East Rutherford Review: Coldplay Living La Vida in New Jersey (Izod, 26 Oct)

Exciting, colorful, engaging, and thoughtful, the British rock band Coldplay showed New Jersey its rainbow last week, reports Columbia Spectator.

The group played East Rutherford’s Izod Center (home to the New Jersey Nets) before a crowd of 20,000 people as part of their Viva La Vida Tour on Tuesday. The tour began in New York City’s Madison Square Garden in June with a free concert for fans who won tickets. Though this concert was far from being a giveaway, the New Jersey concert was just as impressive.

Chris Martin, lead singer of the band, claimed they aren’t used to playing in such large venues, but with the band’s increase in popularity, arenas have become inevitable. Nevertheless, Coldplay created the illusion of an intimate environment, which was achieved with spectacular lighting that reached all areas of the stadium. From the ceiling hung large spheres on which images were reflected, and during the performance of their song “Death and All His Friends,” metallic confetti shot down, wowing the crowd.

The band played their most famous songs from all three albums and made an effort to satisfy their audience. They used a variety of odd instruments and altered the hits. For example, “God Put a Smile Upon Your Face” was performed using an eerie mix of string instruments. In addition, the band members actually joined in singing with the audience for their acoustic performance of “The Scientist,” and they left their most famous single, “Yellow,” for the encore, as requested by the crowd.

Martin’s onstage banter was also fairly dynamic. When he muddled the lyrics, he stopped the song, asked the crowd whether he had made a mistake, and started over. He spoke to an audience of thousands as if there were no more than a dozen people in the room. “Recently in Ohio there have been terrible problems with drainage because a lot of the plumbers have been busy doing interviews around the world,” he joked before the song “The Hardest Part.” He dedicated it, deadpan, to those with “drainage problems.”

Coldplay pulled out all the theatrics at the end. A large flag with the word “Viva” dropped down behind the band as they finished playing their last song. The cheering went on for at least ten minutes until the band finally came out for an encore. “Yellow” is always a crowd-pleaser, so the wait was worthwhile.

While Coldplay’s energy impressed, the opening act was lackluster. British soul singer Duffy was unable to rally enough enthusiasm from the crowd, and although she admitted to never having played for such a large audience before, she was still awkward. The performance was average, the lights were lacking, and the listeners were uninterested.

In all, though, that night in Jersey was an exhilarating whirlwind from America’s favorite chart-toppers.

More on this review in the 26th October Izod thread here onwards.