30 August 2005: DTE Energy Music Theatre, Detroit, MI, USA
From WikiColdplay
Setlist
- Square One
- Politik
- Yellow
- God Put A Smile Upon Your Face
- Speed Of Sound
- Low
- A Rush Of Blood To The Head
- Amsterdam
- White Shadows
- The Scientist
- ’Til Kingdom Come
- Ring Of Fire (Johnny Cash Cover)
- Don’t Panic
- Clocks
- Talk
Encore - Swallowed In The Sea
- In My Place
- Fix You
Reviews
Coldplay shows why it's the hottest band around Chris Martin drives hypnotic concert
Tuesday night at a sold-out DTE Energy Music Theatre, the British quartet effortlessly delivered the latter, transforming a bundle of simple songs into a night of pop catharsis.
Coldplay, which came to DTE as the hottest band in contemporary music, isn't a live force in the typical rock sense. Vocalist Chris Martin and company, in fact, succeeded Tuesday by going for the polar opposite of loud and raucous.
Before an audience of 15,274 -- mostly college-age fans -- Coldplay put a jet-age sheen on a brand of chiming rock often compared to U2.
Sonic grandeur isn't the only tip the band has borrowed from its Irish musical cousin.
Tuesday night, Coldplay revealed an equally ambitious taste for stage production, performing in front of a massive, high-tech video collage and an unrelenting, precisely choreographed light show -- all just tasteful enough to keep it from veering over the top.
The engaging visuals made an ideal supplement to a musical performance that often bordered on hypnotic.
Opening the show with the cutting "Square One," the band rolled through an early, mesmerizing stretch that included "Politik" and the breakout hit "Yellow," presented in a crisp but airy mix that brought an admirable degree of definition to the sound.
Guitarist Jon Buckland was a stealthy but crucial presence, gracing the material with flourishes of pealing licks and driving it with deceptively simple riffs.
But all attention, as expected, was on Martin, a musician known in gossip-column circles as the husband of actress Gwyneth Paltrow. Small-framed and limber, Martin was an animated figure through the entire 90 minutes, bouncing alone on the stool of his spinnet-styled electric piano and making merry with the crowd as he wisecracked between songs.
While Martin is no technical virtuoso, his voice has the kind of aching character custom-made for modern rock tastes.
Whether slipping into his falsetto on the pulsing "Speed of Sound," quietly crooning through a languid midshow stretch that included "A Rush of Blood to the Head," or turning "The Scientist" into something simply pretty, he was far and away the driving force behind what wound up as one of DTE's best nights this summer.
Source: freep.com
U2's fingerprints all over Coldplay show
CLARKSTON - It is the right of every rock band to emulate its heroes. It is also a given that any truly gifted band can aspire to reach the largest audience without compromising the integrity of its music.
England's Coldplay has managed to do both in a relatively short time. Coldplay has followed the rock-as-inspiration path blazed by U2 while rapidly evolving from an overachieving band that sold out clubs five years ago, theaters two years ago and now amphitheaters on the first leg of its "Twisted Logic" tour.
The band is expected to return during an arena tour in the winter.
The band's Irish heroes' fingerprints are all over this show, from singer Chris Martin's show-opening posturing in front a large curved, rectangular video screen, a la "Zoo TV," to an ability to skip and bounce from leg to leg like a certain crusading singer with a penchant for wraparound sunglasses.
But there's nothing wrong with that kind of ambition if you've got the goods to back it up.
Coldplay, which seems to be loathed almost as much as it is loved, proved that it does before a capacity crowd of nearly 16,000 Tuesday at DTE Energy Music Theatre.
This is Coldplay's big splash, its chance to make the biggest noise of its career and connect. Not just commercially, but on a more communal level.
Save for some overly bombastic moments early in their nearly two-hour performance, the band was clearly up to the task.
Less serious and a more playful than on 2003's "A Rush of Blood to the Head" tour, the band dropped confetti-filled yellow balloons during "Yellow," its breakthrough American hit. Martin joked about being snubbed by Paris Hilton while in Miami last weekend for the MTV Video Music Awards (dedicating "Everything's Not Lost" to her).
One of the night's most powerful performances was a version of the contemplative "A Rush of Blood to the Head" that didn't rely on all the show's visual gimmicks.
The band - guitarist Jon Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion - later squeezed onto an extension at the front of the stage for earnest renditions of "Til Kingdom Come" (a hymn written for Johnny Cash shortly before his death), which segued into the Man in Black's "Ring of Fire" and the sci-fi Western "Parachutes."
"Clocks" has evolved into a rousing anthem, complete with the audience clapping time forcefully and an accelerated ending that only added to its intensity. Similarly, the affirming "Fix You" closed the night on an inspirational note, like a salve on the open wound of a young generation of fans sometimes accused of being more self-involved than spiritual.
Martin sings with an innocence and lightness well-suited to the band's idealistic odes, and the backing musicians know how to work a rhythm with a slow-burn intensity well suited to Martin's delicate melodicism. It is a chemistry that has allowed Coldplay to grow by leaps and bounds.
The next step for Martin and crew is to communicate on this level without the obvious U2isms.
Source: mlive.com
