Before playing harmonica on "Death Will Never Conquer," Sunday night at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin apologized. "You paid good money to hear someone play an instrument very badly," he said. Then he proceeded to play it perfectly well, reports The Star-Ledger.
It was still a sharp move to apologize. Coldplay is one of the popular rock bands in the world, and Martin's lyrics sometimes seem self-absorbed, so anything he can do to make himself and the band appear down-to-earth works in his favor.
Martin literally dropped to his knees when thanking the crowd for coming, toward the end of the evening. And "Death Will Never Conquer" was part of a segment (also including "The Scientist") where the band ventured into section 104 of the arena -- located a long way from the stage -- and played there. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, as they did in another part of the show that took place on a small stage at the end of a ramp that extended onto the arena floor.
Throughout the show, the British quartet, which was also scheduled to perform at the arena tonight, mixed loud, aggressive rock with ethereal ballads. It's no wonder the band describes its music, on its official MySpace page, as "very heavy soft rock."
Two of the most explosive numbers came from the band's June album, "Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends." On the soaring "Viva la Vida," Will Champion stepped out from behind his drum kit to pound on a huge bass drum, and the crowd sang along enthusiastically. For "Lovers in Japan," which has an upbeat, celebratory vibe, thousands of glow-in-the-dark, butterfly-shaped pieces of confetti dropped from the rafters.
Among the other new songs, "Strawberry Swing" had a lighter, almost lilting feel, while "42" and "Cemeteries of London" were darker in tone. Both these songs also had some perfect-for-Halloween-season lyrics.
"Those who are dead are not dead/They're just living in my head," sang Martin in the former, while the latter was full of lines like: "We rode down to the river/Where Victorian ghosts pray/For their curses to be broken."
This show rarely stayed gloomy for long. Martin is too much of a crowd-pleaser for that: he bounced around the stage all evening, pumping up the capacity crowd. And while his bandmates (guitarist Jonny Buckland and bassist Guy Berryman, in addition to Champion) seemed happy to let him be the focus of attention, they did generate a big, propulsive wall of sound on songs like "Life in Technicolor," "Chinese Sleep Chant" and "Politik." Lasers and videos (sometimes projected onto six huge balls hovering over the stage and the crowd) made the show into a spectacle.
These guys aren't the most original musicians in the world. Martin sometimes seems like a more pop-friendly version of Radiohead's Thom Yorke, Buckland borrows too many of his guitar riffs from U2's The Edge, and Berryman and Champion do their respective jobs with little flash. Yet over the course of their four albums they have generated lots of memorable songs.
Derivative or not, they have managed to put together a nearly two-hour show that is devoid of dull spots. Except, maybe, for the lull that came when they were returning from section 104.
More on this review here onwards [thanks mimixxx]
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