Some bands leave you wanting more. Chris Martin and Coldplay definitely aren't one of them. At least, they weren't at MTS Centre on Monday night, when the Brit-rock foursome finally made their long-delayed local debut. What they were instead was a band that gave a sold-out crowd of 12,500 fervent fans everything they could possibly want — and then gave them more, writes the Winnipeg Sun.
You wanted hits? They had ’em: Nearly two dozen numbers, including most of their gazillion-selling 2008 album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, along with older crowdpleasers like Yellow, Politik, The Scientist and even a jangly acoustic cover of the Neil Diamond-penned Monkees classic I'm a Believer. If you weren't a believer before last night, that along might have changed your mind.
You wanted a rockin' band? You got one: While Coldplay's lushly melodic anthems and ballads can sometimes come off as lightweight and poppy on CD, there was no shortage of muscle in their live show.
Drummer Will Champion deserves most of the credit for that — he's way more a basher than you'd ever expect, hammering away at his kit on tunes like Glass of Water, Lost! and Politik. Guitarist Jonny Buckland and bassist Guy Berryman may fly beneath the radar much of the time, but they can also raise a hell of a decent racket (though they weren't louder than the crowd, whose screaming and unbidden singalongs often threatened to drown out the group). Even Martin can pound those keys as well as he can tickle the ivories.
You wanted an arena-sized spectacle? They brought one: A stage with runways at either side, half a dozen giant video-screen globes that descended from the rafters and gently floated up and down like massive high-tech Christmas bulbs, banks of lasers that shot out from the back floor of the stage and traced patterns on the ceiling at the opposite end of the hall, arced lighting rigs that sagged and swooped and swiveled gracefully above the band, dozens of huge yellow balloons heaved into the crowd (during Yellow, natch), confetti cannons that spewed forth wave after wave of fluorescent paper butterflies during Life in Japan, and all the usual VariLights and follow spots and backdrops and tasteful production and expertly edited live video footage. If they had tossed in some pyro, they could have passed for Nickelback (though Nickelback probably would have had skull-shaped butterflies).
You wanted some face time with the boys? They aimed to please: Not only did the band cram themselves onto the end of one runway for a couple of songs — later they trooped the length of MTS Centre to play a raucous acoustic mini-set at the very back of the stands, smack-dab in the middle of the cheap seats. Take that, rock stars!
Of course, you wanted a world-class frontman. And Martin is as good as they come: Eager, energetic, earnest and totally engaging. When he was playing guitar, he leaned into the mic like a sprinter in the starting blocks, bouncing on the balls of his feet and pumping his heels to the beat. When he sat down at an upright piano (that was wheeled forward and back by roadies as required), he hunched over the instrument with intense focus, his nose practically touching the keys. When he ditched them both to roam with a microphone, he was a mischievous dervish — spinning and prancing and skipping and leaping and dashing from one end of the stage to the other, teasing fans by rushing headlong to the lip of the runway and then halting at the last possible second. During Lovers in Japan he danced with a parasol amid those gently descending clouds of butterflies. In another number he stumbled about the stage, lurching as if being struck by Champion's thwacking snare shots. At the end of Viva la Vida he pretended to collapse onstage — though we wouldn't have been surprised if he was half-serious.
Speaking of half-serious, if you wanted a few laughs, there were some of those to be had too. While Martin mostly kept the chitchat to a minimum, he did have a few quips up his military-uniform sleeve. "Sorry it took us just over a year to get here," he apologized, referring to a concert that was scheduled for last summer, then postponed by production snafus. "The way we think of it is that we needed to have 121 rehearsals before we could play a concert in Winnipeg." Later, he joked that "now you don't get to see us for another 12 years," which he changed to 15 and then 20 after the crowd started booing. Some of his other assorted tomfoolery: Holding a note on and on while looking at his watch and eventually running out of breath, needling guitarist Buckland during one song, getting the crowd to do the wave with their cellphones, and changing song lyrics to include plenty of pandering references to the Jets and how much f---ing noise Winnipeg crowds make. (Oh, and just for the record, I taught him that. No, not how to change his song lyrics or pander to the house — how to pronounce Winnipeg. During our one-on-one pre-show interview — which you can read in tomorrow's paper — he kept saying "Winneepeg" until I set him right. You're welcome, Chris.)
And finally, if their hit-filled, eye-popping, high-energy, entertainingly personable 110-minute show still wasn't enough for you, well, there was more: On your way out the door, ushers handed out free copies of the band's new live disc Left Right Left Right Left to all 12,500 attendees.
Seriously, what more could anybody possibly want?
Coldplay at the MTS Centre, Winnipeg (15th June 2009:
Pictures by jiggajayd @ Flickr
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