coldplay

well i’ll do a big weekend entry but for now i’ll post this picture from just before the concert start at GM place. fantastic performance from coldplay indeed.
i would have loved to have taken pictures inside. many people did, but i did not because it said on the ticket “no pictures, no video, no audio.” i had to respect that, but after seeing many cameras, i got to wondering if that was something that ticketmaster prints on tickets by default. i know not all of the tickets were issued from the same place and so i was wondering if all the tickets had that printed on them.
then i pondered the significance of the notice. why would they say such a thing on a ticket? why would they not want pictures taken? i understand the audio — they were performing new material during the concert that could have been leaked to the internet. and video. ditto. but pictures .. the show was amazing visually. they had one screen up for each band member (4) and the screens were projecting black and white video from cameras positioned around the stage. there were no cameramen, just positioned cameras. the intelligent lighting was rich — very vivid colour and it looked great with the screens and so on.
the opening act was rather bizarre. okay.. there was this band named “the music” who opened. i have heard since then that they are from texas. they played lilith-fair type music, pretty slow and drawn out. that’s okay, that’s good opening music. “the music” was not even on the bill at first, but then we saw a poster that said they were going to be playing. supah. lovely. so “the music” got off of the stage and then everyone was waiting for coldplay to get on.
a band got on the stage, but it was not coldplay. i am not sure who it was. they were not even on the updated bill. they didn’t mention their name — perhaps on purpose. it was one of the worst performances i have ever seen. some rock band with a crazy drummer that barely kept time, a lead singer that danced like a raver, sung like sting in some songs, and james in others, and basically put me to sleep until their final strobe light solo at the end of their set. that was rather irritating.
coldplay themselves were awesome. their set went by really quick, but it turned out to be just under an hour and a half. they played almost all the favourites, except for my favourite song by them which is track 9 (i believe) off of the first album. i can’t remember what it’s called but it’s a good one. there were singalongs, there were rocking choons, and there were mellow choons. 15,000 people were flooded with a spectacular arrangement of yellow lights as coldplay executed their fantastic performance of Yellow. everyone was on their feet for that one. like all the big dj’s, they encored with “clocks,” their own original and brilliant live mix.
it was over before i knew it and that was that. great birthday trip indeed!