Viva la Coldplay

Coldplay
Opening Acts: Kitty Daisy & Lewis and Amadou & Mariam
Riverport Amphitheater (this year, known as Verizon Wireless Amphitheater)
Maryland Heights (St. Louis), MO
Friday, July 24th, 2009
Section Upper Right, Row FF, Seat 58
$97.50


This show reminded me of shows I went to as a kid. We were seeing a hugely popular band in the prime of their career. I told Roy I think twenty years from now we'll be telling people we saw Coldplay on the Viva la Vida tour. I think the album will be considered a classic and they'll have that kind of staying power.

This would be a different type of show than usual for me. Most of the shows I go to these days are for bands whose songs I've known for fifteen years or for newer lesser known bands where it seems like the whole audience is there to check them out. This time, a good chunk of the audience would be big fans. My music listening habits have changed over the years, and I haven't gotten to really know the songs. Roy and I have all their albums, but I can't sing the full lyrics to any single one of their songs or know the names of all the songs. I didn't want to miss the chance to see them. This too reminds me of my early concert-going days. I'd often go see bands before I was familiar with their back catalog.

I wasn't just checking out Coldplay. I was checking out the venue too. This year's Farm Aid is going to take place here, and I wanted to be a part of it. Could I deal with this place for a full day festival? I had a miserable time at Riverport at a Rush show in 2002. It was so hot, no breeze, everyone was standing and I couldn't see the stage or the screens, the people in front of us were yelling back and forth to each other, so I couldn't focus on the music, and they were smoking so much in a non-smoking venue. I was just standing there, surrounded by people and noise and I couldn't breathe. I started crying and we left the show early. I won't see Rush there again - nothing against the band, just the crowd they attract.

I remember going to a lot of shows at the amphitheater in Philly, the Mann Music Center, and always enjoying it. Maybe the seats at Riverport aren't inclined enough as you go further back? Maybe the heat didn't bother me as much when I was younger? Maybe we weren't so packed in? Aside from the times we saw Yes at Riverport and had really good seats, I've always had an issue with seeing the band at this venue. The Rush show fundamentally changed my comfort level at concerts. I start getting nervous at a show unless I'm in stadium seating, aisle seats, or in the front row of a section. The last time I went there, for CSNY in 2006, I only decided to go because I got a seat in the front row of the upper circle section.

The Coldplay show would be my third time back there since the disastrous Rush show. Roy and I both wanted to see Coldplay. Tickets went on sale when we were on vacation, but we were lucky enough to be on a layover when the presale took place. We found a computer, and got upper circle, Row FF. I hoped it would be okay.

Roy was less interested in Farm Aid than I was. I thought about the Crossroads Guitar Festival we went to a couple years ago. It made for a fun day, even though I didn't like all of the bands. This would be similar. Roy said part of what made Crossroads so comfortable was that we had so much room to ourselves. We were in the assigned seats, but it was a stadium with stadium seating and enough legroom. He didn't want to be in an enclosed area for a full day festival any more than I did. We got to Riverport. One trip to the disgusting bathrooms made me realize that I didn't want to spend more time there either.

We walked around for a bit before the show. I bought a program, and then went back to buy a tote bag to hold said program. It really was convenient to carry the program in a bag over my shoulder for the whole show. I should bring it to other shows. Our seats were in the "upper right" section, about a 45 degree angle veering off from the far end of the stage. The show started at 7, but a little bit before that, the opening band Kitty Daisy & Lewis took the stage. The auditorium was mostly empty, no one was sitting in the five rows in front of me in my section. The band played all sorts of styles of "old-timey" music, rockabilly, blues, country. Roy liked them better than I did.

The next band was Amadou and Mariam. I think I liked them even better than Coldplay. Very upbeat with great percussion. Trying to describe them sounds like a bunch of buzzwords: world music, fusion, Afropop. Let me say that they kept my attention, both aurally and visually, for their entire set, despite the fact I was hearing their music for the first time. I'd go see them in concert again happily the next time they're in town.

The reserved seating area filled up during this last break. The lawn in back was packed with people. To my amazement, I could still see the stage. The rows of seats were staggered - the people sitting two rows and four rows in front of me could potentially block my view, but not the people right in front of me. And the person two rows in front was a little kid. This might be alright. And then Coldplay came on stage and everyone stood up. And the little girl stood on her chair. Other people in front were tall. If I contorted myself, I could look up and see one of the screens at an angle, but that was it. If the stage was up from my seat, I probably could have seen it, but I somehow had to look down at the stage and above people's heads. How do other short people handle this?

I listened to two songs like this, wondering if people would sit down. I wasn't going to enjoy the concert this way, so I started to look for another spot from which to watch the concert.

I found my spot. We were in the upper right section of the amphitheater, but there was another section to my right. It was just 5 seats across, but what really made it stand out was that it was so sparsely populated. I thought the reserved seats were all sold out, but this section looked to be maybe one-third full. I walked over to an open aisle seat in my row, and I got my unencumbered view of the stage. The concert became alive to me at this point. There was only one other person in my new row.

Someone actually claimed this seat three-fourths of the way into the Coldplay's set. I just moved to another empty aisle seat two rows in front. I actually found a spot that I liked at Riverport! It was a severe angle to the stage, but it had a lot of space. And a breeze, since it was the very end of the seated area. This was the right-right section. Of course, it doesn't even exist on Riverport's seating chart.

Even in my weird far-side-of-the-amphitheater seats, the sound was really good. The band was performing live and they had a lot of energy. The highlights though, were the visuals, rather than the songs themselves. For the song Yellow, I could see the crew with all these yellow beach balls bouncing them into the crowd. The audience kept them up in the air, giving the show a sense of whimsy. It reminded me of when Roy and I saw the movie Up. All the kids got free balloons and played with them before the movie started. We're all kids again when we get toys to play with, aren't we?

I noticed the security getting tighter a little while into the show. The usher who saw me walk into another section and grab a free seat was now keeping everyone out of the aisles. It became clear when the band nonchalantly walked off stage, up the aisle, just a few rows in front of me, and took a secondary small stage near my original section. They did two songs as the whole band there, including Talk, the first song I knew from them. Then, Chris Martin played a song solo on piano. At my angle, I could watch his fingers hit the keys.

I had heard of Coldplay since they released their first album, but the first time I heard their music was watching their performance on the Live Eight concert a few years ago. Soon after that, I visited my hometown and heard Talk on my old radio station WXPN. I liked the piano-based rock sound and hearing them on XPN was like a seal of approval. That's what led me to buy their then-current album X&Y. It was good to hear Talk that night. And seeing Chris playing piano reminded me of that original perception of the band. I quite like his voice too, one of the few male high-pitch voices in rock that doesn't sound like he's trying to copy Jon Anderson.

The band started playing Viva la Vida as Chris Martin ran back to the stage. The band made another trip into the audience, this time to the lawn on the other side of the amphitheater. They did a couple of songs acoustically, including a reworked Billie Jean. Later on, thousands of paper butterflies were released to the audience. They weren't coming anywhere near by section, but I could watch the effect as an outsider. I was able to pick one up off the ground on my way out of the venue.

It was a well-paced concert. Roy was wondering beforehand if it would start sounding samey or if he would get bored. We realized Coldplay's music is more dynamic than we give them credit for. The visuals helped make the show exciting, but really, the band gave us some energetic performances that would have carried the concert on their own. The band seems very earnest about their music, but also earnest about connecting with their audience. Chris Martin in particular came across as a great frontman, not for posturing, but for talking to the crowd. He apologized for the Viva tour to take so long to get to St. Louis and suggested we look at it as the band having 142 rehearsals for this show. Later on, he thanked the audience for spending the money to come to this show and told us we'd all be getting free copies of their new live EP Left Right Left Right Left as a thank you from the band. They even did a little tour song like Yes used to do in the 70's, a song mentioning St. Louis as the Gateway to the West. They're not afraid to look a little goofy to be entertaining, but it never got in the way of the music.

They encored with The Scientist and Death and All His Friends. I think my favorite overall songs to hear were Fix You, Talk, Viva la Vida, and the song Chris Martin did on piano. I met up with Roy after the show, and we talked about our experiences. It was soooo good for me to switch seats.

It took us forever to get home. Over an hour to get out of the parking lot. When I go to shows at the Pageant or Blueberry Hill, I can walk home by the time I walk to the car here. I decided that if I could get these exact seats for Farm Aid, in the right-right section on the aisle, any row, I'd do it (or left-left). Tickets went on sale the next morning. There was an option to choose what price level of tickets I wanted, but not to choose a specific section. I tried pulling tickets for a couple hours, but I never saw anything in this section. A week later, tickets can now be found through a interactive seating map, where you can choose the exact seats you want. My seats are gone by now. Guess I'm not going to Farm Aid after all. It would be the only way I'd want to spend all day at Riverport.