[2022-07-16] Stade de France, Paris, France

[shivaruppeni]

On 6/20/2022 at 6:43 PM, njohnson91max said:

Thanks! We are considering about 2pm but not sure what the queue will be like by then. We didn't have early entry back in 2017 so not sure how that worked out, in terms of queueing and getting a good spot

Apologies I'm unsure too, as this is my first Coldplay concert 

[njohnson91max]

13 hours ago, shivaruppeni said:

Apologies I'm unsure too, as this is my first Coldplay concert 

Excellent choice to pick Paris for your first show! Prepare to be amazed!

[Captain Crieff]

I'm super late with this, but I finally finished writing a review type of thing of this show and everything around it, like in the good old days. It's fitting because I went to this show with a bunch of people I first met on this forum AND IT WAS THE BEST!!!

This was my first MOTS show, and I hadn't watched any footage from the tour apart from like 5 seconds of Politik from Frankfurt because I needed that to believe they really played it. I have to confess, I don't really listen to Coldplay a lot anymore. They're like, my 3rd favourite band or so. But Coldplay is only about half the reason I went to this show, the other half of the reason is the meetup with friends from all over Europe and the ~adventure~. And Coldplay's shows are also quite something, it has to be said. So, long story short, I had an amazing time in my favourite city with some of my favourite people.

Big shoutout to:

 @Jonny and the cake Daniela

@Dany93 Danila

@BeACartoonHeart SY

@PrincessofChina Ellen

@Coeurli Céline

@Clairounette Claire

(man these old usernames ) and Giu and all the awesome people from Twitter I met.

 

C’était magique

Sappy title I know, but seeing the band that made me fall in love with music in my favourite city with a bunch of friends I met thanks to said band almost 10 years ago? Yeah, we’ve got to be honest it was a bit of a dream come true. Here is the long version:

15/07/2022

I don’t have a clue why, but I had booked quite an early train so I left home tired but hyped. A good three hours later I was in my least favourite place in Paris (gare du nord), so I got out of there as fast as I could and headed to the hostel we had booked. As the next person to arrive wasn’t getting there for another 1.5 hours or so, I continued my way one of my favourite places in Paris: Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. I am a simple woman, I arrive in Paris, I sit down in a park.

The plan was SY and I would meet near the hostel and then go and pick up Daniela at gare de Lyon together, but that failed because SY couldn’t get there in time, so I ended up collecting Daniela alone. When we got back, SY was waiting for us outside the hostel holding the taxi-like sign we had made that said “paul rudd’s whore”. (much needed context: this is her Twitter display name)

While we were waiting at the check-in desk of the hostel together with everyone else who wanted to check in at 2 pm, Danila also arrived, and after that there was more waiting because I had made the mistake of not only not bringing the credit card I’d booked the room with, but also revealing to the hostel lady that said credit card is my parents’. So suddenly they needed proof from them that I, a 25 year old, could use it. Sigh. So while we wait… *jingle* weather update: it’s hot. It’s a proper heatwave, try not to melt! *jingle*

We did eventually get to check into our airconditioned (bless) hostel room, and after making the beds we left again for some sightseeing! Since I was the only one of the party at that point who knows Paris pretty well, I turned into mama duck with the rest following me to the metro. Tiny, non-leader-figure mama duck.

Our first stop was Galeries Lafayette because it’s pretty as fuck, and the view from the rooftop is one of the best in the city. We met up with our new friend Giu there, fortunately she was easy to find in the big crowd thanks to her hair colour! We wondered what on earth the piece of art on the ceiling was supposed to be as we stood on the escalators, thinking: maybe we can see what it is on the next floor. Nope. Maybe on the next floor. Nope. …I think it was something abstract. Anyway, we made it to the rooftop, and also away from the rooftop again *just* before burning to a crisp. Our next stop was, what else, the Eiffel Tower. We took some very nice tourist photos at Trocadéroooohit’ssohot and then went to a supermarket to buy some food and water to eat & drink in the little park in front of the tower. Wholesome scenes ensued as Daniela was reunited with a uni friend she hadn’t seen in years, it was so cute.

In the meantime Ellen had arrived in Paris and we met up at Bouillon République, a restaurant tip from Claire. Giu couldn’t join us but Daniela’s Italian uni friend did, so we were 3 Dutch-speaking people and 3 Italians and funnily enough each language group ended up sitting on each side of the table. The food was very much classic Bouillon food: simple but good.

Going outside to walk to the hostel was also a very pleasant experience since it was about a million degrees in the restaurant and a nice 24°C outside.

16/07/2022

Our plan was to get to the stadium between 8:30 and 9, But everything got derailed when we tried to buy metro tickets and the machine just… didn’t print anything. The metro staff lady looked at both sides of the machine but couldn’t find what was wrong, so Danila had to fill out a whole customer service form thing to get a refund while I bought new tickets at the other machine. We did get entertained by a little mousie running around in the metro station and eating croissant crumbs.

Queueueueuing

So about 40 minutes later than we wanted, we finally got to the stadium and had to split up because Danila had a different gate than SY, Daniela and I. We saw about 30 people in our queue which made me think “ok bye barrier”, but then SY tried a thing and to everyone’s surprise, it worked. She recognised Maren near the front of the queue and asked if we could queue with her. So naturally she said “ok, if the people behind me are okay with that” so we asked them and… they said “sure no problem, we also have a friend who’s arriving later!” Holy shit. Okay. So suddenly we were 10^th or so in our queue. That might have been a bit of a rollercoaster, but it was nothing compared to everything that happened later.

For now though everything was still quiet, we were still in the shade and ate some croissants, until Danila texted us from her queue saying some people appeared handing out yellow wristbands to the front of the queue. Intriguing. A few minutes later they showed up at our queue and announced they were from the production, and were gonna give a wristband to the first 30 people in the queue, who could then queue in a separate area and go in “a bit before everyone else”. Also that we shouldn’t talk about this to anyone etc. What-  as I was translating what he said to SY and Daniela, it dawned on us that this was in fact very good news, so we proceeded to freak out, but then one of the production guys got super mad at us and threatened not to give us wristbands because we were supposed to keep it lowkey. Oops. I apologised about 3 times but he stayed mad so okay whatever. The other guy was nicer, when we got wristbanded I said “you’re like Father Christmas” and he was like “yeah my beard is a little shorter though”. Then things got even better when it turned out that the place where we had to queue was in the shade under a bridge. Blessed. Meanwhile the yellow wristband guys had arrived at Céline, Claire and Giu’s queue and turns out they had an intern with them: they started handing out wristbands at the front of the queue, but one of them started at the back of the queue, which is where Céline, Claire and Giu were. So lucky.

So they joined us under the bridge and then things got confusing as it seemed like they were going to let us in before Early Entry which is… oh my god. Imagine the scenes. I did ask a security guy if they were really going to do that and he was like “…maybe” in a no-idea-what-this-maybe-means-way.

Anyway queuing was very pleasant until about 3pm, half an hour before they would let us in, when everyone decided to stand up for no reason. Enter…

The Sardine Stage

We were standing there like sardines in a tin, waving enthusiastically at the cars leaving the parking lot below us. There was also a messy situation with a bunch of people who had been queuing on the stairs next to the bridge even though we had clearly been told that the queue started at the bottom of the stairs, but they were all extremely stubborn and just would not move.

Around half an hour later the stubborn people on the stairs moved, not down but up. So it seemed like they were letting us in in small batches which was fine. Except then nothing happened for what felt like an eternity, and we were now fully in the sun. Turns out it was Coldplay’s fault: they couldn’t let anyone in because they were soundchecking late.   Security handled it horribly though, we got no information, and they wouldn’t let us walk up the stairs or towards the stadium where there was shade. Like 3 people passed out. The wristband “gift” suddenly didn’t feel like a gift anymore, we weren’t even sure if we’d get in before the locals.

Eventually they let us go through security and we joined the annoying people in the shade against the stadium walls. Then the Early Entry folks entered, so there wasn’t going to be a war in the end. When they finally let us in I RAN to the B stage, but the barrier was very much full and we ended up 2^nd or 3^rd row, but with a bunch of people from Twitter and Giu and Daniela were able to squeeze themselves in on the front row next to Natalia, who had EE. We agreed with Daniela to switch around during the show so we could all be front row. Claire and Céline were about 20 metres from us on the other end of the B stage, so we could see each other which was cool.

Gaumar

The local support act, it was okay. Poppy. Don’t have a lot to say about this.

H.E.R

Umm.  Yeah. Not for me. Yes, you can sing, we get it, no need to show it off in like every song. She has this rock covers section in her set which does get the crowd hyped but it’s a little weird. Coldplay and good support acts, it’s not a very good match sadly.

Changeover

Meanwhile I’d swapped places with Daniela and it turned out we were actually in an excellent spot, the stage seemed lower than in 2017 but in hindsight that was probably because we were more to the right of the stage. It also turned out we were standing right where the band walks when they go to the C stage, so that’s interesting.

At a certain point Céline and I also started an olé olé olé chant, vibes were absolutely great.

Coldplay

So there I was, standing next to a Spaniard and a Brazilian, with a bunch of huge fans standing behind me. Promising. And indeed, when Higher Power started they all went absolutely CRAZY. Screaming, singing, dancing. The poor earplugless security guy in front of us understandably looked very concerned. Especially when Chris came over to the B stage, oh my god. All of that combined with Higher Power being such a happy bop resulted in me getting emotional already like the big softie I am. About 5 seconds later the confetti cannons fired rainbow confetti and in a hilarious turn of events, a piece of confetti landed right in my throat, causing me to start choking. I was like what the fuck, I thought Politik was going to kill me, not this, one minute into the show.

AOAL still has the “everybody go low” moment which is always a lot of fun, as is trying to touch one of the big balloons. No luck this time though. By the time they played Charlie Brown it was still light so this is my first complaint: Charlie Brown is too early in the set, can’t glow in the dark when it’s not dark!

At the end of The Scientist, while Chris was thanking everyone for making it to the show avec tous les problèmes dans le monde (his French is still so cute), Giu, Daniela, SY and I suddenly saw ourselves on the big screens! Achievement unlocked I guess.

After two bops on the B stage (Viva La Vida and Hymn For The Weekend) it was time for a little snooze! Let Somebody Go is really the new Everglow. At least it gave me the time to take some non-shaky photos.

After Let Somebody Go Céline looked at me like    and I realised… this is the point where they’ve been playing Politik. Chris did some random 10 second piano cover thing and then. Then. It fucking happened. After all these years. My favourite Coldplay song. Live. I can’t even describe properly what happened but before I knew it, tears were streaming down my face and I was shaking on my legs. During the instrumental part and the bridge I was full on sobbing. It was so intense. Obviously I knew I was going to cry but not like that. What a song.   

And so I watched In My Place from the dead and honestly the full band version is so good, it deserves none of the hate. I loved hearing it live. Yellow rounded off the series of oldies and up next was Human Heart. Featuring, of course, Angel Moon. I do hope the puppeteer didn’t hear me dying laughing but I genuinely found it hilarious I am so sorry. I mean, what the fuck haha.

Didn’t have much time to laugh though because it was followed by People Of The Pride which is another one I’d been looking forward to. What a tune. Every Coldplay show needs an angry, gay anthem like Chris once described it. My Universe was another moment and it also looked pretty as fuck with the wristbands, now that it was finally fully dark. A Sky Full Of Stars was even better though, it’s just one of the most fun live songs ever made I think. We also love acting along with the band when they pause it for their fake band meeting. I have no data but we must have generated a small earthquake.

After ASFOS an army of security people created an alley for the band where we were standing, and to be honest it was a proper avenue. They kept telling us RECULEZ, RECULEZ! and I was just thinking “guys please they’re not that big!” They all looked quite stressed out. I was still at the barrier, and also front row of where they were going to walk by and I wish I could have told them “guys it’s okay there is absolutely no way we’re going to do anything you don’t want us to do, I’m probably just going to say wooooo”. So I did just that I think, I don’t know it happened very fast, they were almost running. But Chris did grab SY’s flag!

Magique was nothing short of iconic. Honestly, singing an entire song in a language you don’t master is such a power move, we stan a multilingual king! I was still singing “Et je sais, je sais, je sais, je sais, oui je sais c’est toi, je sais, je sais, je sais, je sais, y a que toi pour moi” in my head days later. Also well done to whoever translated it for putting the word “baguette” in it. Excellent.

Humankind was clearly written for stadiums, it was so much fun. Biutyful on the other hand- I think it’s a terrible closer, I really don’t get it. Overall I like this tour’s setlist a lot more than AHFOD’s, because it essentially keeps the best songs from AHFOD and you have Politik, POTP, In My Place full band etc, but Up&Up as a closer was so much better, it had something euphoric, and the feeling of togetherness, it was absolutely perfect for a Coldplay show and Biutyful just… doesn’t have that. Not saying they should have kept Up&Up, of course not, it belongs to AHFOD, but… You know, there’s this song on MOTS, all the way at the end, that I *think* would fit a bit better.

ANYWAY. They played Politik, I was with a bunch of friends I met thanks to this band almost ten years ago, and I had an amazing view, so it was pretty much perfect.

[Viva chant]

I mean, that’s the best way to summarise the exodus out of the stadium and into the RER. Great vibes. Turned out we caught the very last RER which I had no idea about, so timing on point! The shower and the A/C in the hostel was really lovely as well.

17/17/2022

The next morning we had breakfast at an AMAZING bakery called LIBERTÉ we totally found by accident, I just looked for the nearest bakery where you could eat in and it turned out to be a place that had about a million pastry things and huge croissants. It was quite expensive, but worth it.

Then we chilled in a park for a bit until SY had to leave, and then Daniela and I chilled in another park for a bit until she also had to leave, and until it was really time for me to sit in front of a fan (the object) for a bit and get ready to watch Coldplay from the back of the Stade de France!

to everyone mentioned in these long ramblings I LOVE YOU ALL and hopefully see you next year somewhere!