26 October 2008: Izod Center, East Rutherford, NJ, USA (Media Reviews, Photos & Videos)

From WikiColdplay

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

Photos

Photos from this show can be found at Coldplaying.com in the Gallery thread for New Jersey. http://www.coldplaying.com/forum/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/1543

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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=44957

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Discussion

All post-show discussion for this show at the forum thread: http://www.coldplaying.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44957

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Media Reviews

Coldplay Concert Worthwhile Despite Short Set

Exciting, colorful, engaging, and thoughtful, the British rock band Coldplay showed New Jersey its rainbow last week, reports Columbia Spectator.

The group played East Rutherford’s Izod Center (home to the New Jersey Nets) before a crowd of 20,000 people as part of their Viva La Vida Tour on Tuesday. The tour began in New York City’s Madison Square Garden in June with a free concert for fans who won tickets. Though this concert was far from being a giveaway, the New Jersey concert was just as impressive.

Chris Martin, lead singer of the band, claimed they aren’t used to playing in such large venues, but with the band’s increase in popularity, arenas have become inevitable. Nevertheless, Coldplay created the illusion of an intimate environment, which was achieved with spectacular lighting that reached all areas of the stadium. From the ceiling hung large spheres on which images were reflected, and during the performance of their song “Death and All His Friends,” metallic confetti shot down, wowing the crowd.

The band played their most famous songs from all three albums and made an effort to satisfy their audience. They used a variety of odd instruments and altered the hits. For example, “God Put a Smile Upon Your Face” was performed using an eerie mix of string instruments. In addition, the band members actually joined in singing with the audience for their acoustic performance of “The Scientist,” and they left their most famous single, “Yellow,” for the encore, as requested by the crowd.

Martin’s onstage banter was also fairly dynamic. When he muddled the lyrics, he stopped the song, asked the crowd whether he had made a mistake, and started over. He spoke to an audience of thousands as if there were no more than a dozen people in the room. “Recently in Ohio there have been terrible problems with drainage because a lot of the plumbers have been busy doing interviews around the world,” he joked before the song “The Hardest Part.” He dedicated it, deadpan, to those with “drainage problems.”

Coldplay pulled out all the theatrics at the end. A large flag with the word “Viva” dropped down behind the band as they finished playing their last song. The cheering went on for at least ten minutes until the band finally came out for an encore. “Yellow” is always a crowd-pleaser, so the wait was worthwhile.

While Coldplay’s energy impressed, the opening act was lackluster. British soul singer Duffy was unable to rally enough enthusiasm from the crowd, and although she admitted to never having played for such a large audience before, she was still awkward. The performance was average, the lights were lacking, and the listeners were uninterested.

In all, though, that night in Jersey was an exhilarating whirlwind from America’s favorite chart-toppers.

Coldplay conquers Izod

Before playing harmonica on "Death Will Never Conquer," Sunday night at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin apologized. "You paid good money to hear someone play an instrument very badly," he said. Then he proceeded to play it perfectly well.

It was still a sharp move to apologize. Coldplay is one of the popular rock bands in the world, and Martin's lyrics sometimes seem self-absorbed, so anything he can do to make himself and the band appear down-to-earth works in his favor.

Martin literally dropped to his knees when thanking the crowd for coming, toward the end of the evening. And "Death Will Never Conquer" was part of a segment (also including "The Scientist") where the band ventured into section 104 of the arena -- located a long way from the stage -- and played there. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, as they did in another part of the show that took place on a small stage at the end of a ramp that extended onto the arena floor.

Throughout the show, the British quartet, which was also scheduled to perform at the arena last night, mixed loud, aggressive rock with ethereal ballads. It's no wonder the band describes its music, on its official MySpace page, as "very heavy soft rock."

Two of the most explosive numbers came from the band's June album, "Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends." On the soaring "Viva la Vida," Will Champion stepped out from behind his drum kit to pound on a huge bass drum, and the crowd sang along enthusiastically. For "Lovers in Japan," which has an upbeat, celebratory vibe, thousands of glow-in-the-dark, butterfly-shaped pieces of confetti dropped from the rafters.

Among the other new songs, "Strawberry Swing" had a lighter, almost lilting feel, while "42" and "Cemeteries of London" were darker in tone. Both these songs also had some perfect-for-Halloween-season lyrics.

"Those who are dead are not dead/They're just living in my head," sang Martin in the former, while the latter was full of lines like: "We rode down to the river/Where Victorian ghosts pray/For their curses to be broken."

This show rarely stayed gloomy for long. Martin is too much of a crowd-pleaser for that: he bounced around the stage all evening, pumping up the capacity crowd. And while his bandmates (guitarist Jonny Buckland and bassist Guy Berryman, in addition to Champion) seemed happy to let him be the focus of attention, they did generate a big, propulsive wall of sound on songs like "Life in Technicolor," "Chinese Sleep Chant" and "Politik." Lasers and videos (sometimes projected onto six huge balls hovering over the stage and the crowd) made the show into a spectacle.

These guys aren't the most original musicians in the world. Martin sometimes seems like a more pop-friendly version of Radiohead's Thom Yorke, Buckland borrows too many of his guitar riffs from U2's The Edge, and Berryman and Champion do their respective jobs with little flash. Yet over the course of their four albums they have generated lots of memorable songs.

Derivative or not, they have managed to put together a nearly two-hour show that is devoid of dull spots. Except, maybe, for the lull that came when they were returning from section 104.

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/musi...uers_izod.html

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