An Evening with Gary Lightbody: In conversation

Time. Home. Love. Death. Life. These are the themes of Snow Patrol’s No1 album of 2024, The Forest is the Path and of this exclusive live conversation with its lead singer Gary Lightbody presented by Belfast Book Festival. 

Gary will join us this March to discuss his debut non-fiction book The Forest is the Path (HarperCollins, March 2025) with Belfast Book Festival Patron Lucy Caldwell.

Throughout their thirty-year career, Snow Patrol have firmly established themselves as one of the greatest bands of a generation, producing multiple number one hits such as Chasing Cars and Run, boasting a global fanbase and earning several Brit and Grammy award nominations. Their latest album, The Forest is the Path, was released to critical acclaim in September last year, and went straight to Number One.

Now the band’s front man and lyricist Gary Lightbody joins us to tell the stories that inspired the album and a new book that shares its name and is both a prequel and companion piece to this extraordinary record.

At its heart, it tells the story of Gary’s father, Jack, who sadly passed away in 2019, and the numb journey this sent Gary on – the end of which seemed to unlock a part of him that had been dormant until he started to write songs again.

This In Conversation event with Gary will be a testament to the healing powers of music, offering beautiful, humorous, and strikingly raw insight into the emotional journey behind the band’s latest chart-topping album. 

Book Signing to follow the event.

About the Artist

Gary Lightbody is an artist, writer and lead singer of Snow Patrol. This is his first book.

The Belfast Book Festival is run by The Crescent Art Centre. The Festival takes place annually in June. We also run special Belfast Book Festival events year-round.