Coldplay Concerto

Shandi afforded me the opportunity to give this blogging thing a shot, she's been doing a bang up job of it, so I'll try not to disappoint.

I have to admit, I was looking forward to this concert for many months, Coldplay are my favorite band right now and I had huge expectations for the concert. I'd read that their show for the Viva La Vida tour was phenomenal, but I had no idea what we were in for.

Rewind to several months ago, I purchased tickets, and anyone who has purchased tickets well in advance for a big concert knows, when you buy the tickets you get excited, but you have to wait so long that the excitement dies down because you basically forget about it. This concert was no different.

Somehow, I also talked my brother Mike into buying tickets just a few days before the concert.

Anyway, November 22nd came, and we made our way up to ESA. Printed right on our tickets it said, "No Cameras\Recorders" me, being a good little boy, and a good little boy who didn’t want to hike back to the car after being "caught" with a camera, opted to leave it in the car. The moment we walked into the arena, we realized everyone and their dog had a camera so I was pretty upset. I asked one of the ESA people if I could leave to get something and come back, my request was denied. So there we were concert of a lifetime with no stinking camera. Luckily, we had something of a camera on my phone, so out it came and Shandi was happy to take a boat load of pictures.

So after a lot of waiting, the concert began with a band called SleeperCar. They were decent-- a country rock group with some Johnny Cash thing going on. Next up was a guy named Jon Hopkins, who did some turn table stuff with the accompaniment of seriously psychedelic animation.

Finally, at 9:30 pm (two hours after we sat down in our seats)Coldplay made their way to the stage. They opened with an instrumental tune titled “Life in Technicolor”. Halfway through the first song I leaned over to Shandi and said “this is already worth every penny”, and it was. Typically, when you have big expectations, you get disappointed; but this concert knocked my socks off. The production of the show and their musicianship was absolutely unbelievable. They played a great mixture of classic Coldplay songs, and new Viva material. One more thing worth noting, during " Lovers in Japan" they had these canons that shot out confetti cut-outs of Butterflies, it was quite the sight. I nabbed a few for Shandi to scrapbook.

We had a great time, and I was very happy that Shandi not only let me spend that kind of money on concert tickets, but that she also had a good time too.

Here are a few pictures of my favorite moments from the show.