Las Vegas Review: Coldplay Rocks Packed Arena

Group skilled at making big rooms feel small

He looked like a muscle spasm incarnate, a drunken ballerina, twitching, trembling, leaping, lunging, posing and pinwheeling about the stage, as if his flesh were a prison he was trying to escape from.

Through it all, he smiled like the cat who not only ate the canary, but devoured most of its kin as well. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin is not prone to small gestures -- he's the kind of guy who favors bear hugs over handshakes, wet kisses over dry eyes -- and his band follows suit: their tunes spin on an axis of melodrama and emotional extravagance, with even their quietest moments tending to build toward something grand and deafening.

As such, they're an ideal arena rock band in an age where increasingly few contemporary acts sound at home in large halls. But as they demonstrated at a packed MGM Grand Garden on Saturday night, this bunch is skilled at making big rooms feel small.

Read the full review here and more pictures from this show here (14th) and here (15th)