Coldplay at the Clark County Amphtheater July 10

Coldplay is the biggest band in the world right now. Believe me, I wish that I could say that Wilco is the biggest band in the world, or the Shins, or the Decemberists, or even Radiohead or U2 or R.E.M., but that's not an accurate statement. Right now, and probably for my generation, Coldplay has the top tier. Note that this absolutely does not mean that they are the best, but they are the "biggest."

And really, they aren't very good. Musically, their work isn't very diverse. Granted, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends is quite good, but as a whole, they aren't even that great of musicians. Although I must say that Chris Martin was doing some pretty cool improvisations on the piano, which made me wonder why he sticks to the boring block chords in studio albums. But they certainly know how to put on a show and give their loyal fans (which I'll admit isn't me) what they deserve.

So this review is incredibly late. The show was over a month ago (July 10). But I keep thinking about it despite the fact that I've been to two or three shows since then (and no, this certainly wasn't better than Jon Foreman's performance--see below--but honestly, it may have beat out the Decemberists).

Coldplay is a huge band, but I'm not sure it's completely gone to their head. Indeed, a rush of blood has gone to their head, but I'm not sure of more than that.

They played for about an hour, then they started running up the crowd toward us. The thousands of people in the crowd were going nuts. They stop about 3/4 way through the seated audience, and a piano pops up from a trapdoor. They played three or four songs from here.

After another spirited performance on the grand stage, they again darted into the crowd. Up where we were in the lawn area it was hard to see where the band had gone. Then, out of nowhere, they appeared in the lawn area. They were literally exactly where we were standing but on the left side instead of the right. I was cursing our luck of choosing to sit on the right side instead of the left when I realized that my sister and several of our other blanketmates were out of sight. Just as an image flashed through my imagination of my sister appearing on the giant screen with Chris Martin, they started performing from up there. The first song was a folk song that wouldn't have been out of place on an 18th century fishing boat that was actually sung by the drummer. It was quite interesting.

I think perhaps the most intriguing part of the whole concert for me was the community experience. There aren't many times in our current world of hundreds of TV channels when thousands of people are experiencing the same exact thing at the same exact time. I've been to a couple big shows before, but nothing was like this giant sold-out amphitheater experience.

Coldplay kept the energy up the whole time and kept yelling specifically for the people way up in the lawn, which is unique. Their humility was obvious, and that is extremely impressive for the biggest band in the world.


*For a taste of the live experience and the biggest band in the world's humility, check out the live album they're giving away on their website right now*




Kristen also guest stars in this video.