11.12.08

I’m just waiting til the shine wears off…

Posted in My Immaculate Taste in Music at 1:45 pm by Adriene

Last night, Jeff and I had one of our rare date nights and saw Coldplay at Philips Arena. If you know me even remotely well, you know that I’m a pretty rabid fan of theirs. I’ve been looking forward to the concert for a while now, and I’ve been almost giddy with anticipation for this for about a month now.

We got down to Philips around 6:00 with the hopes that we’d be able to sneak in a nice dinner at McCormick and Schmick’s, but that was thwarted when we got there to find an hour and a half wait ahead of us. We also tried Taco Mac, but the line was out the door. So, Food Court at CNN Center it was! Ah well. We have an anniversary coming up, so maybe we can go somewhere nicer for that.

The opener was a band called Sleepercar, which is apparently a side project of Jim Ward, formerly of Sparta. On the Jeff Holland Scale for Grading Opening Bands (JHSfGOB, where a 10 equals “OH MY GOD I HAVE TO BUY THEIR CD RIGHT NOW” and a 1 equals “Your singing is SO BAD that you make me want to take my finger, push it through my eyeball into my brain, and swirl it around for a while” [bonus points if you can place that quote]), I’d give them a 7. Fairly enjoyable, but alt-country isn’t really my thing, and they at least sounded pleasing.

Coldplay took the stage around 8:45, and the crowd was immediately on its feet. The set was a pretty good mix of old and new, flipping back and forth between standards like “Clocks” and “Speed of Sound” to some of the newer stuff from Viva La Vida. The stage setup was really cool, I thought, with a separate “crowd stage” set up in the back corner of the arena that the band used to do a small acoustic set towards the end of the show. In all, I thought it was a great show, and probably about equal to when Jeff and I saw them in 2005. There were some things I liked better about this show (it was more music-heavy than banter-heavy like the last show), and some things I liked less (the odd techno-set they did in the middle where they ruined “God Put A Smile Upon Your Face” and “Talk.”) I will say this - even if you hate Viva La Vida, the songs on that CD play VERY well to an arena. I actually got chills when they started the title track, and probably my favorite part of the entire show was “Lovers in Japan,” complete with technicolor butterfly confetti streaming from the rafters and Chris Martin exuding Bono-like energy as he ran around the stage.

Here’s the set list with a few comments:

Life in Technicolor - I actually immediately thought this would be a great intro song when I first picked the CD up. I was not disappointed.
Violet Hill
Clocks
In My Place
Speed of Sound
Cemeteries of London - The crowd REALLY got into this one - “singing la la la la la la la ley…”
Chinese Sleep Chant - It was interesting hearing them pair songs differently at the concert than they did on the CD.
42
Fix You - I was actually a little surprised they didn’t save this one for an encore. Though I’m glad they did a completely different encore set than when we saw them three years ago - some bands get in a rut.
Strawberry Swing

Techno Mini-Set:
God Put a Smile Upon Your Face - I leaned over to Jeff halfway through this and told him that I thought I could hear Scott yelling obscenities all the way from Louisiana.
Talk - I was not so much really a fan of either of these versions.

Green Eyes - I’ve noticed that they always try to do a little something extra for the Atlanta crowd on their tours, and this was their little gift to us this time, I guess. Chris said they hadn’t played it at all on this tour yet, and he mused that it was “total sh*t” as he fumbled over the first couple of notes.
Postcards from Far Away
Viva la Vida - This seriously gave me goosebumps. So beautiful live.
Lost!

Acoustic Set from “Crowd Stage”:
The Scientist
Death Will Never Conquer - Will sang lead on this one. The crowd loved it!

(Dance Remix of Viva La Vida played between main set and first encore)

First Encore:
Politik
Lovers in Japan - Probably my favorite moment of the show. This song plays excellently to an arena. If I say anything more, I’ll wind up gushing, so I’ll stop now.
Death and All His Friends

Second Encore:
Yellow - People started leaving after Death and All His Friends, but Jeff and I knew better - they hadn’t done this song yet, and I knew it had to show up at some point. When the house lights didn’t come up, I stayed put in my seat.

(The Escapist played as the band exited the stage)

In all, a pretty darn good show, I thought. It’s still hard to find another show that will hold up to my experience in Chicago seeing U2 back in 2005, but Coldplay never fails to pull the crowd completely in to their shows. I’ve definitely got the whole post-concert depression going on today.

PS - SCOTT, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO COMMENT IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE NICE. SO THERE. Haha!

Permalink