18-Nov-08: Houston - Tickets, Preview, Meetups, Review/Photos

[Lore]

she won a contest to go there and meet them.. we're waiting for her review :D

[marcdmbfan]

My pics from last night.

[ame=http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcdmbfan/sets/72157609451874819/show/]Coldplay 11/18/08[/ame]

[cold_love23]

great pictures^^ thanks.. and YAY for Chris' hair starting to get that curl/wave to it again!

[kspillers2]

Thankies Lore, I hate it when I have to be off the boards for a couple of days, I miss all the good stuff. I just read about Karen's unbelievable moment in the OK thread. Speechless. Can't wait for more details from both.

[Lore]

My pics from last night.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcdmbfan/sets/72157609451874819/

 

thanks, your pics are great :D

[marcdmbfan]

thanks, your pics are great :D

 

Thanks. A couple of them turned out alright. I wish I had been closer.

[Mimixxx]

Great pictures! :D

[busybeeburns]

Aftermath: Coldplay at Toyota Center

 

 

The problem with Chris Martin isn’t the fact that the Coldplay frontman writes lyrics that resemble something that might come from the diary of a seventh grader who sniffs magic markers (snow, it turns out, is white after all). No, it’s the fact that he almost forces people to take him so goddamn seriously. And the reason is simple: He is a a) rock star; b) a celebrity (or at least married to one); and c) a social activist.

 

People often compare Martin’s motives to those of Bono, but that’s not exactly an apt comparison. Martin seems to be actively trying to dissociate himself from activists like Bono —Bono is a rock star who makes shitty music, but also a social activist who is trying to actually make social changes (Third World debt, etc) — while Martin is a pseudo-rock star who makes shitty music with designs on being perceived to be a social activist.

 

His political rhetoric is foggy - we all got a pamphlet from Oxfam upon entering Toyota Center, but who reads pamphlets? - just like his music. It appeals to people who put value in clichés, and this has turned Martin into a critical punch line (Chuck Klosterman writes extensively about this, most particularly the “fake love” Coldplay songs inevitably engender) and more importantly, a genius.

 

Martin is over-abundantly aware of his own iconography (he wants to be Radiohead), but seems to be entirely unaware that he is ruining for the rest of us every conceivable notion of what is or is not art. Everyone, Aftermath included, has bought into Coldplay's aesthetic for at least one year of their life, most likely the first year they “get a boyfriend” or the first time they “kiss someone,” and that year usually becomes seminal in the construction of what one believes to be real emotion.

 

And that’s dangerous. Dangerous because nothing Coldplay sings about has any relation to reality. It’s contrived bullshit for the sake of sentiment. It’s emotional pedantry masked as poetry. And it’s the continued Oprah-fication of culture that is turning art into a homogenized grayness (think Danielle Steele trying to write Gravity’s Rainbow).

 

Martin’s genius is that he knows people use his music for their own emotional gain - we all see ourselves trying to “fix” someone who will no longer love us. We’ve all wanted “go back to the start” in a relationship that wasn’t working. So as long as Coldplay exists, Coldplay will prosper. And prospering they are.

People go bananas for these guys. Or maybe not bananas, so much as those plastic banana-shaped yellow cylinders that live in brown wicker baskets atop the kitchen tables in houses for sale in River Oaks. That much was evident by the more than 15,000 people at Toyota Center Tuesday night. But those people got something I don’t know they expected - a sanitized nothingness, a rock show that looked and felt like a summer blockbuster (probably starring Will Smith), void of context and connection.

 

Seeing Coldplay is a weird experience.

 

Martin and crew played all the favorites, of course, going from “Violet Hill” right into “Clocks,” which included a boringly opulent laser show where the red and green beams just sat there, beaming their beams onto the beamed. It meant nothing, and felt like a futuristic hospital.

 

“Speed of Sound” was next, where Martin channeled his inner rock star, skipping around the stage like some Superball from a vending machine at a bowling alley. I think this was supposed to be a sort of first-act highlight. But the audience seemed full of only obligatory excitement. Most of them screamed and screamed for the first 30 seconds and then either sat down or started texting and feigned interest - sort of like, "I’m at a rock show, I should probably dance, right?"

 

“Fix You,” Coldplay’s most sing-alongable song, was pretty great, though, with the entire audience singing every single line. It reminded me of The OC episode when that one dude died. Probably the weirdest song of the night, though, was “The Scientist,” where Martin and his three bandmates waded their way through the stands until they finally reached their destination - where else but the cheap seats.

 

Sort of a taking the music to the streets kind of thing, like we really do care about you fans who only paid $50 for tickets. So there they all stood, singing like a multimillionaire French revolutionary peasant-boy barbershop quartet. What we didn’t get at all was Martin interacting with the crowd, except that one bit where he said, “Hey, you’re a four-year-old - this song was written before you were even born!”

 

And then to someone else, “But you’re like, 50… Wow!” The problem with this is that Martin misinterprets age difference as diversity, and the crowd at Toyota Center last night was the least diverse crowd I’ve ever seen at a concert. Coldplay appeals only to a certain group of people - those who are privileged enough to not have to make personal connections to art to help them define their position in the world; those who, when looking into a mirror, see nothing but a face.

 

As the show was coming to a close, I kept asking myself, "I wonder if Chris Martin knows what color the stars are?" Oh, they’re yellow, huh? Got it.

 

More pics at http://blogs.houstonpress.com

[Mimixxx]

Ouch :stunned:

[Jsalyers]

Damn, what an asshole!!!

[SwallowedInSea]

People take music too seriously... like, it's just music that sounds good that a lot of people enjoy. That should be all there is to it. :rolleyes:

[majgirl]

wow that critic was a sh** head...:)

[kspillers2]

Oh Swallowed, I'm afraid with that retort you might be proving his point. ;) JK

But, I AM serious about music and I think MY best argument to his opinion about our Chris & his music it's just simple, "I feel differently". To each his own.

 

 

 

 

...........AND that guy's a tool

[SwallowedInSea]

Yeah, but he goes on about how Chris Martin takes himself too seriously..... isn't he kind of doing the same thing in his writing?

*sigh* Oh well....

[melanieau]

Oh Swallowed, I'm afraid with that retort you might be proving his point. ;) JK

But, I AM serious about music and I think MY best argument to his opinion about our Chris & his music it's just simple, "I feel differently". To each his own.

 

 

 

 

...........AND that guy's a tool

 

Oh Kelly:laugh3::laugh3::laugh3: Here I thought you were going to go all "mom" about this review.....

 

and you're right...MAJOR TOOL:lol:

[coldplay45]

To hell with that review!!! The concert was freaking amazing!!! the best I have ever seen!!!

[gus]

this person obviously dont like coldplay at the beggining so its not a live review is just a i dont like coldplay at all. so poor bastard he went to a concert of a band that he doesnt like how pathetic rofl.

[CookyMnstr]

Damn, what an asshole!!!

 

Great minds think alike, huh?

I kept thinking, you know what that guy sees when HE looks in the mirror?

An asshole, and not 'cause he's pointing it the wrong way.:lol:

[Jsalyers]

Great minds think alike, huh?

I kept thinking, you know what that guy sees when HE looks in the mirror?

An asshole, and not 'cause he's pointing it the wrong way.:lol:

Exactly, great minds do think a like!!!

 

:laugh3:Thats funny!!!

[ninfan]

What time does CP go on?

 

Can anybody tell me roughly what time CP took the stage in Houston? I am going in Dallas tonight and have to work till 6:30. I won't be at the arena till about 8. The tix say 7:30. I know they won't start that early, but I assume somebody is opening. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[coldplay45]

a little after 9pm.

[kspillers2]

Great minds think alike, huh?

I kept thinking, you know what that guy sees when HE looks in the mirror?

An asshole, and not 'cause he's pointing it the wrong way.:lol:

 

Cooky, can I please nick that one ^ for future use?

[melanieau]

So to recap for the 8,000 people who are going to ask this question...

 

show started at 9:15

 

show ended at 10:45

:wink:

 

 

I already answered this in the other thread but just in case people aren't checking everywhere;)

[Mimixxx]

A Coldplay concert upgrade: “It’s good karma”

 

Houston — My two sisters, mother and I were headed to the nosebleed seats for the Coldplay concert at the Toyota Center in Houston Tuesday evening.

After several wrong turns and a lengthy escalator ride we finally made it to the top and our $49 seats in section 410. Suddenly, a man grabbed a hold of my youngest sister’s arm, and began quizzing her.

 

“Name three Coldplay albums, not including the current Viva la Vida,” asked the English-accented man wearing a black polo shirt and a two-way radio.

 

“A Rush of Blood to the Head, Parachutes and XYZ,” she excitedly said.

 

No, not quite, he responded.

 

“X&Z,” she corrected.

 

“Okay, now name a song on A Rush of Blood to the Head,” he asked, leaving me wondering — is this guy trying to pick her up or is this how they get fans amped up for the show?

 

“Politic,” said Susan, an encyclopedia of various albums.

 

“Name a top single,” he followed, while the rest of us stared in confusion.

“Yellow,” Susan said.

 

Next thing we knew, he was pulling out four fifth-row tickets on the floor.

 

“These are for you. We hold back a certain number of tickets to give to fans when they arrive to the show,” he said. “You just have to rock out down there.”

 

“Really? No, really? Why? Really?” we all asked as we all jumped up and down, and showered him with hugs. It turns out his name was Richard, and he would operate the camera just a few feet away from our fifth-row seats.

 

“Did you get an upgrade,” an excited fan asked in front of us. “We did, too!”

The fan next to us told a similar story, pointing to her original seats at the top of the stadium (my sister overheard another couple nearby say they paid $750 for their premium seats).

 

The upgrade fans later pointed out their Coldplay good samaritan, a man with black-rimmed glasses at the front of the stage who only identified himself to me as “Mr. Lo.”

 

The Coldplay crew helped give away 96 such upgrades at the Houston show. It’s something the band apparently does “in the states,” Mr. Lo said.

They look for fans wearing a lot of color and ready to show some serious energy.

 

“It’s good karma,” he said.

 

Richard, who we approached later, declined a photo or to give his full name. He said otherwise he would be stalked by Coldplay fans for free passes.

 

Shortly before Chris Martin and gang hit the stage, San Antonio Spurs and Eva Longoria hubby Tony Parker set off a scene when he walked to his seats. Further away than ours.

 

We were close enough to see Chris Martin sweat, the little blemish on the left side of his Adam’s apple and the elastic band of his white underwear.

 

He and his bandmates ran up and down the side runways, crooned into a mike on his famous piano and jumped around with their famous energy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/music/entries/2008/11/19/a_coldplay_concert_upgrade_its.html

[Christa42]

sweat , skin and elastic band of underwear? GAGA!!! nice review, good adjectives used

Coldplay karma strikes again