3 August 2008: Verizon Center, Washington, DC, USA

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Washington

1 Setlist
2 Photos
3 Fan Reviews
4 Media Reviews
5 Videos

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Setlist

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Photos

Photos from this show can be found at Coldplaying.com in the Gallery thread for Washington. http://www.coldplaying.com/forum/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/1516

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Fan Reviews

All fan reviews have been submitted to us by the members of Coldplaying.com[1], unless stated otherwise.

There was no surprise encore but there was the usual one consisting of Politik, lovers in Japan, and Death and all his Friends. With that being said, the concert was fucking great! This was my first time seeing them live! Chris sang so well, he didn't miss a note. And holy shit, Will Champion is one amazing drummer!!! I can't believe someone said he doesn't belong in the top 50....

Best performances:

Yes (had an incredible ending to it)
Viva la Vida (the crowd was great)
Lost! (that song belongs to Will)
The Scientist
Politik(great energy from the band)
Death and All His Friends

Chris did about half of The Hardest Part and then stopped!

The crowd was okay throughout the show, could have been a bit better. They began clapping before some songs were even over, including Yellow!!! Chris had to wait until they stopped clapping to finish. Very annoying. Energy from the crowd was sporadic.

... I stood up the whole entire time...

Oh, and Guy's voice is so cool during Chinese Sleep Chant!

The hits received the biggest praise, as to be expected.

I really had the time of my life. Such a great show!!!

[dotty biscotti]

Will sang Death Will Never Conquer Me. The show was awesome, even from section 407! There is a general agreement among my friends who went to the show that all the songs were executed well. Despite my thorough enjoyment of every second they were on stage, my favorites were: Death and All his friends, Fix You, Politik, Yes, and In My Place. Fix You brought tears to my eyes. The crowd was completely amiable. Lights were fantastic during Clocks- at that point I refused to sit down the entire show. GPASUYF sounded crazy... I would like to have a recording of it myself. The energy and singing and screaming just never seemed to let up for me. I was blissful from square one (the phrase not the song), even through the slow piano and acoustic part. This was my first Coldplay show and it proved to me why Coldplay is my favorite band.

[devzors]

Well, a late night but here to give my two cents review on the Coldplay Viva la Vida concert last night. The

The best songs played in my opinion were Yes, Viva la.., 42, In My Place, and Fix You. Clocks was cool but I liked rather the longer version they played on the X&Y Tour.

The opening act was terrible.. almost made me want to consider why Coldplay had the act on their tour.

The crowd was very well behaved and were just in awe of the band's talent. Chris Martin - you're the complete musician!!

Tour shirts for $40 - people did not mind that price. Selling like hotcakes.

I left still wanting Talk, Speed of Sound, and Cemetaries of London played.

Still an aweome night!! Enjoy all yet to come from Coldplay.

[melrosefan]

Loved the concert last night, but have to agree with some other posts, 1) the crowd was not as into it as it should've been...at least up in the cheap seats...naturally, it got better for Yellow and Viva La Vida, and 2) the set was too short, at least it felt like that. I guess thats what happens when you're having a good time. Still, after going to the Twisted Logic tour, I expected Chris to talk to the audience more or have more transitional melodies, but the band just jumped from one song to the next, almost as if they were in a bit of a hurry to move on. Whatever, it'd be great if they swing by D.C. again like they did in 05-06...maybe a bit more relaxed.

I thought Juniper Lane was pretty good as an opener and was happy they won the competition (I had voted for them). Santogold was a whole other thing though. I don't get how they fit into the scheme of the show, but some of the stuff they played, one "song" in particular, wasn't even coherent, just a stream of awkward beats. It felt like they were on stage for as long as Coldplay.

[pg0624]

Oh, wow. Last night's concert was amazing! So, here's what happened during my first Coldplay concert experience. Let's just say it was great...

My mother and I took in the Metro from Vienna/Fairfax and saw a bunch of people on their way to the concert. We arrived at the Chinatown stop right where the venue was and went to go find something to eat (Potbelly's Sandwich Works-Yum!) After dinner, we headed into the Verizon Center, and got in really quick. We went to go buy concert swag (t-shirt and poster) and then found our seats. We were just a few rows down from peanut heaven and were feeling a bit sad that we were so high up. My camera wasn't going to take good pictures...

So, the first supporting act comes out and while they were performing, this guy comes up to us. He has a backstage all-access pass and he asks us if the seats were okay. Obviously, they weren't and we told him that. He asked us if we were big fans of Coldplay. We said "Hugely insane fans!". He then asked us what our favorite song was from the album. I said it was "Yes" and he then told me to sing some of the lyrics. While I sang, my mom was trying to remember the lyrics to "42" if he asked her. She was in so much shock, she couldn't remember and even I butchered "Yes" a bit because I was in shock. What was the guy going to do? He then said that Coldplay saves the first five rows in the floor seating for their fans. He asked us to give him our stubs and in return, he gave us FRONT ROW CENTER FLOOR SEATS!! All we had to promise was to stand up the whole time.

We go find our new seats and watch Santo Gold perform (she was amazing!) and all these kids come to our row and say they got free tickets too! There was a couple next to my mom who had actually bought floor tickets and the lady seemed genuinely happy that we'd gotten the tickets. She had even liked the makeshift jacket and Jonny hat (with a red V) I'd had on. Coldplay finally opens up with a great "Life in Technicolor" and then goes into "Violet Hill." Jonny's riff was spectacular. There was not a song I didn't enjoy hearing and we were glad that they'd gone to the other side to make the people in the back rows feel happy. I personally enjoyed hearing "Yellow" and "Square One." The laser during "Clocks" was awesome and the Barry Gibb/Johnny Cash reference was hilarious.

I took tons of great pictures and Chris looked so handsome. They all did, but since he was always in front of us, we could see him better. He even said the F word and shit a few times, but he was so adorable when he cursed! The butterflies during "Lovers in Japan" were so beautiful and so was the montage. I booed O'Reilly when he mocked Chris and called him a pinhead and cheered loudly when Will sang "Death Will Never Conquer." At the end, I was able to get a set list from the camera man (!) and we headed with the Coldplay fans to the metro. Thank you, Coldplay for the best concert experience of a lifetime. It was even better than Bruce Springsteen. I never would've thought I'd been that lucky to have gotten front row center tickets. I don't think I'll be that lucky again.

And I'll be sure to post my pictures later.

[Strawberry Swing]

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Media Reviews

Coldplay stopped at the Verizon Center for the "Viva La Vida" tour

WASHINGTON – For music fans concerned about who will continue the arena rock tradition once the veterans have walked away from the stage for good, now would be a good time to turn your attention to Coldplay.

Is their music and cultural impact as timeless as The Rolling Stones or Bruce Springsteen? No. At least not yet. And can Chris Martin command a stage with the bravado and swagger of Bono or Jon Bon Jovi? Not quite.

What Coldplay offers live are well-designed Big Rock Band trappings – video screen the width of the stage, a rainbow of lasers, neon butterfly confetti – but instead of coating them with the cool self-assurance of a thousand other rock stars, the band projects an endearing warmth.

Much of that credit belongs to Martin, a gangly Gumby whose nonstop fidgeting is unexpectedly riveting, but who also approaches a live display with the self-deprecation it deserves. Except, maybe, for those ragtag, straight out of “Master and Commander” military jackets that the band has adopted as its “look” for the album/tour cycle of “Viva La Vida.”

A few times during Sunday’s too-brief 90-minute set, Martin acknowledged a gaffe, smiled sheepishly and then fixed it. It happened on the final verse of the opening “Violet Hill,” when he stretched his face into a look of horror, then repeated the lyric, and, most humorously, on the last refrain of “Yellow,” when he went in low instead of high.

“Some days I don’t know if I’m trying to be Johnny Cash or Barry Gibb,” he quipped. “Hopefully, in 10 years time, I’ll have the voice of Johnny Cash and the hair of Barry Gibb.”

While Martin, 31, is the undeniable focal point with his ungraceful hopping on one foot, singing on his back, rocking violently on his piano stool and flailing his arms as if he’s about to lasso a pony, Coldplay is very much an equal opportunity band.

Guitarist Jonny Buckland owes more than a polite acknowledgement to U2’s The Edge for his chiming fretwork that impressively built into its own little wall of sound, a habit especially evident on the gorgeously soaring “Fix You,” while bassist Guy Berryman quietly anchored the whisper-to-a-scream dynamics of the band’s songs.

Meanwhile, drummer Will Champion (how could he not be destined for stardom with that name?) received more face time than most sticksmen, joining Martin at the front of the stage to hammer a floor drum and vintage bell for the title track to “Viva La Vida,” which sounded nearly as lush as it does on record and incited a U2-ish singalong with its “whoa-oh-oh” chorus.

Released only about six weeks ago, “Viva,” the album, has quickly swelled into the turning point of Coldplay’s eight-year recording career. It’s the biggest-selling non-rap release of 2008 so far with sales of about 1.4 million, and at Sunday’s Verizon Center show, the sold-out audience of close to 20,000 sang along with every album cut as if the songs had been part of their lives for years.

The songs that fit that definition – “Clocks,” “In My Place” – appeared early in the set and were given the polished accompaniment of flashing red lights and pulsing lasers to enhance fans’ already-frenzied state.

But the chumminess of this band – much like with U2 – cannot be underestimated in their newfound footing, both musically and performance-wise. When they huddled at the foot of a stage ramp for an echo-y “Chinese Sleep Chant” and a radical techno-infused version of “God Put a Smile Upon Your Face,” there was a palpable cohesiveness to their performance.

But, it was when the foursome scampered into the crowd to perform in a tiny section at the back of the venue that Coldplay’s desire to keep a grip on their escalating popularity blazed through.

“This is what we look like up close. Impressive, isn’t it?” Martin said with a sideways grin, before the band dove into a lovely acoustic version of “The Scientist,” with Berryman strumming a mandolin.

Martin turned the spotlight to Champion once again, as the drummer sang the folksy pub rumination, “Death Will Never Conquer,” a song offered as a free download on the band’s Web site.

But first, Martin shared one more self-aware gem: “This will be the last song of our main set, and then we’ll do the encore thing, so play along with us, because otherwise, you’ll leave, and we don’t want you to do that.”

It doesn’t appear that fleeing fans are anything that Coldplay needs to fret about for awhile.

http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/entertainment.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-08-04-0192.html

Washington

Coldplay: Not Much Heat, Plenty Of Warmth

A few years ago, it became socially acceptable -- even mandatory -- to bash Coldplay. There were plenty of reasons, everything from the band's shameless, simplified aping of Radiohead and U2 (the most aped bands around) to frontman Chris Martin's ubiquitousness as part of a celebrity couple (see: Paltrow, Gwyneth), complete with absurd baby name. A review in this paper labeled the band's output as music for "medium-level dull people." The phenomenon peaked when one of the most popular comedies of recent years, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," famously ended its string of "You know how I know you're gay?" remarks with one character telling another, "You like Coldplay."

But the only Coldplay bashing at the sold-out Verizon Center on Sunday night was when band member Will Champion attacked a giant drum with an oversize mallet during "Viva la Vida." The fans were truly, madly in love. They ecstatically clapped in time from the first notes of "Violet Hill." They tenderly sang along with Martin, often with more sincerity than the singer himself. And they took pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. So many pictures that Flickr might crash. One fan was even seen snapping away while the stage was cloaked in darkness. (The best description of a Coldplay crowd is this: Think of "Heavy Metal Parking Lot," the 1986 documentary of pre-show partying at a Judas Priest concert. The exact opposite would be "Coldplay Metro Car.")

The photography overload was understandable, though. Coldplay designed a nice visual feast for this tour, the main component being six giant spheres that descended from the rafters to show live video of the band from all angles. Of course, the perfectly scruffy Martin -- dressed in his by-now-standard 19th-century European battlefield jacket -- was the focus of most lenses, especially when he made his way out to the sides of the horseshoe-shaped stage.

As for the music, it was less a feast and more semi-filling hors d'oeuvres. There were scant surprises in the band's brand of anthemic arena rock, but that's part of Coldplay's comfortable appeal. "Yellow" still soared, thanks to Johnny Buckland's chiming guitar and Martin's trembling falsetto. "Lost" and "Lovers in Japan," both from the new album, "Viva la Vida," found the right mix of surge and sentimentality. The same could not be said for tedious piano ballads "Fix You" and "42." Another in that line, "The Hardest Part," was abandoned by Martin just after it started. "That's enough of that," he said, with knowing self-deprecation.

The main takeaway from the show was that Coldplay is no longer a band suffering from an identity crisis. Instead of following in the footsteps of its heroes and trying to pass itself off as the world's most important or biggest band, Coldplay seems content being a less adventurous but equally loved -- if not equally revered -- act. For all his sad-puppy-dog lyrics, Martin was an extremely playful frontman, hopping, prancing and skipping across the stage, thrusting his left arm into the air, goofy grin on his face.

When tens of thousands of pieces of paper came flooding from the rafters during the encore, it served as a perfect assessment of the band's current state. Coldplay is a band that will shower its fans with brightly colored, butterfly-shaped confetti while singing, "But I have no doubt/One day the sun will come out." And the band -- and especially its fans -- is just fine with that.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...080402466.html

Rock the Balls: Coldplay @ The Phone Booth

One strives to avoid the wholly predictable, but sometimes you just can't stave off the obvious lede that fate fairly dangles above your head:

Coldplay grow some balls.

Coldplay deliver ballsy performance.

Coldplay counter critics with raw ballin.’

Meaty, Beaty, Big and Pricey: Coldplay's Balls of Technicolour Fire.

Viva la Balls, or Death and All His Balls.

(Okay, so what was your brilliant idea, Mr. Christgau? Coldplay Go Globe-al? Weak.)

Retarded puns unretracted, Coldplay’s sold-out show at the Phone Booth last night was all about the balls — specifically, the half-dozen vaguely ominous, economy-car-sized white orbs that descended from the ceiling like Rover, the high-tech balloon-as-border-fence from the trippy '60s British TV show The Prisoner (stick with me, the most of you who have no fucking clue what I’m talking about) and displayed projected video around all 360 degrees of their surfaces. The balls were definitely the newest, most impressive props in a choreographed-to-the-second 85-minute performance.

No question, the show was state-of-the-art -- "the art," of course, being that of high-tech stage production rather than songwriting, which has never been Coldplay's long suit, exactly. Indeed, the Phone Booth show had originally been scheduled for a month earlier, and had to be postponed along with the first segment of the tour due to “production delays” — presumably those balls, since every other high-tech trick in the show, while impressive, was familiar from other visually-inventive tours, particularly those of — all togther now, friends — U2, the band Coldplay is most frequently accused of ripping off.

One thing we can say for sure is that while seeing Coldplay perform live — as with any artist that understands intuitively how to connect with an audience in performance — can only increase your estimation of the band's merit, it ain’t gonna dissuade anybody who thinks of them as merely the best U2 copyists to come along since Radiohead’s OK Computer-era evolution into something much more unique. (If Coldplay were even the least bit worried about the comparison, they wouldn’t have hired Brian Eno, midwife to all of U2’s most successful albums, to produce their latest, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends — winner of this year’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness award for album title that makes you most want to issue a wedgie to the clown who came up with it.) But the likeness is as palpable onstage as it is on record. Chris Martin, Coldplay’s ebullient, charismatic frontman, comes off as a taller, less garrulous Bono, from his loose-limbed, ecstatically reclined dancing to the way he seems surprised and delighted at but also completely at ease with having thousands of people gape at him. He’s a natural showman.

Coldplay’s set last night went heavy on Viva la Vida material, performing the album almost in its entirety, along with half of 2002's A Rush of Blood to the Head and a lesser sampling from their first and third albums. They certainly played every Coldplay song I needed to hear, and still managed to wrap up in less than an hour and a half — not exactly a marathon, especially considering that the top ticket price was $97.50. The show was expertly paced, however. The band performed behind a mesh curtain for the opening instrumental wash of “Life in Technicolor”, then slammed into first single, “Violent Hill”, as the curtain went up. A giant backdrop of the 1830 Eugene Delacroix painting that forms Vida's cover was suspended unnecessarily behind the band. Song 3, “Clocks” — the theme that launched a thousand movie trailers circa 2003-4 — brought the laser cannon barrage, and gave us our first glimpse of the video-testes in action.

Actually, 'twere only a single vidi-ball activated for this number, hung dead center of the arena. As the set continued, five more spheres would float down from black chutes in the rafters — the thought of sitting beneath a giant hen was difficult to avoid. Had all the vidi-balls been pressed into service initially, they could have eliminated the unnecessary and distracting video screen stage backdrop that replaced the album cover with the now-obligatory high-contrast black-and-white video footage of the band performing, which was probably much appreciated by the occupants of the 400-level sets but, closer in, competed distractingly with the the band itself.

The mid-floor B-stage was another idea Coldplay recycled to great effect (from U2, yes; at least that's who Keith Richards says the Rolling Stones stole the idea from) performing a rousing “Chinese Sleep Chant”. Pretty funny title for the hardest-rocking song on the album. Accompanied by more laser fire, it sounded echo-y and ethereal and great, even if it was so heavily processed it was impossible to tell if any of it was actually being performed live. Next up was a downbeat, whammy-bar heavy number. For a hopeful second, I thought Coldplay were going to show some Eno-love by covering "Life During Wartime" or something else from those great Talking Heads albums that Eno produced back when I was in diapers, but no such luck -- it was a rearranged, sinister “God Put a Smile on My Face”.

A few minutes later, Chris Martin cut whatever watery piano ballad he was playing abruptly off, saying, “That’s enough of that” before slamming into “Yellow”, the dumb-but-difficult-to-resist Y2K anthem that put the world on notice that even with their first album, Coldplay had designs on a hockey rink near you. The sepia-color-wash that accompanied the tune had me thinking of what Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog would have had to say about the performance, and that actually did put a smile on my face.

Events took a distinct upward turn when Martin, after botching an a capella coda to the tune apologized, saying, “Some days I don’t know whether I’m trying to be Johnny Cash or Barry Gibb. I hope in 10 years’ time to have the voice of Johnny Cash and the hair of Barry Gibb.” Yo, Chris: We’ll handle the snarky quips about your voice if you don’t mind, or even if you do. But that was a pretty good one.

After a pounding “Lost!”, the four Coldplay-ers leapt from the stage and ran across the floor through the audience, slapping hands while enveloped in beefy security guys. (I know you want to ask, and, yes, I have in fact seen U2 do this, too.) But then they did something I’ve never seen anybody do: They performed a pair of tunes, not quite in the nosebleeds, but from some random seats in the 200 level of the arena almost directly opposite the stage. “So this is what we’re like up-close,” Martin told the lucky occupants of that section. “Not that impressive, right?” His affable banter broke sharply from Bonodom when he said, “I’m going to stop talking because I’m starting to bore myself.”

A video-ball clip of Bill O’Reilly dissing Martin gave way to a sort of geopolitical mash up video while the band made their way back to the main stage to bash out a driving “Politik”. The closing sequence of “Lovers in Japan", “Death to All His Friends” and “The Escapist” was accompanied by a storm of glow-in-the-dark paper butterflies, blown aloft my confetti cannons. Perhaps it wasn’t the vidi-testes, but rather real butterflies -- feral, carnivorous, ravenous -- used in early dress rehearsals, that were to blame for the “production delays.” "Oh, God! Not the eyes! screamed people all around us as the winged beasties flew their hellish, day-glo sorties. Okay, so I made most of that up, but the paper butterflies were there, and people were screaming, albeit in fits of apparent euphoria. Though I did hear a few people grumbling on their way out about the sub-90-minutes performance time.

Coldplay have shows booked through the end of the year. Then, presumably, they’ll have to find something to do with the vidi-balls. I have a few ideas:

1) Both feature film and TV remakes of The Prisoner are in the works; the TV version is already in production with Jim "Jesus of Nazareth" Caviezal and Sir Ian McKellen in the two leading roles. The '60s version was pretty successful at making viewers afraid of a growling while balloon, but a growling white balloon that showed its victims live video of Coldplay before devouring them would be both topical and scary.

2) Rumor has it this other band will be touring again next year, one with a reputation for eye-popping live shows, chiming E-chord-driven anthems, and collaborations with Brian Eno. Coldplay has been stealing their sound and their stage tricks for close to a decade now; perhaps that other band would be willing at this point to return the favor. Or at least to give them a decent price for some gently used vidi-balls.

http://dcist.com/2008/08/04/rock_the...he_phone_b.php

Verizon Center in D.C.

Coldplay: I know it ain’t cool, but I like them. Coldplay recently played the Verizon Center in D.C. and is due to return again for another show on Halloween. While I know it’s not exactly “cool” to admit, I think Coldplay is pretty good. Coldplay’s stock in hip circles has plummeted considerably since Chris Martin’s nuptials to Gwyneth Paltrow. The same sort of thing happened to Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum when he was shacked up with Winona Ryder. Nonetheless, before and after Martin married Paltrow and started naming his kids after still life fruit and sea parting Charlton Heston roles, Coldplay was, and still is, a solid group of musicians.

Coldplay’s latest release Viva La Vida, although a bit depressing, is a good listen. Martin gives the falsetto a break and delivers some decent performances in his lower register. The songs are dynamic and original. Despite the constant U2 comparisons, I believe Coldplay stands on its own as an original band. However, Coldplay has employed former U2 producer, Brian Eno for this effort, reminiscent of U2’s Unforgettable Fire CD released in the mid 1980’s. I seem to recall Eno over producing that album, making it difficult for U2 to duplicate the album’s sound live. I hope Coldplay doesn’t fall into the same trap.

I am particularly found of the tracks “Cemeteries of London” and “42.” “Violet Hill”, which has received a majority of the CD’s commercial airplay, is also a solid tune. Viva La Vida is definitely not a toe tapper. It is actually best enjoyed in dim lighting. I often use it to accompany my afternoon nap. I do wake up refreshed, so I guess that’s saying something. I’m just not sure what.

http://www.examiner.com

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