Coldplay

Yellow cones of light cut swaths through the billowing purple. Chris Martin's silhouette, outlined by a flash of blinding white, casts the contents of a water bottle over the dazzled crowd. The floor becomes a sea of hands. The concussive force of the bass and drums resounds in the hollow of your chest, the soaring tremolo guitar picking and flight of falsetto vocals obscure the confines of reality and Coldplay waltzes through another fantastic display of inconspicuously blinding power.
Life for this British quartet has been rife with preparations for unleashing their new album Rush Of Blood To The Head on the awaiting public, and last Sunday's San Francisco performance showed the band chomping at the bit.
Coldplay's set was first-class. Issuing a mixture of songs primarily from their heralded 2000 debut release Parachutes (Parlophone) and their forthcoming follow-up album, set for U.S. release on August 27th, the group flowed from number to number with unpronounced ease and expertise. This concert, a warm-up for their upcoming Berkley gig on September 6th, was well-received by the audience (a great number of whom were jaded industry types), and demonstrated Coldplay's fantastic songsmanship and showmanship.
As Martin climbed over stage monitors and sprawled his arm on the velvet drapes, the toiled frontman embraced the crowd with his fantastic vocal range and rock star gesticulations.
Their hour-and-a-half set saw the dips and valleys that mark Coldplay as a standout in their field, their musical dynamics being starkly pronounced in a live setting. The harder songs had a much edgier vibe, especially their explosive rendition of "Shiver."
The band was personable, interacting with the crowd and joking around between songs as darkly-clad roadies brought the group freshly-tuned guitars. Even the crowd sing-along section on their runaway hit "Yellow" defied sounding contrived.
"The official concert is over, you're free to go whenever you want," chuckled the frontman as they broke into a second encore with a cover of Echo & the Bunnymen's "Lips Like Sugar." The only aspect that stuck out as being a tad trite were their multiple encores. The suspense is killed when a band says goodnight and then immediately, roadies are on stage tuning guitars for the next song. Upon spying a set list later in the evening and seeing their planned encores, I couldn't help wonder the importance of doing encores in the first place (except, perhaps snorting a line off the backstage monitor board).
As Martin sat before the stand-up piano for the final finalé (in this case, the hidden track off of Parachutes), I couldn't imagine being more satisfied with a performance.
Bimbo's 365 Club may be the best concert venue on the West Coast. With its superior design, thick velvet curtains, top-notch sound and lighting equipment and pristine floor layout that allows one to watch the show unhindered from any place in the hall, this venue has a way of spoiling a concert-goer. Coldplay's set proved to be the best-sounding show I've seen in years, hands down. Credit needs be given to the sound engineers and staff of Bimbo's for a job well done. Cheers!
- Maurice S. Teilmann
- photo from coldplay.com

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