and rocking his lanky socks off; even wheeling out local gal Martha Wainwright to duet on Eyes Open standout 'Set The Fire To The Third Bar'.

The assembled punters, which included the obligatory quartet of drunken English wankers slamming into uptight Americans (who have space issues at the best of times), lapped up every minute.

That said, we're not too sure about this alarming trend where every second person in the audience is busy filming the entire gig on their mobile phones or digital camerasf Can't they just, like, listen to the music?

We're a bit old fashioned like that.

Anyway, Snow Patrol kick Coldplay ass. And our inner indie kid went home very happy.

Spare a thought, however, for supporting act Republic Of Loose, who . . . minus the evangelical following they pull back home . . . fell somewhat flat with the laid back NYC crowd, despite lead singer Michael Pyro's reliably witty banter.

Calling your crowd a bunch of 'homos' doesn't necessarily always do the trick, dude.