Concert Review: Coldplay

November 19th, 2008. American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas
Fellow Concert goer: Colin Chisholm
Headliner: Coldplay
Supporting: Sleeper Car, Jon Hopikins

Well the show was almost four months ago, but I never did a proper concert review. So here it is. Now first of all I must say that I was a huge Coldplay fan in high school, but don't listen to them nearly as much as I used to. But I knew they put on a great live show, so when Colin told me he bought tickets to Coldplay and wanted me to come down, I couldn't pass. Even if the tickets were over $100. We were pretty excited on the way to the Cold Play show (inside joke). I was going to wear a Coldplay t-shirt. But I didn't want to be that guy who goes to the show and sees old men wearing the same shirt as him. So I wore my Feist shirt instead.
The opening band was Sleeper Train. Can't say I cared for them that much. The next act was a DJ, Jon Hopkins I think. I enjoyed him much more as he played a lot of ambient sounding electronica stuff that was synced with cool video displays. The animated videos were sort of twisted and weird reminding me of the Paranoid Android video. I don't think other people really enjoyed his set as I heard comments like "this isn't music" and the like on the floor.
Next came the main act: Coldplay. It was pretty epic the way they came out. A roadie was on the stage getting people to sway their arms back and forth as classical music was being played. The music picked up, hands went back and forth faster, then finally Coldplay came onto stage and went right into Life In Technicolor. What a great way to open the show, everybody was going nuts. And it was one of those moments where it was hard to believe that you were actually seeing Coldplay. Unlike alot of shows I've been to, they didn't play a bunch of new songs then the favourites. Instead they played the hit single Violet Hill second, followed by Clocks, In My Place, and Speed of Sound. In My Place was a lot of fun, just singing along at the top of my lungs and punching my hand in the air everytime the "yeaahhhhh, how long must we wait" line was sung. Being about half way back on the floor it was hard at times to see. But luckily they played a lot on the b-stage. The only major obstruction was that I couldn't really see Jonny Buckland well. During Fix You, Colin discovered that the projector for that song was behind us. So we started making hand shadows on the screen. It was hilarious. He was making the symbol for a band 3oh3. I was making a cheesey heart. Watch youtube videos of the song and you'll see my hand punch up as I jump up and down during the song. Its funny more people didn't discover they could be having fun on the big screen like we were.
After the later on in the first main set, they went out onto the end of the b-stage which conviniently was on the side that we could see best. They played techno versions of God Put A Smile Upon Your Face and Talk turning the AAC into a club with laser lighting and thumping bass. After that the rest of the band left, and it was just Chris alone at the piano doing an acoustic version of The Hardest Part followed by the then unreleased piano song Postcards From Away. Then the full band played Viva La Vida, which was also alot of fun as everybody in the building was singing along at the top of their lungs. They closed the main set with Lost! which must have resonated in the soul of this really drunk, really short guy in front of us. Since after every song he would just yell out "just because I'm losIN!" And that was it. Quite hilarious. That man was epic. After the show he ran into the hall and did this insane dance/jump/seizure then ran off into the blue.
After this they dissapeared for a few minutes only to reappear and go up into the crowd at the top of the lower bowl really close to where we were. They played an acoustic version of the Scientist followed by Will singing Death Will Never Conquer. I enjoyed this part just because this was the closest the band was to us all night, and I was able to get some good pictures.
For the first encore they opened it with Politik which has to be one of the best songs ever written to be played in an arena. Me and Colin were going nuts during it, such a great song. Then next they played my least favourite song from the new album: Lovers In Japan. But my dislike for the song didn't matter when tonnes and tonnes of confetti butterflies were blown into the crowd. The entire song. It was specatacular. They then ended the encore with Death And All His Friends.
But what is a Coldplay show without Yellow? Not a Coldplay show. So they came out and played Yellow in the final encore. As cheesey as the song might be, its still a bucketload of fun.
So the final verdict: It was an awesome show. Coldplay are definitely pros at touring. They have great sound, great visuals, and just an overall great show. I intentionally avoided reading anything about any of the tour, so it was nice to be surpsided. Things like the balls that had cool visuals on them, or them doing the techno set, or going into the crowd to play songs.

coldplaying link
Setlist Life In Technicolor
Violet Hill Clocks
In My Place
Speed Of Sound
Cemeteries Of London
Chinese Sleep Chant
42
Fix You
Strawberry Swing
God Put A Smile Upon Your Face (techno version)
Talk (techno version)
The Hardest Part
Postcards From Far Away (piano instrumental)
Viva La Vida
Lost!
The Scientist (acoustic)
Death Will Never Conquer (acoustic - Will singing)
Viva La Vida (remix interlude)
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Politik
Lovers In Japan
Death And All His Friends
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Yellow
The Escapist (outro)