The lure of the gimmick is never to be underestimated.

Playing two gigs in one day is tempting fate more than strictly necessary, even if you’re Snow Patrol and you have an album to promote.

And if one show is in Edinburgh and the other in London, tears must follow. So it proved.

After their Scottish lunchtime show, a delayed flight meant that not only did Snow Patrol have to mingle with the great unwashed on a Luton to Kings Cross Thameslink but their audience had to wait in the foyer or in the outside chill while the band readied themselves for what turned out to be a hour-long, encore-free set.

Their volume may have been cruelly set to distortion level but the more intimate the venue, the more attractive a proposition Snow Patrol become.

Leader Gary Lightbody leavened his lovelorn angst with a cheery, sweary compere act, even when passive-aggressively berating the audience.

The new material was balanced by some hits.

That new material is much like the old but with added intricacy.

The 15-minute epic The Lightning Strike was cravenly truncated to a five-minute segment; Crack The Shutters had a noble but whopping chorus, while The Golden Floor needing two drummers suggested the craftsmanly gravitas Snow Patrol crave and If There’s A Rocket Tie Me To It was almost as inspired as its title.