Viva la vida

Had the pleasure of checking out Coldplay at the Garden this past Monday night. I think that’s worthy of a few short words/thoughts here seeing as how I never go to shows anymore, yeah?

In short, they pwned teh house. Really, really tight show… just… a bit short. They came in at just about 90 minutes. Given they have four stellar albums to pull from, it is a little disappointing, especially what with this being a big arena tour and such. They played pretty much Viva la Vida in its entirety and other than that, a few here and there from the other three discs. Maybe two songs off each? I didn’t jot down a setlist.

The band was tight though and they managed to keep the entire audience in play by moving about the arena a bit. They did a couple short — two song — sets at different locations other than the main stage. One being just in front of the stage on a small, disco floor type platform and the other at one of those handicapped cleared landings between the lower bowl seats and the premium stuff. This was in one of the back corners, so I’m sure more than a few folks that way were blown away with Chris Martin sweating just feet away from them. During this set, which ended the main show as a whole, the drummer was thrown a bone and sang a new tune that you can download from their site for free right now. That would splain why I didn’t recognize it.

Only one encore, so again, that was due to the short show overall. I think you have to come in with at least 120 minutes of show and two encores at this point, but whatevs. It was just sad to be over so soon and I’d say this show was just as equally good as the other two times I have seen them. (I only missed them on the X&Y tour.)

As for the openers, I didn’t hear them, although I would have liked to have checked out Santogold for a spell. Her self titled disc is pretty cool, but I was busy getting my drink on and she only played for maybe a half hour. Probably got there half way thru The Luxury’s set. They are a local band that won the contest to open the show via FNX. Apparently they did this in four other markets as well. Haven’t heard them, so I don’t know if they are any good. Maybe I’ll find out someday soon.