Coldplay's Hot

As one of the most ubiquitous musical groups of the pop music scene in both the U.S. and Europe for the past ten years, Coldplay’s audience is in many ways as diverse as it gets. Their appeal transcends differences in age, gender, sexual orientation, race, and socioeconomic class, and their popularity spans continents. On September 6^th, 2012, this universality was apparent: over 700,000 people came to The Hague from all over the country to hear Coldplay perform in what was rumored to be the largest concert in the history of the Netherlands. The band did not disappoint. After opening act Marina and the Diamonds, Coldplay put on a fast-paced, smoothly run show in which the band played a combination of songs from their newest album, Mylo Xyloto, and their most iconic songs from the past. Coldplay’s concert was unique in its creative use of light and visual art to enhance the music, the overall quality of the musicians’ sincere and adept performance, and the social ambiance and the cultural experience of being there.

Coldplay’s use of light shows and visual art displays augmented the experience of attending the concert. Throughout the concert, the band returned to the visual scheme of psychedelic rainbows of colors, especially for songs from Mylo Xyloto, which has album art with this same inspiration. In addition to the brilliant use of laser displays and confetti, blasted in sync with the beat of the music, many of the techniques were innovative and refreshing. After a build-up of retro colored lights flashing on a backdrop of circular jumbotrons to music from Back to the Future, the band opened with “Hurts Like Heaven,” which was accompanied by spectacular fireworks and showers of colored sparks. Despite the size of the crowd, every single person in the park could see those fireworks, which established the initial understanding that this concert would be more than just an opportunity to hear great music, but also to experience the music in a new way, enhanced by art and light. Furthermore, upon entering the arena, each person was given a colorful clunky bracelet decorated with endorsements and odd pieces of plastic. Seemingly merely a souvenir from the show, the bracelets were controlled remotely and lit up during concert, creating a sea of neon lights flashing in unison and incorporating the audience as contributors to the show, even artists, in a sense.

The band brought this same inspiration to every level of the performance; each member had splattered glow-in-the-dark paint on his clothes, and the instruments – piano, drum set, base, and guitar – were painted with decorations in the same paint. In “Paradise,” some of the jumbotrons became a backdrop of glowing, graffiti-like art that complemented the projection of the band members on the other screens, displayed through a filter that enhanced the color so that they matched the artwork. One of the most aesthetically stunning concerts I have been to, this show was carefully planned and executed so that the audience would have a multi-dimensional experience for both the ears and eyes.

Beyond these effects, at the core of the concert was an exceptional musical performance that displayed the members’ commitment to their music and their fans. While many bands rely on sound studio effects and thus sound vastly different from their recordings, Coldplay was indistinguishable live, perhaps even superior. This was greatly due to the lead vocal singer, Chris Martin, who expertly navigated transitions to and from falsetto while playing either piano or guitar as well. The band put in full effort; although The Hague is one of the last stops on the band’s tour, each member gave a high-energy performance, particularly Martin, who tirelessly ran and hopped around the stage while singing. Moreover, it is clear how much the band appreciates its fans; halfway through the concert, with upright piano, portable drum kit, bass, and guitar, the band moved to the back of the arena and played a few songs there, so that people towards the back would also have an opportunity for a closer look. Similarly, the band took care to acknowledge the location of the concert in The Hague; one of the most touching moments of the night was when the band transitioned from the end of “Speed of Sound” to a segment from the Netherlands’ national anthem, which prompted the entire audience to sing along.

The ambiance of this concert suited Coldplay’s diverse demographic well. Since it was an open-air concert in a park near the city center, the first of its kind that I have attended, this performance format greatly influenced its sentiment and tenor. Tickets to the concert were “general admission,” meaning that there were no assigned seats (actually no seats at all, just a grassy field), and people packed together to stand as close as possible to the stage; some people apparently had even camped out in front of the arena early that morning to claim their territory in front of the stage. As a result, while the front of the crowd consisted of die-hard fans and became a mosh pit during high-energy, celebrated songs such as “Viva la Vida,” the crowd gradually thinned farther away from the stage and was composed of middle-aged couples and young adults calmly swaying to the music with eyes closed, absorbed in the music. This range reflected how different of an experience two people could have at the same concert, and the universality of Coldplay’s music that enables it to appeal to so many different kinds of people.