Reactionary

Coldplay. I know, it doesn’t bring up visions of fanatical rock concert mania to me either. The name doesn’t. When I hear it, I think quiet, thoughtful, beautiful rock anthems not rattling crowd pleasers. Have they been hedging all this time? Last night by the river side they proved to me rock’s future is in good hands. The songs live are actually better than they are on the albums where they tend to sound the same. Live, they find an a vigor, an edge, a sharpness they don’t have on CD. Chris Martin is no Bono, but that’s okay. He carries the show in his own way like making people pop balloons during “Yellow”.

It’s a pleasure to watch a new band begin to create its own legend. They have three albums out now and it’s a study to see which songs off which albums are becoming the must-plays. They played a lot of the new album, starting off with “Square One”, but songs like “The Scientist”, “Yellow”, and “Clocks” got some of the biggest receptions. So big, that it was palpable just how much the crowd wanted them to play them. I’m sure U2 could tell them that having such expectations from the crowd is both a blessing and a curse. (This crowd sucked, though.)

One of my favorite moments was “Swallowed in the Sea”. It’ll never be a single from X&Y but it gave me that big songs moment of the night. Bits of the live set as a live set reminded me of U2, little rip-offs, little nudges. That’s fine. They need to use the reigning champs while they have them. But there was also something U2 could take away from the show. This is, when the time comes, they should have no fear in handing their instruments over to these guys. There isn’t a better heir apparent in the rock scene today. Now, time will tell if this band has what it takes to last. They’ve mastered this kind of music, now it only remains to be seen if they’ll dig their heels in and… stretch.

Posted on August 8th, 2005 under Tunes •  Print •  Email • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed