Take Back the Cities Tour Snow Patrol played a short two-day concert tour two days before the release of their album, the tour being named after the single "Take Back the City". The band played in four capital cities in a 48-hour period. During the show, he dedicated "The Golden Floor" to his 15-month-old niece Honey. Following the concert, the band signed copies of the album at HMV Donegall Arcade. The next show in Edinburgh saw a pleased
Paul Wilson return to his home country, Scotland. On the way to the final show in London, Wilson mentioned "Crack the Shutters" as the next single from the album. The band shot the music video a couple of days later. ;Typical set list • "If There's a Rocket Tie Me to It" • "Chocolate" • "Please Just Take These Photos From My Hands" • "Chasing Cars" • "On/Off" • "The Golden Floor" • "Shut Your Eyes" • "Crack the Shutters" • "Open Your Eyes" • "Take Back the City" • "Run" • "What If This Storm Ends?" ;Tour dates
Australian Tour Snow Patrol undertook a small promo tour of Australia in November 2008 to celebrate the album reaching #6 on the Australian charts and getting certified Gold. The tour included a one-off show in Sydney ;Tour dates
US Tour Snow Patrol visited the United States in December to play four
Christmas radio shows and three free shows sponsored by
ShockHound.com. They were joined by
Death Cab for Cutie for a couple of shows. They played a last show for KROQ's Acoustic Christmas concert. At the
Bowery Ballroom concert, the band invited a brother-sister duo they had found on YouTube to sing "
Set the Fire to the Third Bar". ;Typical set list • "If There's a Rocket Tie Me to It" • "Chocolate" • "Please Just Take These Photos From My Hands" • "How to Be Dead" • "Run" • "Set the Fire to the Third Bar" • "The Golden Floor" • "Shut Your Eyes" • "Chasing Cars" • "Make this Go on Forever" • "Crack the Shutters" • "Take Back the City" ;Encore ;Tour dates
UK & Ireland Arena Tour Ahead of the Snow Patrol's UK & Ireland Arena Tour, the band played a one-off intimate show at the
Apple Store on
Regent Street in
London on Friday 13 February. The performance was released as a live
EP called
iTunes Live from London on the iTunes Store a week later. Snow Patrol kicked off their UK & Ireland Arena Tour on 22 February 2009 at the Bournemouth International Centre in
Bournemouth. The tour lasted one month and featured a number of support acts. The band's website reported that the band had hand-picked their favorite new artists to support them on the tour. Longtime friend of the band Miriam Kaufmann toured with the band and sang lead female vocals on "Set the Fire to the Third Bar", which originally featured
Martha Wainwright. On 9 March, Gary Lightbody & Nathan Connolly appeared as guests in Iain Archer's set at the
Ulster Hall, Belfast, which was hosting "Do You Remember the First Time?" a one-off event by
BBC Across The Line. Lightbody wrote a blog about the other artists that appeared at the event later. The last show of the tour had the band's friends & family and the Northern Irish Football squad in the 9,000 strong audience. The band played to an estimated 200,000 fans on the tour, which is their biggest to date. The tour constantly featured the sixteen-minute-long "The Lightning Strike" as an
encore. For the performance, a high definition sixteen-minute animation was played on a 60×40 ft
projection screen as the band performed the song. The animation featured
origami in the style that appears on the album artwork for
A Hundred Million Suns. The film was created by Undabo Studios and Atticus Finch and took three months to make. ;Typical set list • "If There's a Rocket Tie Me to It" • "Chocolate" • "Hands Open" • "Spitting Games" • "How to Be Dead" • "The Golden Floor" • "You Could Be Happy" • "Run" • "Make this Go on Forever" • "Shut Your Eyes" • "Chasing Cars" • "Set the Fire to the Third Bar" • "Crack the Shutters" • "Take Back the City" • "Open Your Eyes" ;Encore: ;Tour dates
European Tour Snow Patrol kicked off the European leg of the tour on 18 June. This leg of the tour saw the band visit Sweden, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Switzerland & France. Various artists supported the band throughout the tour. It was later announced that the show in Hamburg was cancelled due to "personal reasons". The show was rescheduled to 29 July, which was a part of the Open R Festival. The show at Stuttgart's
Porsche Arena "The Lightning Strike" made an appearance again in the German and Austrian shows, though it was not played in Sweden.
Typical set list • "If There's a Rocket Tie Me to It" • "Chocolate" • "Hands Open" • "How to Be Dead" • "The Golden Floor" • "You Could Be Happy" • "An Olive Grove Facing the Sea" • "Run" • "Somewhere a Clock is Ticking" • "Make this Go on Forever" • "Shut Your Eyes" • "Chasing Cars" • "Crack the Shutters" • "Take Back the City" • "Open Your Eyes" ;Encore: ;Tour dates
North American tour Snow Patrol returned to the United States and Canada in September–October to play a full-length tour. The shows coincided with shows that saw Snow Patrol support U2 at the
360° Tour. The tour commenced 10 September and finished 20 October and spanned 22 dates across various locations. Following the positive response following the shows at Nashville (during supporting Coldplay on the Viva la Vida Tour), the tour also saw the band return to the city for a headlining show. American rock band
Plain White T's supported the band on all dates. The band also appeared on the
Late Show with David Letterman on 24 September 2009 to perform during the tour. In Portland, Lightbody took a walk in the city and visited
Powell's Books, which he described as "his favorite bookshop in the world". He picked up a couple of copies of his favorite book,
Grab Onto Me Tightly as if I Knew the Way by Bryan Charles, among others for friends Lightbody later wrote a blog for the official website describing his Portland experience, and also revealed plans of side-projects
Listen... Tanks! and
Tired Pony. ;Encore: ;Tour dates ;Notes • † Concert was initially held at the Myth Nightclub, but the venue was changed as the club closed down. The band was next showcased on
WRNR-FM, and Lightbody and Connolly played an acoustic set as a part of 'Rams Head on Stage'. The same day, they played a three-song acoustic in-studio performance for
WRFF. The band later played a set at the Houndstooth Pub, which they partly own, for the radio station
WRXP. In Atlanta, the band played an acoustic intimate show for
Dave FM. In October 2009, Lightbody played an acoustic set for KINK FM. In Seattle, Lightbody again did a set for
KMTT, performing obscure songs like "Reading Heaney to Me" and "Fifteen Minutes Old". In Oakland, they played an acoustic promo set for
KFOG. In Toronto, they did a set at Studio Q for
CBC. ;Tour dates
Reworked Tour on 24 November 2009.Snow Patrol played a special tour at the end of 2009, dubbed the "Reworked Tour". Drummer Jonny Quinn had initially revealed plans for such a tour in an interview before. Members on the Snow Patrol mailing list initially received an e-mail revealing details of the tour, which said that the band will be playing re-worked versions of songs spanning their whole career, as well as songs from
The Reindeer Section. saying there's a "never before heard them" vibe to it. The band used strings, brass sections, and choirs to rework their songs. Nathan Connolly warned fans to not expect to hear the hits as they were. The band visited a south London studio to rehearse the reworked songs, where they experimented with styles as
country,
motown and
heavy metal. The band said that the reworking of the songs is not because they're inferior. They hoped that trying something new may bring them more credibility, and made it clear it was not something to "look cool". They also felt that they had done plenty of "typical" concerts, and wanted to put in more effort to give the fans more value for their money. The tour began in mid-November and continued till early December. Snow Patrol played without any support act, so as to play the maximum number of songs possible. They took the stage twice, the whole show being divided in two-halves with an interval in between. The first half spanned about 40 minutes and featured softer, older material. The "louder" songs began from about halfway in the second half. The band was accompanied by guests on-stage. Though 18–20 musicians were initially reported, Other guests included members of
Belle & Sebastian,
Teenage Fanclub and
Idlewild,
harpist Jennifer Crook (on vocals and harp) and longtime friend
Johnny McDaid. At the Royal Albert Hall concert on 24 November, Snow Patrol brought in actor
James Corden to sing the female vocal parts on "Set the Fire to the Third Bar". Lightbody had previously been impressed by the actor's vocal ability, seeing him singing at a Concert for CARE charity show. At the after-party of the
Children in Need concert, a drunk Lightbody asked him if he would be interested to sing with the band on-stage. Corden initially thought Lightbody would not remember, and agreed to the invitation. Lightbody, in his blog on the official website wrote that he was very nervous on stage at the first concert in Brighton. He said that he was feeling so for much longer than the time, when the band had started playing their earliest gigs. and revealed that "Set the Fire to the Third Bar" was set to go through many arrangements during the tour. The band tried to vary the set lists for each show, definitely so where they played multiple nights. The band played two shows, and then returned to Europe to kick start the European leg of the tour. Apart from playing at the festival, the band also appeared at the
IPL opening ceremony to play a short set. Snow Patrol headlined
BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend at
Lydiard Park,
Swindon on 9 May and 10. Gary Lightbody and Nathan Connolly personally joined
Chris Moyles on his
radio show to announce details of the event. The band was the main headlining act on the 9th. among others. The band played their set on the main stage on the last day, after which they joined
Coldplay as a support act on their
Viva la Vida Tour. The band further played at the
Donauinselfest in the end of June. Snow Patrol was one of the acts at the
iTunes Festival, which was held throughout July. The band played on 5 July and was the co-headlining act for the day. The performance was released as a digital EP on the iTunes Store as ''
iTunes Live: London Festival '09''. The band later co-headlined
Oxegen 2009 in July along with newly re-formed
Blur. The band joined Blur again to co-headline the
T in the Park, just two days after the Oxegen Festival. The band returned to Germany to headline the Sonnenrot Festival. The show, though had to be cancelled due to torrential rains. The band followed with
Rockhal, T-Mobile Street Gig, Stimmen Festival and Open R Festival. In August, the band will play at the
Sziget Festival, and the
Pukkelpop Festival. After the band's concert at the Street Gig in Dettenheim, lead singer Gary Lightbody broke a rib in a
go-karting accident. Lightbody was livid with himself: "I had my very best idiot trousers on in Germany at the Street gig and we did a go-kart track in Dettenheim. I did say beforehand that I shouldn't go on them as firstly I shouldn't be in charge of anything that can go over 20 miles an hour and secondly I am the most accident-prone idiot in the western world. Did I heed my own advice? Did I fuck! So on I went and crash after crash later; finishing on a particularly nasty one that put took me to hospital where I discovered I have a broken rib. Sweet." He made a full recovery and resumed touring in a few days. Months later, in October 2009, Lightbody revealed the "truth" behind his crash, admitting that he cannot drive. He went on the explain the exact details of what had happened: "At the very last corner, I skidded to miss Jonny (Quinn) and I smashed into the side of the wall and actually came out of the go-kart. It was hilarious - for everyone who was watching. Everyone thought it was just me being me, 'Ah...leave him, he's fine.' But, an hour later, I was in hospital. It was good actually having a real injury rather than all the ones I make up in my head." He also admitted his bandmates did not believe he was actually hurt, as he was a "drama queen". The band was initially booked as a support act to
Oasis at the UK
V Festival, playing the "Weston Saturday/Hylands Sunday" stage, However, Oasis frontman
Liam Gallagher became ill with viral
laryngitis, and Oasis pulled out. Snow Patrol then filled in the headlining spot and played an extended set. The band's set was available to listen live and uninterrupted through
Absolute Radio's LiveAmp application for the
iPhone. In November 2009, they played at the
Avo Session Basel.
Sandi Thom and
Emilíana Torrini supported them at the concert. ;Tour Dates ==As a support act==