‘My mum’s in the audience tonight. It’s her first time in London in 30 years,’ announced Snow Patrol lead Gary Lightbody. He proceeded to sing the opening of Journey’s Small Town Girl.

The Northern Irish rocker has come a long way since his small town days and with the help of a great band comfortably fills the Capital’s 02 Arena for three nights. It seems the credit crunch isn’t affecting Snow Patrol fans.

I first began to pay attention to this group when they played the Tsunami Relief concert in Cardiff’s Millennium stadium in 2005. Before then they had seemed like unlikely stadium fillers. But though they aren’t your typical rockers (far too polite and not nearly arrogant enough) they weren’t in the slightest bit fazed by the Welsh capital’s 60,000 strong crowd then. Or so with the 02’s 20,000. In fact, there’s something refreshing about their modest performance.

An impressive back catalogue doesn’t do them any harm either. Now on their fifth album, their hits continue to get more accessible. Chasing Cars and Shut Your Eyes were the predictable favourites, sending the audience into a phone-holding, hand-waving flurry. The gentle You Could Be Happy was beautiful and brought a more intimate edge to the gig. And of course’s there’s Run. Yes, the one that was recently covered by Leona Lewis. There’s something far more satisfying about hearing it sung as intended.

Lesser known songs were brought to life with an animated cartoon-style interlude linked to the theme of new record A Hundred Million Suns. A little self-indulgent, sure but they can be forgiven for that.

Snow Patrol have a knack for an empowering bass line, the kind that instigates a sense of euphoria. Team that with impressive lyrics and a crowd that wants to hear them performed live and it’s hard to go wrong. It was worth Mother Lightbody making that trip to Greenwich.