[18-Apr-2012] Coldplay @ Scotiabank Saddledome, Calgary, AB, Canada

[fakfak]

I was just about to post that , I saw two people that tweeted that but I didn't believe it

 

It sounds serious. Don't they screen for weapons and whatnot before you can get in the venue, or is that not done in Canada? I doubt anyone could get a knife into any kind of venue where I live, it's like going through the airport.

[wolstenfierce]

I was just about to post that , I saw two people that tweeted that but I didn't believe it

 

i googled it after you said something, because i thought people on twitter were just trolling. i hope they're both okay! a friend of mine and i are trying to figure out how anyone could be angry at a coldplay show

[The Red Army]

Two slashed at Coldplay concert in Calgary[/url]

 

O man, sounds bad.

 

Hoping for the best.

 

Here's another review btw

 

http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/Review+Night+with+Coldplay/6481812/story.html

[JM-42]

Sounds pretty serious, can't imagine how something like this can happen at a CP concert

[fakfak]

i googled it after you said something, because i thought people on twitter were just trolling. i hope they're both okay! a friend of mine and i are trying to figure out how anyone could be angry at a coldplay show

 

 

Anywhere large numbers of people come together, a few of them are bound to be nuts.

[VIVA.42]

uh oh i hope i dont get slashed on friday

[Rainystrawberry]

I don't know if they screen for weapons, it depends on the venue I guess.

 

I Also saw someone tweet a person was smoking a joint near them...don't know if that's true either...

[The Red Army]

It sounds serious. Don't they screen for weapons and whatnot before you can get in the venue, or is that not done in Canada? I doubt anyone could get a knife into any kind of venue where I live, it's like going through the airport.

 

In Toronto, I've been to the ACC (our main big venue) many times, and I've never been screened. Only if you bring a bag, they'll check that, otherwise they just let you right in. The odd random person may get checked though.

 

Hmm, seems a bit strange for this happen at a CP concert though.

[blueberry426]

Lovers in Japan and warning sign!!! That's great!

[blueberry426]

Sounds pretty serious, can't imagine how something like this can happen at a CP concert

 

If it's true, I hope they are okay.

[getithom]

In Toronto, I've been to the ACC (our main big venue) many times, and I've never been screened. Only if you bring a bag, they'll check that, otherwise they just let you right in. The odd random person may get checked though.

 

Hmm, seems a bit strange for this happen at a CP concert though.

 

Definitely. People are silly.

 

Lovers in Japan and warning sign!!! That's great!

 

For real! Now, I just hope A Message and A Rush of Blood to the Head gets played sometime soon.

[fakfak]

In Toronto, I've been to the ACC (our main big venue) many times, and I've never been screened. Only if you bring a bag, they'll check that, otherwise they just let you right in. The odd random person may get checked though.

 

Hmm, seems a bit strange for this happen at a CP concert though.

 

Wow, even the small and mid size venues are wanding people as they come in now here. (and in light of incidents like this, it might to be such a bad idea.)

[Rainystrawberry]

Wow, even the small and mid size venues are wanding people as they come in now here. (and in light of incidents like this, it might to be such a bad idea.)

 

I think the US checks more, they are a little more paranoid about being attacked

[fakfak]

I think the US checks more, they are a little more paranoid about being attacked

 

We are pretty paranoid.:o

[postcards]

I think the US checks more, they are a little more paranoid about being attacked

 

Right, there isn't one concert I've ever been without being checked. Hope everyone is ok.

[getithom]

I think the US checks more, they are a little more paranoid about being attacked

 

:nod:

[Rainystrawberry]

We are pretty paranoid.:o

 

yeah, I'm paranoid too sometimes, maybe it's because I onced lived in the US....

 

Who in their minds would attack people at a Coldplay concert, maybe casual or drunk fans

[blueberry426]

I think the US checks more, they are a little more paranoid about being attacked

 

I guess it's also because lots of people in the US have guns.

[Rainystrawberry]

A picture

 

https://twitter.com/#!/shelley_booker/status/192857229936951296?photo=1

[fakfak]

I guess it's also because lots of people in the US have guns.

 

 

The area where I live is pretty much the most anti-gun jurisdiction in the US, we still get screened a ton.

[Rainystrawberry]

The area where I live is pretty much the most anti-gun jurisdiction in the US, we still get screened a ton.

 

Maybe they want to make sure no one rebels and brings a gun

[Rainystrawberry]

I need to sleep:dozey:

 

hopefully they have an update on the slashing later, I want to know what caused this to happen

I hope the two people are ok

[glennjamin]

EPIC CONCERT!!!!

Just got home from the show.. Had pretty awesome seats on the floor Row 7.

Just heard about the slashing now. :( There were no security checks for our group. THey only looked through backpacks, but no patdowns or anything like that..

[Tash]

http://www.calgarysun.com/2012/04/19/coldplay-paradise-at-dome

 

This review says they did Lost!

 

hmm, that means no LiJ?

 

Coldplay paradise at Dome

 

 

The proof is on the stage.

 

The measure of any great band is — and always should be — judged by its live show.

 

Sure, over the past 15 years, Coldplay has become one of the biggest and most consistent recording bands in music — all well and good.

 

But in front of a sellout crowd of nearly 15,000 fans at the Scotiabank Saddledome Wednesday night (Day 2 of the group’s North American leg of the Mylo Xyloto tour), Chris Martin and his mates made a statement as one of the best live acts in recent rock and roll memory.

 

Despite selling more than 55-million records, the easy knocks of being a “chick band” (a term likely buoyed by the group’s tendency towards syrupy pop balladry), pop-rock “lightweights” or, worst of all, a “poor man’s U2,” become unfounded and/or irrelevant when the band walks onto a concert stage.

 

If the snippy criticisms carry any weight whatsoever, it was important for the disbelievers to forget what they thought they knew.

 

Cynics be damned!

 

As a frontman extraordinaire, Martin possesses the kind of presence and star power that projects to the last row of the third deck — no small feat in these heady times of the American Idol-ization of commercial pop and rock music.

 

In front of a snappy and colourful black light, graffitied backdrop, several round video screens and bathed in lights of red, blue and yellow, Martin commanded the stage as very few can through set opener Hurts Like Heaven, which followed the intro music of the Back To The Future theme and the title cut from Mylo Xyloto.

 

The effect was enhanced by the 15,000 glowing wristbands that were handed out to fans entering the arena.

 

The dizzying effect, as well as the first of many arena rock gags: Confetti cannons which covered the main floor with a mass of paper flurries, only added to the excitement through Lost!

 

Guitarist Jonny Buckland and the rhythm section of bassist Guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion brilliantly backstopped the colourful onstage assault on the senses.

 

Clearly, the crack players give Martin the freedom and gravity to work the room into a frenzy — prancing, preening, spinning and even sitting still long enough play piano here and there.

 

“Is anybody out there, Calgary?” he asked to thunderous applause.

 

“Thank you for giving us the best job in the world!”

 

After a storm of multicoloured beach balls dropped from overhead, the crowd erupted as Martin led a crowd sing-along during The Scientist, which only got twice as loud through the band’s first major North American hit, Yellow, from the 2000 album Parachutes.

 

The pace was picked up with God Put A Smile Upon Your Face, followed by the duet Princess Of China, which featured Rihanna’s portion on screen.

 

It was slightly … well, tacky, but still effective as the group seemed to be gaining momentum.

 

On a night where believers knew what they were getting, non-believers became the converted. With Calgary’s concert schedule growing every week, Coldplay will go down as one of the year’s best.

 

Opening the evening was the curious contradiction of the atmospheric electric folk sister duo, The Pierces, followed by British electronic dance outfit, Metronomy.

 

Despite playing to a sparse crowd, many of whom were still entering the venue, Catherine Pierce channelled her inner Stevie Nicks to her sister Allison’s Christine McVie during a number of thrilling lead vocal swappings, coupled with numerous outstanding harmonies.

 

Standouts such as Drag You Down, Kissing You Goodbye, Love You More and You’ll Be Mine make these Alabama-born, New York-based sisters worth further investigation.

 

Although Radiohead has nothing to worry about, Metronomy had its moments through bouncy funk-laden busts such as Heartbreaker, Radio Ladio and Holiday.

 

You may have liked them better when they were called the Pet Shop Boys.

 

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[Tash]

Here's another review btw

 

http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/Review+Night+with+Coldplay/6481812/story.html

 

Review: Night of fun and joy with Coldplay

 

Coldplay performs at the Pengrowth Saddledome in Calgary on Wednesday.

 

CALGARY — You know how I know I’m gay?

 

OK. Obvious, sure. But it’s important to remember that the music of Coldplay was once tagged, for an entire Judd Apatow generation, with a disparaging definition of the word.

 

They were considered by some an effeminate act whose songs could be enjoyed by women and only men of non-hetero orientation.

 

Well, that was the 40 Year Old inference, anyway. And, slur aside, it was a stigma the band, in recorded form, anyway, was stuck with for the first half decade of its career, with a catalogue that was as precious as it was often moribund — navel-gazing music for sensitive souls.

 

Remarkable, then, that over the course of the last two albums, beginning with Viva La Vida etc. and fully realized on the current release, Mylo Xyloto, that the U.K. quartet has embraced the word — or rather reclaimed the original context of the word.

 

Happy. As in happy music for happy people.

 

And Wednesday night at the Saddledome in front of a sold-out crowd, Chris Martin and Co. put on an unabashed celebration of happy, an uncontested display of fun that the sadsack Saddledome hasn’t seen in some time.

 

It was a night of joy, bliss, lightness and, above all else, fun, with a soundtrack and a stage show that had only those things as their focus.

 

That tone was set immediately, the second you walked through the doors and were handed a free, high-tech wristband, which would later light up as the band took the stage and launched into an exuberant version of Hurts Like Heaven, and then intermittently throughout the show.

 

Visually, it was a stunning moment that lifted the spirits of everyone in the room, paving the way for further eye candy by way of laser lights, a fluorescent graffiti wall, circular screens and beach ball balloons.

 

But while the party favours fed into the ebullience of the evening, it was the music, its energy and its delivery that truly made it one of the better stadium shows.

 

True, the band still dipped into the drippy and dramatic piano balladry that many chose to define them by — The Scientist was an early offering and a pretty great one, at that — but it was merely one flavour, one colour in a palette that is far more complex than many are willing to give them credit for.

 

They laid that out masterfully throughout the next 90 minutes or so, changing the tempo, but never that upbeat mood, with a selection of songs that ranged from the classic track Yellow to the wonderful Rihanna collaboration Princess of China — diva appearing on video screen — to spectacular versions of Violet Hill, God Put A Smile, Viva La Vida, Paradise and Fix You.

 

Musically, they’re as tight and powerful an arena act as any other — they really did sound fantastic, bringing the muscle out when necessary, pulling back when need be, and generally filling the room with their melodies and lush instrumentation.

 

They physically did the same, making great use of the main stage, the catwalk — where Martin exercised often and which they planted themselves in the middle of for a few tracks — and even the audience, where the band popped up in the middle of for the first encore.

 

And as hosts, no, they’re not the chattiest of cats, the frontman offering the minimum of banter, making an exception when they screwed up a song — second show of the tour, we’ll give them a free pass — and an audience member urged them to start again.

 

“Even when you’re the seventh biggest soft rock band from England, you still need encouragement,” the vocalist said to great applause and to even greater delight.

 

Which was the evening in a nutshell. It really was gay old time — in all of it’s fabulous, fantastic and flamboyant connotations.

 

It certainly got off to a simmering, simply wonderful start with sister act The Pierces. Around for more than a decade, but new to more than a few, the Alabama-bred sibs — Catherine and Allison Pierce — and their exceptional backup band delivered a steady 30-minute cool breeze of sweet, West Coast new classic rock to a surprisingly strong early audience.

 

From the California Dreaming sound of Kissing You Goodbye to the suitably titled closer Glorious, they gave an impressive showcase of songs from their latest album, You & I, one which appeals with its fresh-faced take on the Fleetwood Mac feel.

 

Fair-haired Catherine certainly invited the comparisons, with her gorgeous, witchy voice and a summery dress with Nicksian sleeves. But it never seemed as if it was affected, merely a natural musical, textural and physical display of sand, sal****er, surf and sunshine.

 

As for synthy, British pop act Metronomy, it was a little less successful, but still in keeping with the overall theme of the evening.

 

The British band, too, is a decade-plus veteran, but the Coldplay slot was presumably an introduction for most of those in attendance, and the group seemed invigorated by the challenge and opportunity, bouncing around and making the most of the room afforded at the centre of the stage.

 

Sonically, though, there was a little dark, broodiness in their nu wave set, some of that foreboding that the ’80s and its cold war environment bred, but still, there was an underlying peppiness thanks to the bleeps, blorps, beats and cowbell action in the discordantly catchy songs.

 

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