Twenty years on from the release of Eyes Open, Snow Patrol’s biggest-selling album, Oh Yeah Music Centre celebrates a record that helped take Northern Irish music to the world with a special Classic Album Night as part of Sound of Belfast 2026.
Released in 2006, Eyes Open became the UK’s biggest-selling album of the year, going on to sell over 10 million copies worldwide. Featuring songs including Chasing Cars, Open Your Eyes and Set the Fire to the Third Bar, it remains a significant album in the band’s career.
For this special anniversary celebration, Reevah, Anna Bradley, Nathan O’Regan, Jack Devlin, Ghoul Girl (Lucy Gaffney) and James Gitari (Tribal Ting) will each bring their own interpretations to songs from the album.
Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody has welcomed the celebration:
“We are absolutely over the moon that the Oh Yeah Centre have decided to celebrate the 20th anniversary of our album Eyes Open as part of their Classic Albums night at the Sound Of Belfast Festival.
Every year they pick an album to cover and the so far list is an impressive one (including OK Computer and Astral Weeks), so being in such exalted company is a massive honour.
We’d like to hugely thank all the musicians participating in the night! Hope you have fun with the songs. And all the people going to see it, thank you so much!”
Following previous Classic Album Nights featuring Radiohead’s OK Computer and Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, this year’s event brings together a new line-up of local artists to revisit Eyes Open twenty years on.
