Redemption

Much to say about Coldplay. I had a conversation with Schmetzger in Portland when I was there in December about Coldplay live. He was pretty critical of their live performance. My only experience was Austin, so as you can read below in the post describing my Austin experience I was having my doubts too. What was missing in Austin was a connection to the crowd and better control over the sound. The sound in Austin was clear, just not loud enough to grab you. Well...

They redeemed themselves with me. BIG TIME. But first a couple of other things.

I sold my extra ticket to a woman for face value. A deal from what I understand. I posted on Craigslist and she was apparently in San Jose on business and wanted to see Coldplay. We exchanged ticket for cash in the lobby of her hotel. The interesting thing was that the ticket was for the seat next to me (I didn't mention this to her at any point). She never showed up. At least she didn't sit next to me. But the cash covered a t-shirt, parking and a sub at Quiznos. I didn't mind at all that she didn't show. Cash doesn't bounce.

Fiona Apple may have broken a few of the key rules of being an opening act.

1. She started early. By the atomic clock of my cell and the clock on the side of the arena, she started her set at 7:51.
2. She played for too long. While opening bands usually play their 5-7 songs and then run off the stage, members of the stage crew ran out as one of her songs drew to a close and grabbed instruments from the band and told her it was time to go.
3. She questioned what she was thinking when she wrote a song. The song, "Criminal," by the way.
4. She gained at least one new fan. Me.

Fiona was phenomenal. I'll save a proper review for another post. I'll also save my revelation about opening acts for another post.

What Schmetzger and I had discussed in December was that a lot of Coldplay's songs just didn't seem like live songs. Great album tracks, great driving music, but not big live music numbers. Perhaps Chris, Guy, Will and Jon were listening, because it was a completely different set list than Austin, which compared with Schmetzger's experience was pretty similar.

They started off with Square One, went right into Politik, Yellow, and Speed of Sound. While I was catching my breath from having my ass kicked by those four songs, they rattled through some songs that might not seem obvious. They inserted "How You See The World" into the set which is a song from "Help: A Day in the Life" a great track live, and a surprise to me. They did their Johnny Cash thing with "'Til Kingdom Come" and "Ring of Fire." They closed the set with "Fix You", which should be (Castpost willing) imbedded in this post or the next post. There will be some more thoughts I share from the show later, but for now, enjoy the clip.