Should We Carry On?
Coldplay
Philips Arena
Atlanta
November 11, 2008
It's fair to say that since their first album, Coldplay have managed to keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger, as has their sound. I'm not sure if Tuesday night's show at Atlanta's Philips Arena (also home to Atlanta's Thrashers football team) was actually the biggest show I've ever attended in terms of crowd capacity, but it sure felt like it. You'll see what I mean from the photos - wall-to-wall people!
Despite their meteoric rise, Coldplay still seem to have some detractors. I remember one particularly nasty review after their last Melbourne show, wondering what its point was. One Michael Dwyer seemed to suggest that the quality of their music wasn't really worthy of the huge following they seem to have acquired. He also went on to equate their enormous popularity with some sort of mass consumerism on the part of their fans. Huh?
Regardless, no matter how big their shows get, it's testament to the tightness of the band, and the charm of Chris Martin, that you still get a strange sense of intimacy from such a grandiose show. To my mind, I think it's that Martin has the ability to make you really believe what he's singing about. I don't know if he really does mean every single word, but he certainly comes across as sincere, humble and genuine.
Tuesday night's show was without a doubt, dominated by tracks from the most recent album, Viva La Vida - on the way home we were trying to figure out what the omissions were, and could come up with only two. Appropriately, they started off with the instrumental "Life In Technicolour", which took place entirely behind a thin screen in front of the band, so all the crowd could see were their silhouettes (anyone who saw Sigur Ros a couple of years ago at Hamer Hall will know what I mean). Next up was the big "Violet Hill" and Rush Of Blood To The Head's "Clocks". Perhaps we felt it more because of our huge distance from the stage, but probably the only complaint of the evening was the very dimly lit stage. Despite the impressive lighting, it seemed like everything around, but not on the stage was illuminated. This meant that those of us high up in the rafters really had to rely on the big screens in order to see much at all, which even then was really dark. Fortunately, this seemed to improve as the show went on.
Some of the night's best moments came towards the latter part of the set, including "Lovers In Japan" during which confetti spilled from the roof onto the crowd, and a restrained version of "The Scientist", which the band performed whilst standing amongst the crowd.
One of my favourite moments was Chris Martin sitting at the piano alone, doing "Green Eyes", which he prefaced by saying that they hadn't attempted it at all during this tour, so chances are it would be "absolutely s**t." Halfway through, he asked, "Should we carry on?" Of course, even if it had been a total shemozzle (which it wasn't at all), the crowd would have lapped it up anyway. Versions of the newer "Cemeteries of London", "Lost!" and "42", all stuck closely to what can be found on record, whilst the older "Talk" and "God Put A Smile On Your Face" were given the techno treatment. I'm not sure too many other bands could get away with trying that out on a packed crowd.
Like all solid shows, the time flew and sadly, the one and only encore consisted of one number, which just happened to be "Yellow". Although this was the only song they performed from their first album, given that it was Coldplay's first big "hit" all those many moons ago, going back to where it all began seemed an appropriate way to end the night.
Philips Arena
Atlanta
November 11, 2008
It's fair to say that since their first album, Coldplay have managed to keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger, as has their sound. I'm not sure if Tuesday night's show at Atlanta's Philips Arena (also home to Atlanta's Thrashers football team) was actually the biggest show I've ever attended in terms of crowd capacity, but it sure felt like it. You'll see what I mean from the photos - wall-to-wall people!
Despite their meteoric rise, Coldplay still seem to have some detractors. I remember one particularly nasty review after their last Melbourne show, wondering what its point was. One Michael Dwyer seemed to suggest that the quality of their music wasn't really worthy of the huge following they seem to have acquired. He also went on to equate their enormous popularity with some sort of mass consumerism on the part of their fans. Huh?
Regardless, no matter how big their shows get, it's testament to the tightness of the band, and the charm of Chris Martin, that you still get a strange sense of intimacy from such a grandiose show. To my mind, I think it's that Martin has the ability to make you really believe what he's singing about. I don't know if he really does mean every single word, but he certainly comes across as sincere, humble and genuine.
Tuesday night's show was without a doubt, dominated by tracks from the most recent album, Viva La Vida - on the way home we were trying to figure out what the omissions were, and could come up with only two. Appropriately, they started off with the instrumental "Life In Technicolour", which took place entirely behind a thin screen in front of the band, so all the crowd could see were their silhouettes (anyone who saw Sigur Ros a couple of years ago at Hamer Hall will know what I mean). Next up was the big "Violet Hill" and Rush Of Blood To The Head's "Clocks". Perhaps we felt it more because of our huge distance from the stage, but probably the only complaint of the evening was the very dimly lit stage. Despite the impressive lighting, it seemed like everything around, but not on the stage was illuminated. This meant that those of us high up in the rafters really had to rely on the big screens in order to see much at all, which even then was really dark. Fortunately, this seemed to improve as the show went on.
Some of the night's best moments came towards the latter part of the set, including "Lovers In Japan" during which confetti spilled from the roof onto the crowd, and a restrained version of "The Scientist", which the band performed whilst standing amongst the crowd.
One of my favourite moments was Chris Martin sitting at the piano alone, doing "Green Eyes", which he prefaced by saying that they hadn't attempted it at all during this tour, so chances are it would be "absolutely s**t." Halfway through, he asked, "Should we carry on?" Of course, even if it had been a total shemozzle (which it wasn't at all), the crowd would have lapped it up anyway. Versions of the newer "Cemeteries of London", "Lost!" and "42", all stuck closely to what can be found on record, whilst the older "Talk" and "God Put A Smile On Your Face" were given the techno treatment. I'm not sure too many other bands could get away with trying that out on a packed crowd.
Like all solid shows, the time flew and sadly, the one and only encore consisted of one number, which just happened to be "Yellow". Although this was the only song they performed from their first album, given that it was Coldplay's first big "hit" all those many moons ago, going back to where it all began seemed an appropriate way to end the night.
posted by yossarian | 3:06 PM
1 Comments:
From your photos the crowd looks enormous and the stage so small (sort of like the U2 concert when we could spot the ant-sized figures of Bono and crew!).
Wow that's fantastic- how did the Atlanta show compare with the Melbourne one so many moons ago? Isn't it strange how the memory of seeing them and radiohead is being somewhat upgraded to 2008 instead of 2004/2006?
Hope you're well!
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