Already topping album
charts in thirty countries, Coldplay’s Mylo
Xyloto tour hit Manchester’s Etihad Stadium last night in a powder keg of flashing
neon lights and chest-rattlingly uplifting anthems.
Front-man Chris Martin
and the lads seem to have come on leaps and bounds since their now seemingly
tame 2000 album Parachutes, opting
for a more aggressive, and in my opinion, interesting style. With the release
of Viva La Vida or Death and All His
Friends, Coldplay moved away from the image of the quiet, humble-mannered,
charmingly buck-toothed (watch the video for Yellow and you’ll know what I mean) Englishman to the aptly revolutionary
musical soldier. Running from mid 2008 to early 2010, the style of the Viva La Vida tour encapsulated this
radical change. However, instead of alienating loyal fans, Coldplay managed to
successfully add to their continuously swelling numbers of adoring followers.
With the Mylo Xyloto tour comes yet another
stylistic as well as musical change. Opting for juxtaposition of style between
a post apocalyptic grimy refugee centre and the bold fluorescent neon lights and
graffiti of the 1980’s, the band certainly knows what to do to keep their
hangers on uh...hanging on. The tour budget has also been beefed up since Viva La Vida and as I push my way
through the ticket barrier, I am handed a brightly coloured wristband (that
looks oddly like a child’s watch) that I am told will light up during the show.
The stage is set with
five huge circular screens that I initially took to be enormous trampolines but
after a moment a notice is projected upon the screen instructing everyone to
put on their wristbands as ‘it’s part of the show!’ The stage is perfectly in
keeping with their new look with the entire goal end being covered in a sheet
with one or two lines of their poetry splashed all over it in neon graffiti.
The support acts on
this date of the tour were hot new British icon Rita Ora and Swedish pop siren Robyn.
Odd choices I initially thought. Where Robyn is Euro-zone-pop-nonsense,
Coldplay are sophisticated and thought provoking. Where Rita Ora is the latest
party girl, blazing the trail for independent young women, Coldplay are
producing music of a much higher level about issues more than just how ‘everyone
loves to party’. To be fair though, both were surprising.
Rita Ora seems totally
unfazed by her sudden shot to fame as she sprints out on to stage to mixed levels
of applause (coked up chimpanzee to mild, stifled yawn). Sporting a pink netted
top, multi-coloured animal print rain jacket and what appeared to be a pair of
gentlemans briefs, her hair falling in dyed yellow ringlets, my thoughts
drifted to the resemblance she bore to Madonna in the video to Lucky Star. This aside, she performed
incredibly well. She has a fantastically varied vocal range, able to keep the
bass down but also able to blast out some serious notes as well as an eyebrow raisingly
impressive ability to free-style short vocal licks over the top of her own
tunes. There is a tendency among musicians who find themselves suddenly topping
the charts to become so overwhelmed and excited by their new found fame that
during live performances they lose track of their vocals and deliver less than
recordable renditions of their songs (see Rizzle
Kicks at Radio 1’s Big Weekend 2011. I
should just say that I love Rizzle
Kicks but listening to them live just after they hit it big was naff). However, listening to her performing such
numbers as How We Do (Party) in which
she, to varying degrees of success, got the audience to participate in the eye-rollingly
annoying hook “party and bull-shit and party and bull-shit” to her current (as
of 11/6/12) number twelve single R.I.P I
was pleasantly surprised. Interestingly
enough, R.I.P is only three places
above Coldplay themselves at number eight with Princess of China so all in all, good on ya Rita! Don’t think I’ll
be rushing out to buy the album but there is much potential here.
Robyn was next and as
I stood on the pitch with the twenty thousand other Coldplay fans watching the
roadies remove Rita Ora’s drum kit to replace it with Robyn’s (WHY?!) I began
to look forward to seeing what Robyn would do. I knew her whole ‘thing’ was her
platinum blonde, tightly cropped hair but with a length hanging down
nonchalantly over her right eye. She came on slowly after her backing band to a
mish-mash of electro noise that sounded almost like a recording of two dial-up
modems making violent love on top of a photocopier then played out over a
loudspeaker. However, this was soon replaced by her singles Call Your Girlfriend as well as With Every Heartbeat and a rather catchy
rendition of Cobrastyle done with her
own techno-pop flair to great effect and I will admit, although being a well
known cynic of all things dance music, I found myself quite enjoying it!
Although my excuse is that it was originally done by hip-hop/reggae/punk
artists Teddybears so I don’t feel
too bad...
After a long wait, the
audience were eventually rewarded with a recording of Jay-Z’s misogynist rap anthem 99
Problems, probably as a salute to his friendship with Coldplay (he famously lives next door to Chris Martin and
apparently Gwyneth Paltrow and Beyonce are very close friends). Following this utter
tune to which I made an utter ass of myself, rapping along to all the
words and getting strange looks from all who were stood around me, Coldplay took to the stage to the theme
tune to the epic Back To The Future films.
Not only was this a brilliantly uplifting and pulse poundingly exciting song to
come on to, it also subtly suggested the links to both their previous
discography as well as their huge steps forward with the unspoken promise that
while striding forwards musically, they have not forgotten their previous works
and would be remaining faithful to the sounds that made them. As I previously
mentioned, the budget for the tour had clearly gone through the roof and this
was made clear by all the things that they managed to grab people’s attention!
Not only did they begin the set with the album’s title track Mylo Xyloto, they followed it with the
fast paced yet soulful Hurts Like Heaven.
During this, multi-coloured fireworks were set off and the lasers burst
through the thick layer of stage smoke and lit up the dusky evening sky in a bright
kaleidoscopic array of flashing neon lights. At this point also, our wristbands
began to flash on and off in time with the music. All around the grounds people
were jumping up and down in wonder as their friends and the people around them
too began to throw out brightly coloured lights from their wrists, creating their
own visual performance as Coldplay created their musical one.
During Lovers In Japan, cannons full of
butterfly shaped confetti were set off and the audience were left to fend for
themselves as the baby pink and green mess cascaded down upon our heads, down
our bras and shirts and littered the stadium floor so thickly that leaving
after the show was akin walking across a thick pulpy carpet. Yellow followed soon after, arguably
Coldplay’s best song and it was given a much more intimate feel when after coming
to a vibrato shuddering end, Chris Martin bashfully admitted he had “fucked up”
and asked the audience if he could go from the first chorus as the audience had
not had time to sing a certain lyric. This level of honesty and commitment to
fans is what makes Coldplay so endearing. They come across with a level of ‘English-ness’
that others tend not to. They have a quality about them still that seems to
shout, “We are just some guys who make music and this sill feels way beyond us.”
In fact, at one point after The Scientist,
Chris thanked the audience for giving the band “the best job ever”.
Certain highlights for
me were stadium levelling anthem Viva La
Vida in which, by way of applause, the audience continued chanting the
songs refrain long after the band had stopped. The atmosphere of good times was
palpable and for a brief moment, as cheesy as it sounds, the crowd were united
in love for Coldplay and as we all sang our hearts out, the guys took to the
stage again to perform Mylo Xyloto’s
anthem Charlie Brown. This was time
for the wristbands to come in to play once more. Flashing on and off in time to
the music, the stadium lit up and flashed back into darkness every few seconds.
From greens to blues, reds to whites and yellows, everyone was in awe. It made
us feel like we were part of the show. Not only were we an audience, standing
there singing, we were all part of the same visual experience! For a final song
before their encore they played the hit single and knee tremblingly powerful Paradise. I have always thought the bass
was incredible but it was something else entirely live. Those first few notes
go right through you and as soon as the rest of the band began to play,
everyone found themselves jumping in time.
For the final encore,
they ended with Every Teardrop Is A
Waterfall to which I jumped about like a loon and once more made an ass of
myself. More fireworks erupted as they finished the set and they stepped
forwards to bow. Unfortunately I couldn’t make out Chris Martins final words as
the applause was too loud for him to even be heard over the P.A. However, I
think it’s a good thing if your fans can drown you out with cheering. Again, it
just shows that as Coldplay continue to produce music that (seemingly) the
world adores, they have managed once again to step up the level of performance.
They really did give their all last night. Not one of them was not drenched in
sweat yet all were smiling happily as they joined hands and took their final
bows and thanked the audience for coming.
I loved every second. It was
fantastically produced, excellently performed and all in all, faultless.
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