Online Only - Coldplay concert review - from TodayOnline

Online Only - Coldplay concert review
A concert worth every superlative

Genevieve Sarah Loh
genevieveloh@mediacorp.com.sg

My editor groaned when he found out that I was going to be the one reviewing Monday night’s Coldplay concert at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. Something about me listening to Viva la Vida on loop 154 times and how it’ll result in an extremely biased concert review dripping with blind Chris Martin love and gushing superfluous adjectives proclaiming the band’s ascending rock-god status, undeniable stage presence and lyrical perfection.

He was right. But now I have more than 10,000 other witnesses who, judging from their contented faces after a value-for-money two-hour show, will be more than willing to back up my gush.

Forget all the mudslinging criticism about their radio-friendly whine rock, blatant U2 and Radiohead ripoffs, Hollywood wives and naming of children after fruit. None of it matters once Coldplay takes to the stage.

For their third outing in Singapore, the band pulled out all the Big Rock Band trappings – massive video screens, a rainbow of lasers, giant orbs displaying dizzying images, bursts of neon confetti and two runways allowing the band to get up close and personal with their fans. But the Brit quartet still managed to tirelessly deliver their old and new hits – Clocks, In My Place, Yellow, Fix You, The Scientist – in an unexpectedly intimate manner.

Much of that credit belongs to the impossibly charming frontman Martin, whose deft piano skills and drunken schoolboy trance-like dancing proved strangely riveting as he seamlessly moved from guitar to piano to vocals and back. The crowd-pleaser did and said all the right things, much to the joy of the sold out crowd who lapped up lines like “ Singapore ... You guys are right now ranking amongst one of the very top audiences we’ve ever played for” and “You guys know how grateful we are to get to play for 10,000 people right here in Singapore. Thank you so much for coming out on a Monday night”.

Couple that with incorporating “Singapore” into their song lyrics several times and performing a cute version of The Monkees I’m a Believer right amongst the shocked audience members at the far-up cheaper seats, and you got a stadium full of frenzied fans eating out of their hands.

There is a brief creeping sensation that these seemingly spontaneous tricks were nothing but just neatly executed, manipulative crowd pleasers. But Martin’s self deprecating humour, unrelentless energy and vocal prowess, along with the rest of the boys’ (bassist Guy Berryman, guitarist Jonny Buckland and drummer Will Champion) earnestness easily washed away any doubt of their genuineness.

Coldplay gave a performance that was worth every single superlative – and every single cent.



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