mooseaka

Everyone stood up for the whole show, sang every lyric (especially the two dudes behind me who seranaded me in my ear the whole show) and screamed their heads off after every song. You should have seen the crowd gravitate towards the band as they set up to play two songs up in the seats. If the show had taken place on a boat, it would have capsized from so many people moving to the back! The crowd also stuck around screaming for a good five minutes after the show ended, even as the lights went up and the roadies started breaking down the stage to try to squeeze one more precious song out from the band, but it didn't happen. Don't rip the crowd - they came prepared and put on as good a show as the band (if not better). As for the complaints, the title of this thread has the word "reviews" in it, does it not? People are entitled to their opinion, so let us have our say. I raised my opinions several pages back, some agreed, some didn't. If you just want to read unabashed gushing over the band, maybe start a thread devoted to positive comments only.

I'm going to stop complaining and I'm glad I'm in the minority. Just thought I would offer a different perspective on the show. Or maybe I just need to go to bed.

For the record, I'm not 100% anti-pre-recorded tracks. I love their live version of Daylight, and yet I know they don't play the synth/strings part live, and parts of Square One are always pre-recorded too, but I felt like if they need to do it for every song off VLV, it almost detracts from the album and almost makes you wonder how much of the show is live at all. My favorite thing about seeing Coldplay live is coming away with a new appreciation for their songs. However, I can't honestly say I like any VLV song more having heard it live, because they basically did everything they could to make it sound as much like the album version as possible. I'm sure this is party of the trial and error phase of the tour, but given how structured and choreographed their shows are, it seems that this is going to be how it is through most of this touring schedule.

Not to be a downer, but I was not that impressed with the show as a whole. First a few caveats: -I realize the show was free -I realize how lucky I was to go, when lots of people reading this were unable to -I realize how lucky I am to have been to five other shows through the years, when many people reading this have never seen them -I realize how cool it is to be among a few thousand Americans to hear VLV songs for the first time live -I once again realize the show was free Ok, that all being said, from a pure Coldplay concert rating perspective, there were a number of problems I had with the show - most notably the length of the concert and the number of songs where there were phantom musicians. The length and lack of encore, well, I'll give them a pass since "I realize the show was free". Plus I've been to enough shows to know that 90 minutes is the witching hour for them anyway, so I got over the short set list and abrupt ending pretty quick. But the phantom musicians really started to bug me as the concert wore on. If I'm not mistaken, every song they attempted from VLV except for Chinese Sleep Chant had at least one instrument part that was either pre-recorded or played offstage. They walked out to Life in Technicolor, but didn't pick up their instruments until the music, including guitar parts were all ready playing full stream. Viva La Vida, well it was exactly like the MTV Awards - pre-recorded strings, and with Chris bizarrely playing only half the keyboard parts, while the rest just pumped through the speakers. Lovers in Japan opens with Chis hammering away on the keyboards, only for him to stop and pick up the microphone while they keyboard part continues to play in the background. See a pattern? Perhaps the worst of all was Lost!, which 10 years from now should be their ultimate concert song - but now it is so heavily produced that they might as well pop in the CD and go to track 3. Chris doesn't go anywhere near the organ an instead prances around the stage singing. It's just a simple organ riff, brother. What gives? And Will, God bless him, is banging away on drums, but he clearly is not playing the full drum line for the song, yet the full percussion track can be heard. I know it sounds like I am nitpicking, but I think this is part of a bigger problem. I wish Coldplay would just come out and play like a band instead of playing like a product. I would love to hear them play a stripped down Lost!, VLV or whatever, but for some reason they have to play every song to sound exactly like the album version (although after 8 years they are finally confident enough to play a lovely acoustic version of Yellow). This is not the same band I saw rip through nearly the entire AROBTH album at the tiny TLA in 2002. This is more like Circ du Coldplai. Darn, that ended up sounding like more of a rant than I meant it to, but I'm truly concerned about how this bodes for this tour. If you want to go experience the boys in person and see a slick production - you will not be disappointed. But if you want to go see these guys flex their musical muscles, maybe scale your hopes back a little.

Not to be a downer, but I was not that impressed with the show as a whole. First a few caveats: -I realize the show was free -I realize how lucky I was to go, when lots of people reading this were unable to -I realize how lucky I am to have been to five other shows through the years, when many people reading this have never seen them -I realize how cool it is to be among a few thousand Americans to hear VLV songs for the first time live -I once again realize the show was free Ok, that all being said, from a pure Coldplay concert rating perspective, there were a number of problems I had with the show - most notably the length of the concert and the number of songs where there were phantom musicians. The length and lack of encore, well, I'll give them a pass since "I realize the show was free". Plus I've been to enough shows to know that 90 minutes is the witching hour for them anyway, so I got over the short set list and abrupt ending pretty quick. But the phantom musicians really started to bug me as the concert wore on. If I'm not mistaken, every song they attempted from VLV except for Chinese Sleep Chant had at least one instrument part that was either pre-recorded or played offstage. They walked out to Life in Technicolor, but didn't pick up their instruments until the music, including guitar parts were all ready playing full stream. Viva La Vida, well it was exactly like the MTV Awards - pre-recorded strings, and with Chris bizarrely playing only half the keyboard parts, while the rest just pumped through the speakers. Lovers in Japan opens with Chis hammering away on the keyboards, only for him to stop and pick up the microphone while they keyboard part continues to play in the background. See a pattern? Perhaps the worst of all was Lost!, which 10 years from now should be their ultimate concert song - but now it is so heavily produced that they might as well pop in the CD and go to track 3. Chris doesn't go anywhere near the organ an instead prances around the stage singing. It's just a simple organ riff, brother. What gives? And Will, God bless him, is banging away on drums, but he clearly is not playing the full drum line for the song, yet the full percussion track can be heard. I know it sounds like I am nitpicking, but I think this is part of a bigger problem. I wish Coldplay would just come out and play like a band instead of playing like a product. I would love to hear them play a stripped down Lost!, VLV or whatever, but for some reason they have to play every song to sound exactly like the album version (although after 8 years they are finally confident enough to play a lovely acoustic version of Yellow). This is not the same band I saw rip through nearly the entire AROBTH album at the tiny TLA in 2002. This is more like Circ du Coldplai. Darn, that ended up sounding like more of a rant than I meant it to, but I'm truly concerned about how this bodes for this tour. If you want to go experience the boys in person and see a slick production - you will not be disappointed. But if you want to go see these guys flex their musical muscles, maybe scale your hopes back a little.

Jon Hopkins - who I'm pretty sure actually wrote the music for The Escapist. It's on the official site: http://www.coldplay.com/newsdetail.php?id=25

What are the odds on GPASUYF? It's only, like, the best song of the 00's. This should probably be it's own thread (if it isn't already), but I'm curious how most people feel about them playing Yellow/Clocks/FixYou/InMyPlace every single show. After five CP shows, I never need to hear those songs again if it means I can hear Shiver/Daylight/AROBTTH or some other non-hits that deserve some play time.

My wife has been praying they play Shiver all week too. It seems like the perfect live song too, I wonder why they've nixed it lately. Eric, how do you know the timetables for tonight? Are these confirmed times or just an educated guess. We want to know how much time we have to get to the stadium since we are coming from Philly.

Mother of God, they are playing for 80 minutes. 80 MINUTES! After watching Pearl Jam play for 2.5 hours Thursday night (27 songs - that's two full Coldplay concerts), it's going to fly by pretty fast.

I'm in 336. Row G! At first I though, who did we piss off? It's probably bad karma for posting earlier that I probably couldn't go to this concert (but we definitely are now). But obviously, we are overjoyed to have won at all, so it's all smiles over here. Looking on the bright side, this is still a million times better than floor seats. We were on the Floor for the 2003 show and my Hobbit-sized wife didn't see the lads once due to tall folk in front of us.

I won tickets, actually my wife won. We are from Philly, and are mulling if we can go or not because of our work schedules (we also have tickets to the following Sunday's show in Philly already). The frustrating part (and this will be hard for you to read) is that I don't think it's possible to give these tickets away, and I know tons of people who would take them, so they might go unused. Hopefully if we decline the seats, someone else can use them or win them. I wish everyone on this message board could have won because I come here several times a day and love our enthusiasm and devotion to the band. Good luck everybody.

If you are referring to the version that was released about two months before X&Y, that might be one of my top five favorite Coldplay songs ever. It's got a much better uptempo drum beat, bass line and lyrics, and probably the best bridge that Chris ever wrote. You can tell the difference because the Chorus of the unreleased Talk is the same line as the end of the album version ("So you don't know where you're going but you want to talk"). If you haven't heard this song, it's definitely worth seeking out.

Idiotic argument by Barat, so much so that I just logged in for the first time in years to post this. (I lurk no more - Mooseaka is back) How on earth could giving away a single song have any impact whatsoever on smaller bands? It's not like my iPod is so clogged up with free music from Coldplay that I don't have time for any other music. Even if Violet Hill were the best song I ever heard (it's not), and I listened to it 100 times in a row, I would still be looking for more music when I had my fill. In fact, hearing VH got me thinking about music and I went out and discovered a Brit Rock band called Elbow who just put out an awsome album I bought called "The Seldom Seen Kid" (check it out!). Plus, this argument completely ignores the fact that free music on MySpace basically gave Kate Nash and Lily Allen their starts. Unfortunately for Barat, he doesn't realize that the internet is there to help artists who are actually talented enough that people want to hear their music. I guess that leaves him out in the cold. This is like Burger King complaining that Auntee Anne's is ruining the fast food industry for giving away free pretzel samples in the mall food courts.

Here's my two cents. It was my 4th time seeing Coldplay and they were definitely at peak form Sunday night. Having seen them before, I was prepared for about a 90 minute show, but still I went home wishing for a few more tracks. All in all a great show by my favorite band, but here are some other observations: -Loved the countdown during Square One. It really gets you excited for the concert that is about to follow. -Chris obviously learned how to dance by watching David Byrne -Although it's my fifth or sixth favorite track on X&Y, I thought that the best song of the night by far was "Low". They absolutely destroyed that song (in a good way), and everyone I went with agreed. I love when hearing a song live really changes your view on it. -I thought one of the surprisingly weaker songs of the night was "Speed of Sound". I thought the tempo was too slow, the harmonies were a little off, and it just didn't seem to translate well to a live song. -Here are my minor nitpicks about the show: No matter how you slice it, 90 minutes is too short. It made sense two years ago when they only had two albums and tickets were cheaper, but now they really need to push 120 minutes. And I also thought they were too conservative with their song choices. I wished they threw in some b-sides, or played some of their lesser known songs. This might just me being subjective, especially since I usually prefer Coldplay's non-singles (I've heard more than enough Yellow and In My Place for a lifetime), but I also think it would reward the die-hard fans, and maybe inspire the casual fans to dig deeper on the albums. Show Rating: 8.5/10

Yeah, they're from Nashville. Blue Merle, that is. I'm from Philly, and I've been lurking on these boards about five times a day for a few months. I can't believe my first post was about Blue "Hack" Merle. :huh: Keep up the good work gang.

Hey gang, I got an e-mail from a friend who said he downloaded "Swallowed by the Sea" from a P2P. He sent it to me and it was actually "Burned by the Sun" by a band called Blue Merle. If you havn't heard Blue Merle, the singer has flat out stolen Chris Martin's singing style, falsetto and all. My fiance and I once heard one of their songs on the radio in the car and she thought it was a new Coldplay song. They have a single called "If I Could" that isn't a bad song, but a flat out rip off of CP's style (well, mostly the vocals). Anyway, keep an eye out for this bogus file, during these, ahem, exciting times.