25 November 2008: Honda Centre, Anaheim, CA, USA
From WikiColdplay
Contents |
Setlist
- Life In Technicolor
- Violet Hill
- Clocks
- In My Place
- Speed Of Sound
- Cemeteries Of London
- Chinese Sleep Chant
- 42
- Fix You
- Strawberry Swing
- God Put A Smile Upon Your Face (techno version)
- Talk (techno remix)
- The Hardest Part
- Postcards From Far Away (piano instrumental)
- Viva La Vida
- Lost!
- The Scientist (acoustic)
- Death Will Never Conquer (acoustic - Will singing)
- Viva La Vida (remix interlude)
First Encore - Politik
- Lovers In Japan
- Death And All His Friends
Second Encore - Yellow
- The Escapist (outro)
Photos
Photos from this show can be found at Coldplaying.com in the Gallery thread for Anaheim. http://www.coldplaying.com/forum/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/1631
Videos
Videos from this show can be found in the first post of the Coldplaying forum live thread for this show at http://www.coldplaying.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50475
Discussion
All post-show discussion for this show at the forum thread: http://www.coldplaying.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50475
Fan Reviews
All fan reviews have been submitted to us by the members of Coldplaying.com[1], unless stated otherwise.
COLDPLAY is my favorite band and last night I was lucky enough to see them in concert in Anaheim. In the middle of the show Chris Martin performed a solo on his piano (swoon) and he messed up which I didn't enough notice until he said "Aww Fuck!" The entire crowd burst into applause. Apparently, swearing is popular in Anaheim.
The incident reminded me of when someone starts to laugh during the sketches on SNL. When those moments happen the laughing or swearing performer appear to be so in the moment and that makes them more "human" and relatable.
Chris Martin taught me that we are all the same. We all laugh, cry and swear.
http://standup-sitdown.blogspot.com
hi everyone! just got home!
no seat upgrades.....the three of us got too nervous to ask straight-forward (and plus most of the roadies were intimidating and blew us off ). yet in spite of that, we had good seats anyway and it was fun hanging out for a bit. =)
After the concert, one of the 'nicer' roadies gave me a SETLIST. However....it says at the bottom "ATLANTA"? as in FROM Atlanta?!
AAAANYWAY, concert was great. Best thing about it is that they're 100000000X better than back in July during the start of the tour!
i'll write a better review after this, but to sum it up quickly: ~Cemeteries of London ~Talk at the B-stage (totally new for me, and i <3 it!) ~CHRIS ON THE PIANO FOR "THE HARDEST PART" ON THE B-STAGE (with Will singing backup!!)....I neeeeeeeed to find that footage ASAP!! ~Postcards From Far Away (b-stage)....i think?! ~I was THREE SEATS AWAY from the guys during the acoustic set!!
And....I lost the other Coldplayers at the very end of the gig! GUYS IF YOU READ THIS, I'M SO SORRY BUT I HOPE YOU HAD A GOOD TIME AT THE CONCERT AND MADE IT HOME SAFELY!!
[talkingonsquareone89]
So I'm a newbie to posting, but I have been reading this site and this thread for a while now...
But anyway...just got back from the show and had an AMAZING time!!!
I wore my Viva La Vida tour shirt (had seen them on opening night at the Forum) and I got a poster and program at the concert. So my seats were in Sec 410, and they weren't too horrible. So we watch Sleepercar perform and then decided to go get a snack during the little break. We take all of our stuff with us and go to get some popcorn and we're waiting in line and I'm holding the stuff we bought and this girl comes up to us and she's wearing a VIVA jacket and she says do you guys want to come out of the line over here with me...and my mom was like uhhhh why? And so the girl said trust me it'll be worth it. And at this point I'm already a little freaking out because I think I know what this is...so I'm like MOM WE'RE GOING lol. So we move out of the line and go stand out of the way and she's introduces herself, she's Marta who's awesome...but she's talking to us just about being big fans, etc and says that she assumes we don't have the best seats. And she says so I'm going to ask you three questions and if you answer them we're going to upgrade your seats...so I'm shaking now. So she asks me to name 6 songs by Coldplay which obviously wasn't hard (don't remember exactly what I said but I mentioned Rainy Day and Prospekt's March and LIT ii). So Marta says whoa you even mentioned new songs I'll have to tell Chris...lol. Then she asks me what Chris's two kid's names are and I say Moses and Apple; and she mentions something about two other ladies she asked having no idea. And then she asks me to say the first bit of Viva La Vida and so I start with "I used to rule the world..." and OF COURSE my mind blanks and then she says that she doesn't even remember it very much and she's been on the whole tour lol. So then she asks me to say the chorus and I do. Then she said alright do you guys have your tickets? And we said yes and then gave them to her. And she said close your eyes and I'm going to put something in your hand. So me and my mom close our eyes and then she puts a ticket in each of our hands for THE FIFTH ROW!!! I was soooooo excited that I was shaking a little...or actually probably a lot. So we just talk with her some more and we find out she controls one of the magic ball things and she's one of few people who actually knows how and can do that. She walks us down to our area and we are right next to the catwalk thing where Jonny and Chris go when they perform In My Place and they were SOOOOO close.
Overall it was an AMAZING experience.
And Marta if you read this thank you soooooo much, you seriously did make my year...lol.
[lifeisbeautiful]
I just got home. As everyone knows now, standard set. Was wandering around a few hours before the doors opened when talkingonsquareone and jsalyers found me. We hung out for a bit by the roadies but were too nervous to ask for upgrades. Got in, hung out for a bit before sleepercar came on. Jon Hopkins was a nice suprise, didn't hear anything about him being there. Coldplay was awesome. I somehow managed to get my big digital camera with 12x zoom by security. Got lots of pictures and video.
Talkingonsquareone....I got video of Will singing backup with Chris on Hardest Part. We lost you trying to get to the floor to get some butterflies...we got plenty. Went to ask for a set list but they were out, lucky you got one.
Pictures and lots of video to come tomorrow.
By the way, while waiting outside we heard the soundcheck. Defiantly heard LITII and a techno Square One.
[tentoizzymon]
Hello everyone, just got home a little bit ago. Man it was raining hard tonight!
Well not much luck tonight with anything as you all know, but totally ok. Next time
Lori thanks again for taking the live updates and staying up late for me, I really appreciate it My seat was reletively close, but my aunts so called great camera wasnt so great. I did get pictures and some video footage, I hope that they come out at least decent. Even though they look like they were taken from far away. Anyways enough rambling, show was FUCKING AMAZING, met some cool coldplayers And ill sleep peacfully tonight with Coldplay playing in my head. My review and pics will be posted soon!!! Ok, off to the airport now
Bye!!!
[Jsalyers]
was very excited about this show, not least because I would get a chance to see one of my all-time favorite bands, but also because I've heard that this is the best tour they've ever done. Mike and I remarked to each other that it's probably the best time in their career for a tour, because they'll be playing a lot from my favorite CD X&Y but also a lot from Viva La Vida, which is similarly excellent. (I'll include links to previous TLB posts about Coldplay at the end of this post.)
The show was incredible. I have to admit that I was just the slightest bit skeptical, because I'd heard a previous review of a friend who said they were disappointing in concert, and I'd seen them live on TV--perhaps on the Grammys--a few years ago, and they were terrible (Chris Martin, the lead singer, was probably drunk at the time). But this concert dispelled all my fears almost immediately. They started with "Life In Technicolor," the song that opens Viva La Vida, beginning with the recorded electronics but then adding in all the band members, and then transitioned straight into "Violet Hill" (instead of transitioning straight into "Cemeteries Of London" as they do on the album). Chris Martin danced around the stage but never to the detriment of his singing, the whole band was full of energy, and the whole arena was rocking along.
Eleanor commented afterwards that it was one of the best performing arts shows she's ever seen--and that says a lot coming from her, as she's including classical performances, other concerts and her background and wide experience in musical theatre. I would have to agree. Everything about the show was excellent. Of course the music is good; the performances by each of the band members was terrific; Chris Martin's interaction with the crowd was perfectly balanced, always adding to the show and excitement but never waxing too long; the lighting and stage design perfectly complemented the music; I could go on and on. But instead I'll highlight a few things.
The lighting and stage design. Of course a show like this is going to have cool lighting effects: blinding lights for strong drum hits, lights sweeping over the audience during sing-along choruses, lasers. This show had all that. But the stage design was also very impressive. When they began, a digital curtain raised itself on the screen behind the stage, revealing the painting that serves as the cover art for the album; and at the end of the show, the curtain lowered back down over the word "VIVA." There were also five spinning globes, suspended above the stage and out over the audience, that were used to display various images, patterns and views of the band. Very cool.
The musicians. I certainly didn't doubt that the members of Coldplay were good musicians. But I didn't know they were this good. Each of the four members of the band played at least three different instruments throughout the course of the night. There were multiple songs that featured Chris Martin playing piano, rather than just singing or playing guitar; a few of them required some stage rearranging after the song, and to cover for that he would play a minute or so of a classical piano piece. I think he even incorporated Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp minor into the outro of one of their songs. I was very impressed, again. The only mistake I heard was when he was playing the last few lines of one of the piano songs (I don't remember which it was)--he came down on a clearly wrong chord, quickly said "Oh f---," and kept going. The crowd went wild.
The crowd interaction. The whole show was very theatrical, as mentioned, and Chris Martin is a consummate showman. He danced around, he laid down on the stage, he rocked out on guitar, piano and harmonica. Several times during the night he substituted a lyric from a song with something about California, and the crowd loved that as well. His banter in between songs was very funny and added to rather than detracted from the show. And at one point, the whole band left the stage and walked over to a small enclave near the back of the arena, where they picked up two guitars, a mandolin and a harmonica, and proceeded to play an acoustic version of "The Scientist," right in the middle of the audience. It was awesome and again the crowd went wild.
The music. Have I mentioned before how much I love Coldplay's music? In addition to rocking everything they played, they played almost the entirety of Viva La Vida during the course of the night. The only songs they left out were "Yes" (although they did play the "Chinese Sleep Chant" by itself) and "Reign Of Love," which I'm not very fond of anyway. The rest of the material was lots of X&Y and some of A Rush Of Blood To The Head; they only played one song from Parachutes, "Yellow," which was the single encore. They began with "Life In Technicolor," and they ended (before the encore) with "Death And All His Friends," which was the epic climax that it is on the album; after the encore, the recorded version of "The Escapist" played to finish out the night. It was basically a live performance of Viva La Vida, bookended with the recordings, with other songs thrown in the middle. Awesome.
The show was just incredible. I had to keep reminding myself that I was actually there, seeing Coldplay live. I paid lots of money for the tickets, but it was worth every penny and then some. Now all I have to do is see U2....
http://www.thelisteningblog.com/2008/11/coldplay-live.html
Media Reviews
The band's uplifting Honda Center show was the stuff of legend
"Dad. Dad. Dad!"
The kid behind me, who couldn't have been much more than 10, just wasn't getting his pop's attention Tuesday night, a half-hour or so before Coldplay took the stage at Honda Center for the first time in close to three years. His father, who would later holler out a fist-pumping "yes!" every time another smash started, was busy chatting in the aisle. So the kid kept firing, machine-gun-style: "Dad. Dad! DAAAAD!!!"
There. That worked. "Look, look! Next to the upright piano! Remember on the American Music Awards, when they had that next to a TV?" He pointed to the old-school monitor at the right of drummer Will Champion. "Well, look!"
Dad couldn't have cared less, just humored him. But oh the wide-eyed wonder on that kid's face and in his voice. Oh, to be a young lad getting hypnotized, maybe for the first time, by rock 'n' roll's powerful spell.
If that seems a rather quaint anecdote to share in a follow-up review of one of the world's most popular groups as it plays what Chris Martin says will be "the last concert we do in California for some time," well, you must not have been inside the Anaheim arena when the clouds finally burst Tuesday and it started to pour. If you were, you would have noticed the preponderance of families, of so many people from 8 to 18 that the hymnlike singalong at the end of "Fix You" made it seem like Coldplay were accompanied by a children's choir on loan from "The Glory of Christmas" at the Crystal Cathedral.
What that speaks to is a cross-generational pull like few bands have anymore, yet which Coldplay achieves almost effortlessly. And to increasingly thrilling effect: When Martin and his mates break into a heart-thumping "Clocks" or the roof-raising stomp of "Politik" (one of several set list additions/changes since this tour opened on Bastille Day at the Forum), or when the syncopated strings of "Viva la Vida" (single of the year, if you ask me) start surging forth, the electricity in the room is so palpable, it's as if you can see it ripple from one fan to the next. (The ecstatic response when the lights went out at the end of Strauss' "The Blue Danube," as prelude, only grew more thunderous as this laser-enhanced, visually arresting show wore on.)
Apart from U2, a beyond-obvious comparison that may never go away – and also, to a lesser degree, Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters and Green Day – no other rock act this decade has been as successful at inspiring and making memories for every kinda people of every kinda age. Rounded out by bassist Guy Berryman and guitarist Jonny Buckland, the latter of whom now regularly dips into distinctively Allmans-esque shading, notably on "In My Place," the quartet isn't so much a band now as a force, its mutation into the futuristic anthem-spewing machine it attempted to be on 2005's "X&Y" already complete.
Ever since finding its footing with 2000's "Parachutes" and its happy-happy-joy-joy declaration "Yellow," Coldplay has dared to be the sort of passionate, let's-change-the-world outfit that can get laughed out of existence if the message isn't backed by moving music (I'm talking about you, Angels & Airwaves). Following up the somewhat chillier "X&Y" with a warmer (and yet arguably moodier) assortment of songs, the band couldn't have put out a better album – easily one of the best of the year – for our distressed times.
The sense of measured optimism amid the loss and regret of "Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends," the way its sadness is tempered by hope, wistfully conveyed yet infectiously appealing from the get-go – really, no other new music this year has so adeptly captured the roller-coaster mood of the world as it grapples with America undergoing sea change. If it doesn't receive a barrel full of Grammy nominations next week, including a nod for album of the year, there's something horribly, horribly wrong with voters.
Just as "American Idiot" four years ago represented the convergence of ticked-off band and fed-up fans, so does "Viva la Vida" find a rejuvenated Coldplay giving voice to the aspirations of its audience in uplifting ways Bono and Bruce Springsteen have patented. That it resonates with such a wide variety of people isn't surprising, but it's heartening, and reflective of all that we've become; amid the standard-issue Newport Beach types this night I could spot a Matisyahu-looking Jew in beach wear, an African American in a New Order T-shirt – and scores of kids of every creed sucked into the moment, rather than staying entranced by their iPhones.
All of these admirers got through many months of growing anticipation for this return, eager to see a fresh-faced Martin leaping and posing in his "Synchronicity"-meets-the-French-Revolution garb, to chant along with hit after hit (many of them stuffed at the start of the set) and to hear one of the heartiest bands in action. That said, these guys still aren't as tight as they could be, and I kindly blame Martin. He gets so caught up in the fervency sometimes that he too easily flubs vocal entrances – especially on "Yellow" here – or sloppily crushes chord changes. It's endearing, but it's also becoming less forgivable.
Still, so much of this show was wondrous: "Speed of Sound," played almost in darkness, the band engulfed in a deep-purple glow while acid-blotter balls overhead illuminated the arena … "Viva la Vida" cranked to a rapturous pitch, with Martin subtly tossing in the chorus of the Killers' "Human" just before the "oh-whoa-oh" portion … an acoustic version of "The Scientist," delivered among the crowd in section 207 (or thereabouts), sweetly dappled by mandolin and harmonica … the what's-it-all-about solo-piano somberness of "The Hardest Part," which Martin half-joked was about "the problem a band faces when they turn 30 years old and meet the Jonas Brothers for the first time," as Coldplay apparently did at the AMAs Sunday. ("Never before in my life have I felt more like an old man.")
Old man, no. Old soul, perhaps – a self-deprecating one only beginning to shift from clever tunesmith to meaningful message-carrier, and enhanced by a band as strong as his vocals can be heartbreaking. Someday, I suspect, this album and this tour will be seen as the start of Coldplay's prolonged peak. Here's hoping they get to bask in the glow of it for a while, but I for one can't wait to hear what life-affirming stuff comes next.
Overblown stage? Check. Melodic, atmospheric and sing-along numbers? Check. Two-hour rock spectacular? Definitely check. Coldplay in concert? Worth every painful penny.
With richly coordinated neon-colored lights, decadent milky orbs serving as secondary video screens and a gigantic screen serving as a backdrop, the concert was filled with a crowd whose enthusiasm was radiating off the walls in the Honda Center for three and a half hours. The backdrop screen first projected the cover of its latest album, while later displaying abstract images and real-time footage of the band performing while the hanging orbs rotated and hypnotized the audience. Lights of every color, piercing in all directions, kept the eyes darting while loud bass and guitar kept the eardrums humming.
A sight more meaningful than the stage itself was the shadow of fans’ arms held high in the air along with large masses of bodies swaying back and forth. The energy was set long before Coldplay came on, as Sleeper Car and DJ John Hopkins opened the show with electronica-like sounds and beats that had the arena feeling like an exclusive European nightclub.
However, the vibe intensified throughout the night, as Coldplay carried the show with grandeur. With the sold-out crowd singing along filling in the “yeahs” of “In My Place” and the “ohh oo ohhhs” of “Viva La Vida,” it is no surprise that Chris Martin was jumping, falling and spinning at all corners of the stage. The band then moved to a brightly lit platform in the middle of the floor to play its rock ‘n’ roll version of “Talk” and “God Put a Smile Upon Your Face.”
The band then moved to the back of the arena, in between rows of fans, to play acoustic versions of “Lost!,” “The Scientist” and “Death Will Never Conquer.” As the arena envied the two rows surrounding Coldplay, Martin compassionately explained, “We thought it’d be nice to be next to our fans since we won’t be in California for a while.”
Although Martin stole the show with piano playing, guitar playing and singing, the band as a whole must receive credit. Drummer Will Champion performed lead vocals on “Death Will Never Conquer” as Martin stepped back and made the harmonica hum. The combination of harmonizing vocals from the bass player, drummer and lead singer with the instrumental skills of all four members put the show at a level that most bands cannot reach.
Not only is the band talented, they’re comedic as well. As Martin stepped onto the platform alone to play the soulful number “The Hardest Part,” from its album “X & Y,” the audience was given a very revealing account of a Jonas Brothers and Coldplay confrontation.
Meeting the Jonas Brothers two days prior at the American Music Awards, Martin said, “Never before have I felt like an old man with no talent whatsoever.”
He took his affection a step further by inserting, “Those Jonas boys are so much younger than me” into his track.
Then, in the middle of the song, a missed note prompted him to yell “Fuck!” and the crowd doubled over in laughter, and appreciated Coldplay even more for its real and humble qualities.
A question that always pops into every showgoer’s mind is, “Which songs will they play?” The best show is one with diversity, arranged randomness and a combination of mellow and energetic vibes.
Although this is difficult to accomplish, Coldplay breezed through. Not only was there an abundant amount of songs from its newest album “Viva La Vida or Death to All His Friends,” but the band managed to play tracks from “Parachutes,” “X & Y” and “A Rush of Blood to the Head.”
Above all, and despite critics’ complaints, Coldplay knows how to rock. The band performed beautifully, jammed out with intensity and maintained the energy of each individual who paid more than $90 for a ticket.
Hits like “Lost!” and “The Scientist” disputed its “mellow” reputation while songs like “Yellow” and “Clocks” were played faster and louder, keeping fans jumping, swaying and sweating. There’s no doubt that Coldplay delivers in every sense of the word.
