An excellent review of Coldplay's concert at the Rock Werchter festival (3rd July 2009) has emerged online at the Coldplay Live forum, courtesy of Bye:
I was in Werchter last night, it was my first Coldplay gig and they most definitely lived up to my high expectations! We were really in for a treat yesterday. Elbow earlier was fantastic, I didn't really know them before yesterday but will definitely give them another listen. Bloc Party started a great party. Then on came The Killers, who really started and ended their show with a bang! Chris Martin would later remark that they're not used to closing for The Killers and hoped they'd be worthy.
Anyway, the wait before Coldplay came on was charged. We'd been highly entertained by the previous groups and couldn't wait to see what Coldplay had in store for us. The announcer had said right after The Killers concert that he'd just seen two cute little kids, a boy and a girl, and finished off by saying, "yes, they're really here!". A JayZ song (I presume) was the first sign that Coldplay would be on soon. This was followed by The Blue Danube by Strauss (I don't know if they do this at all gigs or not). It served really well to build up the anticipation. And then on they came, waving fire sticks. You already know the set-list so I won't go into that.
I had the perfect view of the show. I'd moved into the second compartment early on and never left my spot. For safety reasons, there are these corridors in the crowd that allow security to get close to the people. Quite a few people have had to be taken out as it was quite hot. These corridors break the crowd up into compartments and they can control the number of people that get into the front ones.
This basically means that once you're in there, there's no pushing or shoving or people trying to get to the front from the back. If it's full, it's full and they don't allow anyone else in there. I opted not to go for the first one, out of fear of too much pushing, ended up at the front of the second one, right in the middle, with an uninterrupted view of the stage. Brilliant! At least you can catch some air there, we could even sit down in between concerts. It's only when Chris Martin decided to run down the corridor right in front of me that everyone behind started pushing to get a clear view of that.
Anyhow, about the show. Other bands (yes, I'm looking at you, Oasis) should really take a look at how Coldplay is performing. I love how Chris Martin is so energetic, running from left to right, jumping, giving his all. Coldplay really makes the crowd feel that this show is special and that the show you're watching is the best ever. Where I was standing, the crowd was really into it all, singing along to nearly every song. At one point, I believe at the end of In My Place, as the last notes were somewhat more silent and Chris could finally hear we'd been singing along, he seemed pleasantly surprised. I suppose they can't really hear the crowd from the stage, unless they take out their earpiece.
The big yellow balloons during Yellow and the paper butterflies work really well in such a large outdoor setting. We had fun with those.
Oh, and as for the Lady Gaga dedication. That was more tongue in cheek than anything else. He was winking when he said he'd dedicate it to the people listening to Lady Gaga on the other stage. It was said in a "those poor sods" kind of way. And so, as he was starting The Hardest Part, he quietly let out 'Poker Face' but quickly reverted back to the Hardest Part, which would then turn into Billy Jean at the end.
Earlier on he'd already tried a mash of i forgot which song and The Killers 'we've got soul but we're not soldiers' line. It was really cute. All through the show, lines would be changed a little to include a reference to 70.000 Belgians, or the previous gigs. Such a refreshing difference from bands who barely know where they're playing, who else is on, etc.
Anyway, it was spectacular end to what was already a brilliant day. Coldplay really are a class act.
Coldplay at Rock Werchter Festival, Belgium (3rd July 2009):
Pictures by purefm @ Flickr
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