Snow Patrol and Keane cover Oasis as Gallaghers miss V Festival

Chelmsford’s makeshift headliners happy to fill in ‘for best crowd ever’

Snow Patrol covered Oasis on the final night (August 23) of V Festival 2009 at Chelmsford, after they had to fill in as headliners for the illness-stricken band.

Gary Lightbody’s men topped the bill after Liam Gallagher caught viral laryngitis.

To make-up for their absence, the group covered ‘Wonderwall’ and ‘Champagne Supernova’ acoustically during their encore, with frontman Lightbody declaring: “The mighty Oasis should be here tonight!” and telling the crowd not to boo them

Earlier, Snow Patrol had discovered that despite jeers greeting news of Oasis’ cancellation earlier in the day, they were warmly received as headliners by the V Stage crowd.

“Already you’re one of the best crowds we’ve ever played to,” Lightbody declared after just two songs. “It’s a dark, dark time but we’ll try to shed some light on it.”

The band then dedicated ‘Run’ to Elbow, who had played just ahead of Snow Patrol. Lightbody declared them “a national treasure”.

Enjoying loud crowd sing-a-longs throughout their set, ‘Shut Your Eyes’ saw the band played the halves of the V Stage arena off against the other with a series of shout outs.

Following the Oasis covers, Snow Patrol completed their encore with their own ‘Tiny Little Fractures’ and ‘You’re All I Have’.

Snow Patrol played:

‘If There’s A Rocket Tie Me To It’
‘You Could Be Happy’
‘Hands Open’
‘Spitting Games’
‘How To Be Dead’
‘Somewhere There’s A Clock Ticking’
‘Set The Fire To The Third Bar’
‘Make These Go On Forever’
‘Run’
‘Shut Your Eyes’
‘Chasing Cars’
‘It’s Beginning To Get To Me’
‘Take Back The City’
‘Open Your Eyes’
‘Wonderwall’
‘Champagne Supernova’
‘Tiny Little Fractures’
‘You’re All I Have’

Taking the top spot on the 4Music Stage Keane also compensated for Oasis’ absence by covering ‘Cast No Shadow’ acoustically.

The trio thanked fans for choosing to see them over the other headline acts. “We’re immensely proud of every single one of you,” declared frontman Tom Chaplin as they played a set including ‘Everybody’s Changing’, ‘Spiralling’ and ‘You Don’t See Me’ which Chaplin admitted was his favourite Keane song, asking the crowd to hold up lighters and phones and light the place up “like a Christmas tree”.