Who: Coldplay • The Music
My friend Eric drove down to Columbus from Michigan tonight for the long-awaited Coldplay show at Promowest. Though Coldplay is so obviously a sit-down band, the tickets were general admission, so the plan was for him to arrive in the early afternoon so that we could grab an early dinner and be in line early for an early entrance once the doors opened at 7 PM. But plans are never executed as planned with us, so we didn't actually get to dinner until what must have been 6 or so. After gallons of water and sweet tea, plates of cheese fries and quesadillas and pasta, and lots of eyeing each other coyly, we went to our hotel room to change for the show. But no changing was done and we instead just sat and talked as two friends who haven't seen each other in a few weeks are prone to do.
So finally, sometime after 8, we decided that we should consider heading to the venue. It must have been -20 degrees at that point, but parking was so darn expensive at the hotel that we chose to leave his car there and walk the two blocks to Neil Avenue. Brilliant idea. By the time we arrived, I was peeling windburned skin off of my face right and left, and I had lost three fingers to hypothermia. Okay, not really, but it was cold, brothers and sisters. But Eric had to make some phone calls, so I surveyed the landscape of people hoping to buy extra tickets and watched as one man offered his own up to anyone willing to make his mortgage payment for the month.
Inside, things didn't look so bad for a sold-out show. There were people milling around the merch booth and people walking up and down the stairs to the balcony, but overall, it didn't seem the least bit crowded. Until we looked for the stage and discovered that it was completely hidden by a swarming mass, a madding sea, of college students. Eric took me by the hand and tried to maneuver us through the pile-up, but soon I was feeling very short and rather claustrophobic; a trip to the balcony was in order. We soon found a spot to the left of the stage that looked good and planted ourselves there, only to discover that one of my co-workers and fellow English majors, who I aptly named Hot Matt the Volunteer™, was standing directly beside of us. He informed me that the opening band was all sorts of horrific and that we should be pleased to have missed them, so I didn't feel so bad about holding Eric hostage in our hotel room anymore.
Our view from the balcony was very limited what with two rows of people standing in front of us, but it was ideal in some ways because no one was standing behind us, leaving plenty of room for jousting, a game of pick-up basketball, and breakdancing. However, the only ways that we were able to tell that the band had taken the stage were the dimming of the lights and the scream of the crowd. Honestly, though, the view wasn't too awfully important to me. I could see perfectly the drummer hammering away, but rather than watch him, I chose to close my eyes and take in the music. It was just as lovely as I had expected, complete with charmingly flawed falsetto, stark piano, and catchy guitar riffs. The set began with "Politik", as expected, but the rest was somewhat of a surprise:
I always imagine that bands will know what I'm wanting to hear and plan accordingly, but there was no "Warning Sign" or "Green Eyes" to be found. I suppose that I was bound to be disappointed, though, since I wanted to hear both of the albums in their entirety along with all of the B-sides. That just can't be done in two hours, I suppose. Besides, what they did play couldn't have been better. (Unless, of course, the sound guy had turned down Chris's vocals, which were so loud that they sounded muddy at times.)
But it wasn't just the music that did it for me. The atmosphere was incredible. I'll tell you what—whoever designed the lights is my new personal Jesus. Oranges and yellows and reds soared over the crowd during "Daylight", waves of green danced in midair in "The Scientist", and I swore that I was going to have an epileptic seizure during "Politik" due to all of the flashing white lights. But "Yellow" impressed me most. Early on, I had hoped that no one would be so unimaginative as to simply use all-yellow lights, but they of course did and it was, of course, perfect. It was this bright canary colour, sweeping over the audience and over the projection screens behind the band in swirly patterns.
The screens were the other bit of brilliance on the part of some unknown genius. There were three of them hanging from the ceiling behind the band, but they went unused until the middle of "One I Love", when shots of the drummer, the bassist, and the guitarist were suddenly shown. Not merely head-on but from below and off to the side, creating this wild picture-in-picture-in-picture effect on stage where one could see, for instance, the bassist playing and the image of him playing projected onto the screen behind him, and since the camera below him was at such an angle that it was also picking up the image of the screen, a picture of the screen was being projected onto the screen itself. Wild. The greatest cameras were those at the piano, though—one that saw Chris's hands playing and another his face while he sang. It was so close to him and showed off this beautiful smile when he stopped playing and made us sing along to "Everything's Not Lost". Dangit.
I was a little disappointed in the lack of stage banter between the band members, but then I realised why they weren’t talking to us when Chris began speaking absolute gibberish, the words "fair trade .com" landed on the three huge screens, and the band left the stage. Evidently, the pre-encore set was complete and Coldplay doesn’t actually speak any English. Eric left for a second but returned when he heard a guy near us saying that "Clocks" was going to be the first song in the encore. Sure enough, the band began playing it when they came back but a few moments later, and Eric announced that he had come all of the way to Columbus for the song, only to have his view blocked by some guys in front of us who insisted on jumping around and hugging each other. I shot him The Look™ for claiming to be there to do anything but spend time with me, but some people beside us were sympathetic and offered us their spots along the railing. As I got my first view of the stage in its entirety, I realised exactly how close we were. The couple allowed us to stand there for the rest of the show, which included a second encore with Chris performing solo a song that he wrote for his girlfriend. From the opening chords, I thought that it was going to be ''Green Eyes'', but it was not. And after thinking that, it was a huge let-down. Now, in my experience, the final song is supposed to make me crave more, not crave a nap. The song was pretty enough, but its lyrics were almost lame and it was tediously slow, and for God's sake, don't bands know that they can't end shows with a new song? Surely.
Not to be down on the show, though. It was breathtakingly gorgeous at times and just as gorgeous when it wasn't breathtaking. That Chris can sing, let me tell you. Perfect company, perfect band, perfectly content.
Where: Promowest Pavilion • Columbus, Ohio
When: March 9th, 2003