08 December 2002: KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas,Universal Amphitheater, Los Angeles, CA, USA
From WikiColdplay
Setlist
Order Unknown
- Do They Know It's Christmas (Band Aid Cover with solo from Chris Martin)
- Yellow
- Politik
- In My Place
- Trouble
Media Reviews
There was a moment near the end of KROQ's Acoustic Christmas that should give hope to serious rock fans. The two-night, sold-out affair came to a close Sunday night (Dec. 8) with a headlining set by Southern rock juggernaut Creed. Midway through the opening song, Scott Stapp's microphone went silent. The singer stormed offstage, and the crowd erupted in round of boos, but then something even more unexpected happened: the Universal Amphitheater audience began to chant for Coldplay, who had just wrapped an impressive 40-minute set.
Creed was ready to go after a five-minute break, but when it was apparent Coldplay would not be returning, the crowd of about 6,000 departed, leaving Creed to play to a practically empty amphitheater. Radio programmers take heed: rock fans have a voice. If the massive L.A. crowd is any indication, it isn't saying Creed, Disturbed, or P.O.D. The latter two acts had the misfortune of closing out Saturday night's show, with P.O.D.'s guitarist Marcus Curiel pleading to the rapidly thinning crowd that "traffic isn't that bad."
Yet the fact that fans at a major, corporate concert displayed disinterest at some of today's most popular acts is only one reason to be encouraged. The KROQ shows featured a bounty of respectable artists, including Beck, the Flaming Lips, Coldplay, Dashboard Confessional, Jurassic 5, Audioslave, Queens Of The Stone Age, and Zwan. Compare that to KROQ's winter concerts last year, when System Of A Down, Bad Religion, and Coldplay were the only critically acclaimed artists on the bill. Change, perhaps, is afoot.
Of course, work still needs to be done, and this year's Acoustic Christmas (the show is "acoustic" in name only) featured its share of bland corporate punk (New Found Glory, Good Charlotte) and a number of acts better left for the second-stage of Ozzfest, such as Taproot and the Used. Additionally, there's no excuse for giving the throwaway novelty songs of comedian Jimmy Fallon a prime-time set when plenty of worthy of artists could fill the slot.
Saturday night's return of Billy Corgan should give fans of mainstream rock more than enough reasons to rejoice. His five-piece Zwan, with the Pumpkins' Jimmy Chamberlin on drums, A Perfect Circle's Paz Lenchantin on bass, and Slint's David Pajo and Chavez's Matt Sweeney on guitar, performed a moderately mid-tempo set of fuzzed-up rock songs filled with Chamberlin's jazzy diversions and Pajo's otherworldly soundscapes. While Corgan allowed his bandmates plenty of room to experiment, he never forgot to include a tune, and slower songs such as the violin-driven "Of a Broken Heart" rank as some of his most ambitious material since the Pumpkins' "Adore" (Virgin).
Saturday night also included a solid -- if not particularly memorable -- set from Sum 41, a passable punk band that studiously mines early Green Day riffs and tosses in some metal. Stoner rock kings Queens Of The Stone Age's "Feel Good Hit of the Summer" was by far the fastest and tightest performance of the two nights, and "No One Knows" out-punked any of the punk acts on the bill.
Supergroup Audioslave, comprised of former members of Rage Against The Machine, performed its first major concert, and the Chris Cornell-led band clearly came with something to prove. Yet while Cornell has his classic-rock wail down pat, what makes Audioslave work is the impressiveness of the group behind him. Just as it was in Rage Against The Machine, it's hard to shift one's attention away from guitar wizard Tom Morello, who bounded around the stage as he sliced at Cornell's vocals on songs such as "Light My Way" and "Set It Off." His chord manipulations achieved nearly indescribable sounds -- his guitar can easily mimic emergency vehicles or helicopters -- and Morello is always more interested in dressing a song rather than pounding it into the audience's head.
Hopefully Saturday night headliners Disturbed and P.O.D. were watching. Disturbed's lead singer David Draiman looked and moved ridiculously liked a Chippendales reject, and spent much of the set defending Disturbed's "place in metal" (Sorry, Dave, the band doesn't have one). Unlike Disturbed's generic industrial grind, P.O.D. at least has the ability to shift tempo and vary a rhythm, but the limited range of vocalist Sonny Sandoval quickly deadened the set.
On Sunday, the median crowd age jumped from about 16 to 26, as the night belonged to more "easy-listening" fare. Artists such as Beck, Coldplay, and Jack Johnson received by far the most positive crowd reaction of the two nights. Johnson, joined by Ben Harper on slide guitar, was pleasantly innocuous with his acoustic numbers. His songs were elevated by his rhythm section, which was comfortable giving the tunes either an R&B or a reggae flair.
The acoustic punk of Dashboard Confessional provided an emotional wallop with Chris Carrabba's illustrative tales of high school agony, while Jurassic 5 was the sole hip-hop representation on the bill. The local group, comprised of four MCs and two DJs, provided earthy, soul-inflected grooves that recalled the spirit of Arrested Development.
Australia's the Vines proved once again to be all hype. The "new-garage" band may have an energetic single in "Get Free," but frontman Craig Nicholls acts as if he just graduated from a Rock Star 101 class, mimicking Kurt Cobain, Thom Yorke, and Iggy Pop rather than actually showing any real personality. The band should also take note that destroying its instruments on a revolving stage at a corporate show doesn't really have much of an impact.
Coldplay, however, was just the opposite, performing a set that more than lived up to the lavish praise given the band. On record, the Jeff Buckley-influenced songs can grow weary, but live, Coldplay completely transforms into a spirited and passionate band. With its golden, minor-chord leads, songs such as "Politik," "Yellow," and "In My Place" stretched for a U2-like grandeur, but as evidenced by the lovely ballad "Trouble," Coldplay is aiming for more traditional pop arrangements, and the group largely succeeds. Additionally, vocalist Chris Martin showed a welcome sense of humor, mixing in some Shania Twain with the diva-worthy "Trouble."
Yet when it comes to partying, no band throws a better bash than the Flaming Lips. Performing with Beck, who sadly played it safe by cluttering his short set with popular fare like "Loser," "Where It's At," and "Devil's Haircut" rather than his more ambitious newer material, the Lips were unjustly relegated to a backing band. Collaborations between artists of this caliber don't happen often, and Beck and the Flaming Lips blew it by failing to rearrange or dress Beck's material any differently than it is on record.
Yet when the Lips took control of the set for Bob Geldof's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" the show briefly transcended into something quite spectacular. Joined by Carrabba, Coldplay's Martin, Jack Johnson, actress Juliette Lewis, and about two dozen people in furry animal costumes, the Lips showered the crowd with confetti and united them in pure excessive silliness. The group had to ride Beck's coattails to get on this bill, but in a three-minute Christmas tune, Wayne Coyne's band outshone anything corporate radio could offer.
Todd Martens
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/reviews/live_review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1776279
