Sophie's Lounge with Snow Patrol, 11.29. 2011

I pressed the snooze button (or so I thought) and woke up two hours later to realize I almost missed Snow Patrol. Radio Sophie was hosting Sophie's Lounge with lunch at West Coast Tavern and an acoustic performance by half of Snow Patrol in the Birch North Park Theatre. Don't you love the era we live in? I mean, I got home about an hour and a half ago and already have the videos for you to watch. One day, that's going to seem like forever, like early fax machines, but for now, I'll take it.

The band is doing a small radio-station only promotional tour for Fallen Empires, their newest record that will be released stateside on January 10, 2012. The record is fantastic (available in the UK and thus all over the interwebs), and you can pre-order it now. The band will start touring mostly the UK and Germany in January and February and should be in the U.S. sometime in March/April.

As a promotional event, the band was only going to play three songs from the new record, but instead played a couple older songs, too. I really wanted to hear "Chocolate" but I think that predates most radio airplay. All of the videos are below in a playlist and will play in order of the performance.

1. Called Out In The Dark
2. This Isn't Everything You Are
3. Lifening
4. Just Say Yes
5. Chasing Cars



Thanks again to everyone for this, especially David at West Coast Tavern and Mookie at Radio Sophie. This one was beyond words for me.

Radio Sophie Presents David Gray Live At The Bitter End

It's been almost 10 year since the first time I saw David Gray. He had this little song called "Babylon" that was getting some spins on KPRI and from the very first time I heard it, I was hooked. My first time seeing him was live at Studio West, with about 20 or so people in the room. I remember sitting next to the speaker and when he started singing, tears fell from my eyes, and I had no control over them. That reaction to music doesn't happen very often from me, in fact, the last time it happened was during Radiohead last summer. Anyway, I've seen David Gray live a handful of times now, been to at least 3 meet and greets, and when I found out Sophie was having him play Sophie's Lounge, I had to lie, cheat, beg and steal to get in.

Jennifer White was hosting the Q&A portion of the show, and she was kind enough to plug my blog to the crowd. The station recorded the entire show and you can watch the archive with the interview here.

I didn't record the first song, "Draw The Line", but I got the rest of the set. This is the first single, "Fugitive", off David Gray's forthcoming album Draw The Line, which drops on September 22. Instead of gushing about how magical it was to see David in such an intimate setting, I'll let the videos speak for me.



For photos and the rest of the videos, click 'keep on reading' below.