Coldplay!
Meh. Between the delightful smiling faces I had at both McDonald's and Sonic tonight, the drive-thru industry has pretty well ensured they won't see any of my delightful smiling money for quite sometime. :P Fine with me.
But forget dwelling on that, because WHEEEEE. Coldplay was awesome! Since I'm a "big concert" virgin I didn't have any real frame of reference, but my sister, who saw the group last time they were in OKC, said this show was even better. I was iffy at first, because one of the first tracks they played was "Violet Hill" - one of my favorites - but I wound up being kind of mehhh on this particular rendition of it. But when they hit "Cemeteries of London" a couple of rounds later, wham, they hit the fuck out of it. :D
Aside from the iffy take on "Violet Hill" and the even iffier takes on "God Put a Smile on Your Face" (which I don't think anyone in the audience recognized at first) and "Talk," every other song was incredible; it's amazing how a live performance can totally change the feel of a song. Even the songs I'm kind of meh on normally, like "Strawberry Swing," I was swaying and tapping my feet along to. They wound up playing nearly all of my favorites, except "Sparks" and "Trouble." My money shot, as I'd hoped, was "Viva La Vida," and I think I'd probably have been happy if the concert had ended right there - the crowd was on such a high. But "Lovers in Japan" was possibly even more amazing, and probably their most elaborate number, their standard fancy multicolored light show this time accompanied with a shitload of confetti raining down from the ceiling.
The group, especially Chris Martin, are an extremely exuberant group of performers, so it wasn't at all surprising to see them - mostly Martin - running around the perpetually psychedelically lit stage, even for them to run into the audience. What was surprising, was when they kept running - to an empty platform in one of the stands that had been set up as a miniature stage - one section over from me and my sister! They were so close that had we been on the opposite end of the row we were sitting in, we could probably have brushed hands with them as they ran by. As it was, my sister practically hyperventilated at the sheer knowledge that she was perhaps a hundred feet from her music husband. When they started playing "The Scientist," I thought I might have to stop her from swooning. It was at this point in particular I grumbled my lack of a camera - the official rule was no recording devices, but if I'd known security was going to be so lax, I wouldn't have worried. :P
"Lovers in Japan" was their last really big number, and they officially wrapped it up with "Death and all of His Friends." My sister said to wait just a bit more, though, because there was bound to be an encore, and she believed it would be "Yellow," since they hadn't played it, and she just couldn't imagine a Coldplay concert without that song. The crowd simply did not die down, and sure enough, after a couple of minutes, the group came back - and rocked the hell out of "Yellow." No yellow balloons falling from the ceiling, though, like they apparently did last time they came to OKC.
All in all: amazing show, great crowd, especially for a Sunday night in Oklahoma, and definitely worth the wait. :) (Which was three months longer than it should have been, bah, stupid schedule conflicts. But all is forgiven!)
And I'm calling in late to work this morning, because of the aforementioned Sunday night-ness. WTF? I just got home only a little while ago.
But forget dwelling on that, because WHEEEEE. Coldplay was awesome! Since I'm a "big concert" virgin I didn't have any real frame of reference, but my sister, who saw the group last time they were in OKC, said this show was even better. I was iffy at first, because one of the first tracks they played was "Violet Hill" - one of my favorites - but I wound up being kind of mehhh on this particular rendition of it. But when they hit "Cemeteries of London" a couple of rounds later, wham, they hit the fuck out of it. :D
Aside from the iffy take on "Violet Hill" and the even iffier takes on "God Put a Smile on Your Face" (which I don't think anyone in the audience recognized at first) and "Talk," every other song was incredible; it's amazing how a live performance can totally change the feel of a song. Even the songs I'm kind of meh on normally, like "Strawberry Swing," I was swaying and tapping my feet along to. They wound up playing nearly all of my favorites, except "Sparks" and "Trouble." My money shot, as I'd hoped, was "Viva La Vida," and I think I'd probably have been happy if the concert had ended right there - the crowd was on such a high. But "Lovers in Japan" was possibly even more amazing, and probably their most elaborate number, their standard fancy multicolored light show this time accompanied with a shitload of confetti raining down from the ceiling.
The group, especially Chris Martin, are an extremely exuberant group of performers, so it wasn't at all surprising to see them - mostly Martin - running around the perpetually psychedelically lit stage, even for them to run into the audience. What was surprising, was when they kept running - to an empty platform in one of the stands that had been set up as a miniature stage - one section over from me and my sister! They were so close that had we been on the opposite end of the row we were sitting in, we could probably have brushed hands with them as they ran by. As it was, my sister practically hyperventilated at the sheer knowledge that she was perhaps a hundred feet from her music husband. When they started playing "The Scientist," I thought I might have to stop her from swooning. It was at this point in particular I grumbled my lack of a camera - the official rule was no recording devices, but if I'd known security was going to be so lax, I wouldn't have worried. :P
"Lovers in Japan" was their last really big number, and they officially wrapped it up with "Death and all of His Friends." My sister said to wait just a bit more, though, because there was bound to be an encore, and she believed it would be "Yellow," since they hadn't played it, and she just couldn't imagine a Coldplay concert without that song. The crowd simply did not die down, and sure enough, after a couple of minutes, the group came back - and rocked the hell out of "Yellow." No yellow balloons falling from the ceiling, though, like they apparently did last time they came to OKC.
All in all: amazing show, great crowd, especially for a Sunday night in Oklahoma, and definitely worth the wait. :) (Which was three months longer than it should have been, bah, stupid schedule conflicts. But all is forgiven!)
And I'm calling in late to work this morning, because of the aforementioned Sunday night-ness. WTF? I just got home only a little while ago.