"Crack the Shutters" is a song by Northern Irish–Scottish alternative rock band Snow Patrol, released in different regions on different dates in December 2008 as the second single of their fifth album, A Hundred Million Suns (2008).

"Crack the Shutters" is also the name of a photography exhibition held by Bradley Quinn which primarily featured his photos taken at Snow Patrol concerts.

[3] In an interview with The Sunday Times, he said, "The problem I've always had with writing about love is that you don't really stop and think about it when it's occurring.

The winning entry was used on the official website only remix version of the single and the band themselves chose the winner.

[4] The 7-inch vinyl, which had a limited release featured a cover of Elbow's "One Day Like This", recorded on Jo Whiley's "Live Lounge on Tour".

In spite of this, he criticized Snow Patrol for "established the kind of ruthless commercial formula more commonly associated with corporations like Microsoft or Starbucks."

He also said that "the first single back is always a semi-rocky, fidgety beast - as if to reassure people they are still an indie band at heart, you know - and is swiftly followed by a big, sweltering, lovelorn ballad designed to make housewives melt and bring US television executives in search of a season finale running to them with blank cheques."

[17] The Sunday Mail's Avril Cadden, though called the song "nothing new and typical Snow Patrol", but defended it, saying that it has "a cracking tune and the best from that album."

He wrote that the single sounded similar to their earlier work, and that it "chugs along from intimate, piano-driven verses to choruses that are supposed to coax the mobile phones out of punters' pockets at their arena gigs."

[23] Till date, the single has spent a total of seventy weeks on record charts around the world.

[24] The music video for the song was shot after the band finished the Take Back the Cities whistle-stop tour.

As the song reaches its chorus, the camera zooms out quickly to show the whole band and a crowd of people are shown running past.

"Crack the Shutters" is also the name of an exhibition held at the annual Trans Festival, organized by the Urban Arts Academy.

[52] Held at Gallery 2[53] of the Waterfront Hall in Belfast on 8 July 2009 until the end of the month, the exhibition featured photographer Bradley Quinn's series of Snow Patrol concert photos, both onstage and offstage.

[52][54] Bradley is the brother of Snow Patrol drummer Jonny Quinn and was classmates with Gary Lightbody in school.

9, who supported Snow Patrol during their UK & Ireland Arena Tour of February–March 2009 also played a concert, which was open to all ages.

[52] To mark the event, SP.com organized a competition to give away five signed and unframed limited edition prints of Bradley's work.