Concert Experience: A Head Full of Coldplay

Screams echoed across the venue. Black seeped into every inch of the stadium, a promise for something big to come. The crowd was silent, aching with anticipation. Suddenly, the audience lit up in a sparkling sea of red. Bands on our wrists illuminated to the beat, winking as Chris Martin's voice cut through the air like a shard of glass.

If I had to describe the concert in one sentence, I would say that Coldplay starts the show off with an energy and staging most artists leave until their encore. It was simply the most visually stunning concert I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. Multicolored confetti rained down from the ceiling multiple times throughout the night. They were little stars trailing down from the roof, easy to catch in your palm. The stage's catwalk was illuminated along the edges, colors changing with each song. The catwalk tapered off into a circle, which throughout the night, would transform into whatever the show needed it to be, whether it functioned as a night sky or as a simple acoustic stage.

Coldplay's strengths are in their classic hits, and they are are well aware. "Yellow," the second song they performed, was electric: unsurprisingly, the Xylobands bathed the entire crowd in a unifying yellow, as the iconic lyrics burst from both Chris Martin's mouth and the crowds'. 

Their pop hits set the crowd alight, spurred on by Chris Martin's radiating energy as he sang and smiled in between words, so that you could almost reach out and touch his joy. The crowd glittered once again during Every Teardrop is a Waterfall, each person dancing to their hearts content, but the night had only just begun.

I remember once sitting with my guitar teacher, listening to "Paradise," as he remarked on the introduction of the song, saying that this song had been engineered to be played in arenas. As soon as the first notes of the song kicked in, there was no doubt in my mind that his words rang true. "Paradise" was meant to be heard in this setting, in a crowd that was now lit up by multiple colors, wrists angrily flashing shades of red, yellow, green, purple, and blue. As the song neared its end, the band surprised the audience by kicking the song up a notch, as the drums went faster, faster, faster, and Chris Martin screamed, "jump!" The lights flashed to purple, and the crowd was suddenly, undeniably, in a Coldplay rave.

The night wasn't just dancing around to pop hits, though. Every so often, the pace of songs would slow down, just before they would pick back up again. Coldplay made sure to keep the crowd on their toes, changing the pace of the concert with every couple songs. At the point of "Everglow," Chris Martin prefaced the song by asking the audience to send love and good vibes to every corner of the world that needed it. That seemed to be the entire point of the concert to Coldplay: to make every single person in that stadium feel loved and leave with a smile on their face. The crowd grew quieter, despite having already heard a ballad from the band, as we had already sung along to "The Scientist," every voice in the venue ringing out from the chorus.

This was different, somehow. This time, Chris Martin sat alone in on the circle perched at the edge of the catwalk, sitting calmly at his piano. Thirty seconds into the song, he stopped, laughed, and replied to a member of the audience, saying, "I think I would have to take you out for a dinner and movie first."

It took a moment for me to piece together what must have been said to him, before laughing, along with many others around me. He continued to talk to her, and then the crowd, before chuckling again and starting the song over, saying, "Let's try this again."

His words were strangely humanizing, since, despite the evidence of my eyes in front of me, Coldplay had never seemed real. They were simply a band that released some great songs that already withstood the test of time, but they seemed to not care; they were only there to thoroughly enjoy the music they were playing. Chris Martin went off on a different tangent later, pointing out that his favorite sign of the night read, "Coldplay is my favorite boyband," talking about how many directions his band would be in if they had to be in a boyband like One Direction. He made the crowd laugh once again. Martin's infectious energy was almost tangible, like something that you could reach out and grasp in your hands, almost as if your lips had quirked upward into a smile on their own accord.

The acoustic moments of the night were perhaps the most beautiful, as later, Coldplay walked through the crowd to another stage, where they were only equipped with acoustic instruments. Only a couple feet away from audience members, they went back to their roots, reverting back to a time before synths and electronic beats. Coldplay played homage to that time, playing a song called "See You Soon," a beautiful, guitar-based ballad that had been released even before their debut album. Chris Martin introduced the other members of the band to the crowd, assuring them that despite what they might have read, each member was indispensable and equally important. The audience could not agree more, screaming in response to his words, as it was almost impossible to watch the show and doubt the necessity of the role each band member played.

"Adventure of a Lifetime."

The night was full of unforgettable moments, whether it was the way the crowd's electric energy crackled throughout the stadium during the bridge of "Fix You," or the way the crowd moved in unison during "Adventure of a Lifetime," crouching down at first so that the whole stadium could jump up as a whole in sync with the beat. During "A Sky Full of Stars," the lighting on the stage resembled a night sky, swirling with different shades of blue, so realistic and beautiful that it left me breathless.

Coldplay ended with fire. Literally, since fire exploded from the sides of the stage and sparks rained down. The entire concert was engaging, making it hard to even wrench your concentration away from the stage for even a second; the music was hypnotic, making you want to sing and dance and jump around. The concert was its own drug, a visual spectacle meant to spur on the magic of the songs.

After the end of the show, the stadium seemed to echo the screams of the audience and the sounds of the band, as a credit reel scrolled through on the screen, so that everyone would know the names of the people behind the scenes. The humility of that surprised me, as I left the show with a certain realization: despite being their farewell tour, Coldplay went out on their own terms.