I've seen Coldplay once, last Summer early on their XYZ tour and in some ways, their set reminded me a bit at least superficially of U2 during the Unforgettable Fire tour.
Really though, the show was alright but nothing nearly as good as even the worst U2 show I've witnessed in the 25 years of seeing them.
Now bear in mind, while I like much of their music and have all 3 albums, I wouldn't call myself a serious fan of the band so my perspective is completely unbiased and a bit uninformed when it comes to the specifics of the band.
The show started off strong but after the second tune "Yellow," things kinda settled into monotony for the next 45 minutes or so. At one point halfway through the show playing to a packed but really listless amphitheater, singer Chris Martin almost apologetically said that his band is as "soft rock as it gets" and went on to say the next few songs would be so soft, it could be called "feather rock." The show picked up a bit late in the set when they played an acoustic version of some song they claimed to have written for Johnny Cash who died before he could record it along with a decent version of Cash's "Ring of Fire."
While there's some indication listening to their albums that Coldplay wanna be the next U2 at least superficially, it's in parts of their live show where that point becomes crystal clear. Problem is, Coldplay is to U2 what Journey is to Led Zeppelin. When they closed their main set with an extended, almost "Where The Streets Have No Name" style epic version of "Clocks,"the audience really came alive, but unlike U2, Coldplay really only have maybe 3 songs that really are decent classics to the casual listener like myself while the rest are similar sounding, uplifting/whiner tunes so if you're a casual fan like my wife and I are as well as what appeared to be a large portion of the audience, it's slooooow going most of the show. Everyone seated around us came and went several times for beer and liquor runs and many people were heading back to their cars before the encore.
And Martin's stage presence and shtick is probably among the lamest stuff I've seen a singer pull off on a stage in a long time. Sometimes he'd do this awkward one-legged hop/dance thing that he must have learned from Ashley Simpson. When he plays the piano, he either hunches over it like he's suffering from some kind of skeletal disease or he dry humps it on the seat like he's either a dog with worms dragging ass on the carpet or he's cornholing the keyboard like a rabbit. The rest of the band are nondescript players who look like Starbucks regulars.
The stage and visual production was pretty sparse, mostly just a large curved video wall behind the band that displayed abstract images of star fields and mostly b/w images of the band.
All in all, one of the more disappointingly boring shows I've seen in years.
T.B.
