30 April 2005: Coachella Music Festival 2005, Empire Polo Field, Indio
From WikiColdplay
Setlist
- Square One
- Politik
- God Put A Smile Upon Your Face
- Speed Of Sound
- Warning Sign
- Yellow
- Low
- The Scientist
- ’Til Kingdom Come
- Clocks
- What If
Encore - A Message
- In My Place
- Fix You
Reviews
It became clear Coldplay was Day 1's major draw when band leader Chris Martin instigated a mass exodus for the parking lots by announcing he'd do one more song. The English band mixed classics such as "Yellow" and "Clocks" with several songs from their much-anticipated new CD, "X&Y," set to drop in June. Martin said before the CD was recorded it would be the "best album of all time," and Saturday he hyped several singles from it as his "best ever" of one sort of another.
A song he wrote for Johnny Cash, "Till Kingdom Come," was perhaps most poignant. Martin said the country singer, who was one of his heroes, died before he could record it so the band recorded it instead.
Martin has transferred his simple melodic music into a stadium rock sound, and his success at that, paving the way for other melodic piano bands such as Keane, may be his greatest contribution. The key to his success is his arrangements, featuring the pounding drums of Will Champion, but Martin also danced energetically to the melodic music, although he'll never make fans forget Prince or Mick Jagger
In a word, amazing. In two, f*cking amazing. Coldplay headlined the event, and they didn't disappoint. I stood for 9 hours in the same area being squished by crazy fans waiting for coldplay. I saw some pretty cool acts pre-coldplay (Snow Patrol, Keane, Weezer, although I had to skip out on Bloc Party unfortunately). Then when Coldplay came on, things just went ridiculous. Opened with Square One, played some classics such as Yellow (I *think* that was the only Parachutes song, correct me if I'm wrong), as well as several AROBTTH songs and X&Y songs. NEW SONGS: not sure if they've actually played these before, but they played Low, Til Kingdom Come, Fix You, and other songs from the new album which they have already played live before. All amazing songs, but Fix You is a stand out track.
I made some REAL crappy recordings, and I mean using the recording function on my cell phone resulting in some seriously distorted sound. But I got a bunch of pictures of Chris and the boys dancing, prancing, jumping around doing their thing. Will Champion even played the piano for Til Kingdom Come, showing off the bands amazing versatility.
The most amazing event was Chris Martin performing an spontaneous leap from the stage into the crowd, however . It was absolutely scary and terrific to watch at the same time. The screams of surprise were deafining. You could tell they didn't plan it because security quickly surrounded him looking quite surprised and shocked. I was all the way up front so I got a good view of it, I seriously thought Chris hurt himself because it was a good 6-7 foot leap to hard packed desert ground. But he got up and continued singing, actually even walking into the crowd. I think this was during Clocks, correct me if I'm wrong any other Coachellites (or whatever you call us), or another ROBTTH song. It just really shows how amazing a character and performer Chris is, he truly is incredible to watch.
And now, it's 4:45am, I've been standing watching my favorite bands for 13 hours straight, I must go to sleep. Hope you enjoyed my little insight into a truly amazing Coldplay performance. [thanks koolsmoky]
yes yes it was an amazing festival. coldplay was the best in show, while weezer was awesome, and rilo kiley was one of my favorites for the day. but back to coldplay, they opened with square one, alot of fans were jumping in anticipation but it really took off when they went straight into politik after. i believe it was at the end of politik when chris gave a little nod to weezer by singing the first line of buddy holly, "what's with his homies dissing my girl," hehe.
gpasuyf was fantastic, warning sign was fantastic, and yellow absolutely brought down the house. at the end of the scientist, chris started going into "hurt" by NIN, the headliners for sunday night. it was odd how he kept the same chord progression from the scientist while singing hurt, but it mixed perfect, after one or two lines of the song however he quickly stopped himself saying, "wait that's for tomorrow," getting a few laughs out of the audience. at the end of clocks, when the audience's clapping went out of sync with will's drums, chris had a spontaneous idea and asked the audience to race, their clapping against his playing, he went faster and faster playing the piano riff to clocks, it was funny watching the rest of the band try and keep up too. the new songs sounded amazing, well rehearsed, no mistakes. low was great, he asked the audience to all take pictures of him at a certain point, giving that flash effect.
my favorite of the new songs was "what if," and chris seems to agree, he introduced it as "the best song we've ever f*cking written." they played "til kingdom come," saying it was for jonny cash, with "the most talented drummer in the world" will on piano, jonny and chris on guitars, and guy on the harmonica. speed of sound was great, and fix you was excellent too, chris said it was going to be everyone's favorite when the album comes out. their encore consisted of a message, in my place, and then fix you, in my place was probably my favorite for the night, mostly for the sing-along opportunities.
on a side note my friend almost patted chris's shoulder when he walked through that pit aisle, he was inches away. all in all it was a spectacular performance, i cannot wait til they come back on their tour. you could tell that they were very happy to be playing in front of a huge (40,000) audience that consisted of their fans, the energy they were giving and recieving, it was amazing.
Chris himself mentioned how great it was to be playing in front of all of us, comparing it to their gig at the hard rock hotel in vegas the night before, he said, loosely quoting, "it was an odd expereince, the room was full of more silicone than silicone valley. there were lots of nice breasts, but the audience was sh*t." so yeah, sorry for the looooooong review, its just that i'm still excited from the performance today. [thanks okpathos]
