Coldplay headlined the Main Square Festival in Arras, France last night (3rd July 2011) in a show that wasn't without it's mishaps. Technical problems with Will's drums/sound led to In My Place being played twice. However, this didn't detract from the overall show - which was another energetic performance. A slight change to the setlist - Shiver was removed and replaced with Cemeteries Of London. The same new tracks from the previous festival performances were also played - MX/Hurts Like Heaven, Major Minus, Us Against The World, Charlie Brown and Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall.
Frech websites tv.geourdu.com and gratuit-tv.com both had streaming rights of the TV broadcast of the performance - the show will appear soon no doubt on filesharing sites if you missed it or just want to relive it again - keep an eye on the Multimedia forum for updates. More live discussion on this show is at the Coldplay Live forum. Thanks to everyone who has contributed on the forums, Youtube and twitters. We'll have more on this show over the next few hours/days!
Setlist (confirmed):
MX/Hurts Like Heaven
Yellow
In My Place
Major Minus
Lost!
The Scientist
Cemeteries Of London
Violet Hill
God Put A Smile Upon Your Face
Everything's Not Lost
Us Against The World
Politik
Viva la Vida
Charlie Brown
Life Is For Living
-------
Clocks
Fix You
Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall
The band really enjoyed this show. But the audience was really cold in some songs. Then came The Scientist. A wonderful sing-along! Jonny's guitar part in GPASUYF were amazing, as always. That's probably the highlight of the show. Unfortunately, there was a mistake in In My Place, but the band fixed that immediately. That's why I like them, they never give up and they love communicating with the audience. Chris is really funny when he speaks french! They finished the show as they started: full of energy! The audience really loved ETIAW. A brilliant show. [thanks Alien Radio]
i'm disappointed with tonights setlist. I was really enjoying it until i realised they took out shiver and then went and replaced it with cemeteries of london (of all songs to replace it with). They should've kept shiver!!! Really hope that was a one of tonight :/ [thanks squibby92]
I thought the show was absolutely amazing! The boys were so full of energy and seemed so happy to be there. Was sad to see that Shiver was not in the setlist, but really hope that they continue to play it at other shows(especially when I see them in Chicago next month!) I really enjoyed watching it. [thanks l0wxo2]
It was an unusual Coldplay performance. Unusual because it included lots of epic song versions and on the other hand lots of musical and technical errs. They began with "Hurts Like Heaven", which they performed it wonderfully, I think it was the best version so far! Then they got to Yellow, which was a great version and gave a sign that the audience was alive... until the Tech-Errs ghost appeared... The beggining of "In My Place" began with Will playing the drums looking backwards... he was talking to some roadie, as if something was wrong, the song went on until the moment the drums were like muted and you could hear only the backing synthetiser and Jonny's guitar. Then you could hear them stopping playing and the Booes and claps from the frenchies! Chris laughing and asking What happened!? maybe Will's earphone communication was unsync with the song? They managed to rock on, that's Coldplay, a band that performs LIVE, and thats a festival, with technical difficulties. So they started the song again having Will and Jonny unsync with the chorus of the song... which ended up in a new version of "In My Place" lol. It was a relief when you could hear Chris saying " we made it to the end of the song!". They knew how to balance the BIG mistake... an epic version of Major Minues was performed with no mistakes but with a quiet audience. The concert also included the best versions so far of "Charlie Brown" and "God Put A Smile Upon Your Face", where you could hear a more mature and rehearsed live version. They performed "Cemeteries Of London" instead of "Shiver", and Chris got lost with the lyrics. It reminded me of the "Violet Hill" performance at Glastonbury loL!. There was no from the audience during "Viva La Vida" and the "Encore" and another mistake in the beggining of Clocks. I must add for all the Fix You lovers and pianists out there that Chris changed some chords during the song which really adds to the song feeling!. The concert included lots of mistakes, lots of wrong lyrics, a muted crowd that did not even sing during Viva La Vida, a nervous Chris during Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall, lots of technical failures from the launch of the fireworks (during Fix You) to the wires and cables that connect instruments (during In My Place), no Princess Of China, no Moving To Mars, just a slightly change in the setlist with the return of Cemeteries Of London replacing Shiver. It was a surprising concert still. Full of new sounds. A Concert that demostrates that Coldplay are professionals, synchronised between them and that laugh and rocks on after a mistake, cause they know they won't make it never again! For many of us, Coldplay still ROCKED the Main Square. [thanks Coldplero]
What's wrong with you, guys? I came all the way from Croatia to see them (their first concert I've been to) and I loved it! I think that the errors made the concert even funnier and more realistic. Why would you look for perfection? It was a really wonderful concert to me, best 90 minutes of my life. And the new versions of songs they sang were wonderful. One more thing. When they played Charlie Brown I started to sing along and few people from the crowd started looking at me like I was I don't know what… The crowd was really dead at some songs. You should have given them more support. And I loved how Chris joked about the errors. Why do you all take it so seriously? After all, they did correct them and played In My Place twice. [thanks Matej]
I really think that the group like play for the crowd tonight, it's been almost 2 years that Coldplay did not go through France, then in my opinion it was a great concert, despite the technical problems, and the French public always true to itself, the return of cemeteries of london really made me happy because it's a great song in live and the rest of the songs nothing to say, it was just magical to see chris so happy, and we felt in his voice and the live. and the encore with fix you always moving, and ETIAWF it has transformed the citadelle into a huge disco. [thanks coldplay12]
Just on the bus from Arras. Disappointed. They totally phoned it in. No engery at all. They just banged it out as fast as they could and left. If you guys enjoyed what you saw on the stream then great! But in my (and everyone I was with, I might add) opinion this wasn't up to their usual standard. For the record, the crowd were great. And I would know since I was actually in it! People had been queing for 16 hours to see them, people had balloons, banners, there were Viva chants before the show started, chanting of "Coldplay Coldplay" before the gig and before the encore. The singing was great and loud... I'm afraid blaming it on the crowd isn't gonna change my opinion of it, I've seen them many, many times and this was the first time I've ever left not feeling euphoric. To me they were tired, they were disconnected, just going through the motions. And yes Coldplay on a bad day are still miles better than alot of bands on their best day but I was disappointed, as were most of the people I was with, I know they can do better. Sorry if you don't like it, but that's my opinion I'm afraid... On a more positive note Chris did a great job of calming down a very angry Will after he accidentally carried on playing during Jonny's solo in IMP. Charlie Brown was as always amazing as was Life is for Living. It was painful them being on at 11.30pm when the doors opened at noon though...my feet will never be the same!! I had SOOOOOO much fun with my Coldplaying friends too. Also I hadn't noticed before but Jonny is so skinny, he looks ill. [thanks mimixxx]
Great show. I could tell the guys were enjoying themselves despite the technical difficulties. One of their better performances this year--I'm glad that they squeezed Cemeteries back into the setlist (CoL is better than Shiver, imho *ducks oncoming blows*) although I wish they had incorporated Princess of China into the performance. It wasn't meant to be I guess. Excellent performance, disappointing crowd. [thanks ColdplayingfromKansas]
The gig last night reminded me slightly of Hannover 2009. They also had to deal with technical errors then and lost a good deal of their magic because of that. It made them nervous. Last night when I was watching the live stream I had the feeling they wanted to get the gig done as fast as possible, to me it didn't seem as if they were enjoying themselves that much. Which can of course happen, since no band is perfect. [thanks *Sarah*]
To give my opinion about yesterday's show, I wouldn't say it was a bad show, I saw it on the stream and compared to Werchter where I was the day before, I would say that they were less into it, I don't know if it was due to the technical problems on IMP but after that the band (and especially Chris) seemed nervous and kinda struggling to achieve each song.... Now difficult to say about the crowd, not easy to judge from the stream so I trust the people who were there to tell us.... but reading you guys, I'm happy I did Werchter instead of Arras (Shiveeeeeeeeeeer ), I had already done a Arras festival in 2008 and already didn't like the crowd at that time .... [thanks chopotte]
I had the impression everything went SO FAST! As if they wanted to play the setlist as fast as they could. No pause between the songs. No time to breathe, relax, interact with the crowd. It felt like it was a marathon for them. Only a few jokes and "thank you for coming on a Sunday night" and "sorry for the technical problems" and the usual "désolé mon français est merde". No interaction with the first row, which was a first (for me). They didn't even look at the amazing banner the girls made. Which was quite surprising. If I remember correctly, they used to pay attention to banners, didn't they? BUT, regardless of all of that, it was an AMAZING concert. I had such a great time! Especially since I hadn't seen them in 2 years. Which felt like...forever. I was second row and was screaming and jumping all around for an hour and a half. The new songs are AMAZING live. Really loved all of them. Stopped breathing during Us Against The World and Life Is For Living, which are extremely powerful live songs. Same thing concerning Everything's Not Lost (one word: WOW!) and GPASUYF. GOOSEBUMPS for all of them! First time I saw Will stop playing in the middle of a song. I don't know what problem they had at the beginning of IMP but it must have been pretty serious. Was quite funny actually........for us. Probably not for them. BIG congrats to Chris who's so talented at improvising in difficult moments like this one.....! No Chris & Jonny action during IMP. That was a first! (at least for me) Amazing night after such an exhausting day. Especially since the other bands were such a disappointment. Except for Bruno Mars (who I didn't know) who was quite entertaining and Elbow who were amazing. PJ Harvey and Portishead looked so......bored. Which was really disappointing, since they're so talented. But not great live acts, IMO.... Can't wait to see the boys again soon! I hope they'll REST after finishing the album and before starting their next tour! Many thanks to Louise, Aurélie and her boyfriend, Camille, Chavi, Natascha,.... SO GREAT to meet you and share this special night with all of you! [thanks Noémie]
The concert was amazing. Indeed, as Noemie said it seemed they hurried to give the concert. I enjoyed it though. I was not far from the stage but a tall guy was before me and I had to move my head constantly and remain on my toes to see the guys. It took 2 hours to leave Arras because of the huge traffic and got home at 4h45 am! [thanks FixYougirl]
My impression when I watched the streaming was that the guys were full of energy, Chris proved again to be a great performer and to be really into what he was doing (just think of all the energy he put into Violet Hill, all those jumps and such, his face while playing The Scientist, and Politik, and...). I can't say much about the crowd from the streaming, but wasn't there a good singalong for The Scientist and didn't Chris say they sounded fantastic? Anyway, just a thought: this time the guys were great and the crowd maybe not. At the festival in Sweden, the guys didn't seem at their best (to me) but the crowd was quite good. And I did prefer yesterday's show. [thanks Steph589]
We (Stefan, Laura, Anna, Mich, Tash and I) arrived at the queue (there were two entrances and we were at one of them) at around 8.30-ish and were later joined by Perrine, Chavi, Phil etc. We had loooads of fun spray painting the banner (thanks again for bringing the paint, Phil!) I somehow got in charge of doing the lettering so that's my work right there. Then we waited and waited and waited for the gates to open (as one does). Bag-search, wristband check etc (skipping all the boring bits ). After being forced to stand and wait between some barriers (like cattle) for 30 minutes in blazing sun we were told it was time to move (well, I didn't understand, I had to ask someone, my French is very limited, haha). THE RUN WAS AWFUL. I swear it was probably a mile of sprinting (I might be exaggerating a bit there - still bad enough to make us all cough for hours after, though!) I have to give the biggest props to the finest barrier runners in the world, Mich and Stefan! Without them we wouldn't have made front row. Loved, loved, loved Bruno Mars (Anna, Mich and I had a dance party and the band were totally into us ) so that was a nice surprise 'cause I thought it was going to be shit! Elbow were amazing as well. Then after a lukewarm performance from PJ Harvey (disappointed!) and a slightly sleep inducing one from Portishead (might have been the +12 hour queueing, though) it was time for the boys to go on! (Big thanks to the head of security who told us it was okay for us to hang our banner on the barrier! ) Some Jay-Z always gets the crowd going and we were rocking out in the front. Then Back to the Future theme. Hurts Like Heaven was great fun but after that it... Kind of went downhill. No one in the band smiled (except a few ones from Chris). No contact with the front row whatsoever. I was so utterly BORED during Viva that I didn't know what to do with myself. The boys looked tired and angry (which I guess comes from the numerous festivals they are doing and the mess up in the beginning) and didn't seem to enjoy themselves at all. The set was done on routine. Poor Jonny is INCREDIBLY skinny and he looked ill, to be honest. He certainly needs a good rest. I know a lot of you at home enjoyed it and that's great but I can honestly say with the exception of Charlie Brown and Hurts Like Heaven this concert was a huge disappointment for me (and that's not counting the huge amount of time and money I spent on getting there ). This was "only" my 5th time seeing them (I can't believe it's five already ) but I know with my entire being that they can do so, so much better than this. That being said, I had a fabulous few day with all my friends from far away, I miss you already! Hope to see you soon (maybe at a gig when the boys are actually "present"). [thanks AnnaElisabeth]
So suprising for me to hear all the reviews... I really enjoyed the show, for me one of the best Coldplay-gigs of all time. Especially the new songs (Major Minus, Hurts Like Heaven, Us against the world) were better then any time before. Great improvment! The boys seemed to be full of energy in my point of view, they had lot of fun. For me, the only thing which wasn't so good was the crowd. And btw I really love Coldplay that they play most of the time. I was in Berlin to see U2 and it was so boring that Bono talk to the crowd after every song for minutes about god, the bad things in the world and so on... However, they guys play often the songs in row and this is what I love, because I'm there to hear the music and to see the guys playing. Yesterday I had not the feeling that they hurried. But thats only my impression. [thanks Major_Love]
That I've read about the crowd makes me angry, because some criticize without being there ! The crowd was better than in MSF 2009! But I agree on a point, the crowd didn't sing on the new songs, but it's because they only discovered them during the gig. And the TV show simply turn off the crowd singing and clapping in their hands. But I'm a bit disappointed by the gig. As some Coldplayers, I had the feeling that the band wanted to play as fast as possible, and there were only a few interaction with the crowd, unlike the other gigs. Otherwise, the new songs are great, as new versions of GPASUYF and VLV. And I really enjoy to see them for the third time, after this unending wait. [thanks shini]
Streamed images of Coldplay - Main Square Festival, Arras, France (3rd July, 2011):
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