My Death and His Friends

Coldplay on Thursday night was amazing.

Go back and re-read that first sentence because there is no amount of italicization I can use to express how good that show was. It surpassed all expectations I had and thoroughly impressed me. It was more than a concert, it was a truly passionate performance.

I always considered myself a Coldplay fan. I own all of their albums and enjoy what I hear. They are my 30 most popular artist (which surprised me, I thought they would be top 15) according to last.fm but after last night there is no denying how much I enjoy this band. If they ever return to Edmonton I will not hesitate to see them live, and you would be wise to do the same.

The energy, crowd interaction and stage presence were outstanding. This reminded me of how good a concert can be. Older songs were performed with new intensity, favorites had a twist of techno beats, new songs from the album sounded brilliant and subtle things like the addition of beach balls during “Yellow” helped separate this show from others.

I have nothing but accolades to give to these four guys from London. They seemed to genuinely enjoy themselves and the Edmonton crowd let the guys know how much their effort was appreciated.

There were many memorable moments, like the fierce and high energy batch of songs to start the show, a techno version of “God Put a Smile on Your Face”, a set list that feels like it was made for me or the climactic end with confetti. However the one that stands out, and will rival any other moment at a concert I have attended was the performance of “Green Eyes”.

This was our first dance song at our wedding, so hearing it live was a treat. The way it was delivered made the song amazing. The band walked off the stage, to the rear of the arena and was escorted right in front of us. Then they walked up the aisle about twenty feet and performed the song acoustically. The larger than life band had brushed right by us and performed our song. Something like that is tough to top.

While the night belonged to Coldplay, they had a great supporting team. Snow Patrol, who I saw headline several years ago, was perfect in their middle slot. They played many popular songs and got the crowd nice and warmed up. I was surprised at how little they played from their new album, instead they opted to play songs that most in attendance had heard and it worked. Both times I have seen this band live I have never been disappointed and would be pleased to see them again.

The first opening act, Howling Bells, was another pleasant surprise. I knew nothing of their catalog and found myself getting into a groove and enjoying their music. This is a band I will have to listen to more of because they definitely caught my attention.

When the lead singer, Juanita Stein, stated a few facts that she learned while researching Edmonton I thought that was a nice touch, certainly better than the “your city is the best we have played in” standard talk bands say. Something Juanita said in her facts of Edmonton was brought back up during Coldplay’s acoustic set when they performed an impromptu song and name dropped Michael J. Fox. Just like a good Arrested Development joke, you have to wait until the end to get the punchline.

The Coldplay website was updated with a blog post from Edmonton, and said that they suffered a bizarre incident involving a windshield. Seeing these thoughts of an outsider to our city on events like that or the show itself was interesting and I hope the band returns in the near future for another memorable performance.

I did bring my recording gear to the show. I had intentions of recording Snow Patrol and Coldplay. Unfortunately I only recorded Snow Patrol as nothing from Coldplay was saved to the hard drive, I believe I made the fatal mistake of not pressing ‘record’. In the above Coldplay blog post there was a seventy second snippet from “The Hardest Part”, which puts anything I would have recorded to shame, but it acts as a nice memory with the crowd giving it everything they had.

With that said, here is a song sample from last night’s Snow Patrol performance. The song is “Hands Open” and you can Right Click > Save As to download it.