Opening for Glaswegian alt-pop/brit rock outfit, Snow Patrol was guitar-less UK trio-of-the-moment, Keane. Hailing from the sleepy East-Sussex town of Battle (as in 1066 and the famous embroilment involving those nasty Normans), Keane’s “overnight” success has been several years in the making.

A rock outfit with no strings (not even a bass player) attached, Keane’s Yellow-esque Somewhere Only We Know has gained an inertia all of its own on Australian radio. Despite this, no-one in attendance had the faintest clue how the boy with the Robbie Williams-cum-Aled Jones voice would fare in a live setting. Someone near me spent time taking bets.

In the end, it took gangly fancy-footworker and singer Tom Chaplin all of ten seconds to set everyone’s minds at rest. Keane may be more-than-palatable ear candy on record. Live, they are spectacular. As Chaplin wove his way around the stage with his fully-extended mic-stand in tow, even the sceptics were won over. With a selection of anthemic songs from recently-released album Hopes And Fears, the daintily scruffy Chaplin knelt before his fold-backs and coaxed the crowd through the poignant She Has No Time, the joyous Sunshine and the rollicking Everybody’s Changing. With more than a dash of Radiohead and Coldplay in the mix, Keane’s music is unquestionably catchy with more hooks than one could normally poke a stick at over the course of a band’s entire career. An exhausting set which received a deservedly welcome reception.

Snow Patrol arrived on-stage fresh from other national appearances. Another band whose “sudden” success has been a long time in the coming, the four “Patrollers” proved the perfect musical compliment to their opening balladsmen. A contagious pop-punk outfit with a penchant for amp-distortion, Snow Patrol are the sort of group whose music you’d like to turn up full volume whilst taking the band members themselves to dinner with your grandparents.

Inexhaustibly dynamic, lead singer Gary Lightfoot’s infectious smile had young and old in good spirits right from Snow Patrol’s neon-light-show entrance. Balancing an all-out guitar frenzy (leaving at least one guitar tech on constant alert) with a tangible sincerity of spirit, Snow Patrol displayed the sort of showmanship-without-arrogance which has proved so fundamental to the exponential swell of their fan-base in recent months. With third album The Final Straw making waves in the UK and now in Australia, Snow Patrol straddle the aesthetic divide between record and live performance with ease.

With an uncanny knack for inciting riotous guitar feuds almost immediately quelled by heartfelt introspection, these Glasgow rockers were as surprising as they were familiar. From the brutal honesty of How To Be Dead and Chocolate to the indulgent misery of Grazed Knees, Snow Patrol threaten at all times to undermine their onstage cheer with a wealth of dark and dejected lyrics. Which is why the practically uplifting Run continues to appear almost from nowhere to stamp its positivity on an otherwise sombre set of imagery. In the video there are flare-torches. In the Hi Fi Bar there were cigarette lighters flickering above the mass of appreciative hearts willing to be pulled out to sea on the happy tide which is Snow Patrol indulging in anthemic rock.

A convincing encore later and alas it was time to depart. A wonderful gig which was an absolute pleasure to attend.