5 August 2011: Lollapalooza, Chicago, USA

From WikiColdplay

Setlist

Photos

Photos from this show can be found at Coldplaying.com in the Gallery thread for Lollapalooza - http://www.coldplaying.com/forum/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/

Videos

Videos from this show can be found in the first post of the Coldplaying forum live thread for this show at http://www.coldplaying.com/forum/showthread.php?t=76255

Discussion

All post-show discussion for this show at the forum thread http://www.coldplaying.com/forum/showthread.php?t=76255

Fan Reviews

All fan reviews have been submitted to us by the members of Coldplaying.com[1], unless stated otherwise.

Just got back. Best concert ever! Way better than the last time I saw them in 2009. Hearing the new stuff live makes our petty recordings sound horrible!

There was just such an energy there that made that the best show EVER!

[Baw8cc]

Just got back to my hotel in chicago. This was my 9th Coldplay show and the most amazing one I have ever seen!i waited at the stage all day to see them(along with alot of other coldplayers, so glad I got to meet alot of you!) The boys were on fire tonight and so happy, the crowd was fantastic. Will post pics and video when I get home next week can't believe I witnessed this amazing show!!!

[I0wxo2]

What a difference a day makes. 48 hours ago I was in LA watching what seemed like a different band. Tonight the crowd was amazing, Chris was amped up, Jonny was on fire, and Guy was actually smiling?!? ......

Great energy from the boys tonight....and a very enthusiasts crowd.

[kspillers2]

Media Reviews

Lollapalooza 2011, Friday: Coldplay

I forget that Coldplay is a band. Not that it exists, but that it is a collective of four flesh-and-blood musicians banging on instruments. Instruments that can be loud. Because it's easy to think of Coldplay as Chris Martin and some other dudes. He dates the famous actress, and the quartet's hits tend to be the ballads with Martin hunched over a piano. The production of Coldplay's four albums is clean, wine-party friendly and bloodless.

Before the Brits took the stage, three large, square LED screens displayed a circle intersected with an X. For all the shots taken at the band for being treacly pap for white people, the icons might as well have been targets.

But then the Brits took the stage. Multicolored lasers shot over the crowd. Fireworks erupted in sparkling white columns, as high as the skyscrapers towering behind the park. Those LED screens shimmered with more color, then displayed a silhoutte of a running man made of rainbows. At the climax of this opening tune, the rainbow man flies like superman.

It was a new tune, "Hurts Like Heaven." Despite that, wIth all the razzle dazzle pyrotechnics and the shocking, inescapably awesome volume of the band, the audience leapt and cheered. Two of the first four songs were new, from an upcoming record. Other to-be-released cuts, lit like Christmas trees and pulsing with more keyboards and dancefloor savvy, came throughout the set. And I've never seen a band's unheard material go over so well. Martin helped a bit, cheerleading the crowd along, prompting them to jump. And they all jumped.

But this likely wouldn't happen if not for Will Champion. The drummer is vital to the band. And I don't know that I've ever paid attention to his work on the albums. Or if I'm even supposed to. Yet he beats the shit out of his kit onstage. He's a muscular, bearded, Bonham lover. No, seriously. I'm talking about the guy from Coldplay. He drummed harder than anyone I saw all day, and that includes an art metal band.

He also sings. Dueting with Martin on "Us Against the World," another newbie introduced facetiously as being about a love affair between Bill O'Reilly and Sarah Palin. Maybe it was his bald head, maybe it was the hammy superimposed faces on the big video screens, but seeing Champion belt choruses into a microphone, I couldn't help but think that if Martin ever dumped the other three to go solo, a la Peter Gabriel, they've got a Phil Collins in back ready to step up.

I forgot how melodically sophisticated the early work is. "Shiver," which Martin pointed out as being the fisrt song Coldplay ever played in America, zigs and zags and swings and soars. "God Put A Smile Upon Your Face," started with a stripped rearrangement, actually whipped up a beautiful squall over some gorilla percussion. Coldplay can be a great rock band. Jonny Buckland's guitar sounds like a snarling electric guitar, not a toy Japanese keyboard, as it does coming through the filter of Brian Eno.

But then all those piano ballads sound like church hymns. Or, I should say, like the same church hymn over and over.

Chalk that up to Martin's self-help lyrics. Listing to a big batch of his writing, its struck me as Christian rock with a big dollop of doubt. The sky, choirs, cathedrals. Two songs go on about not being lost. I just wish the band weren't so repetitive. And obvious. When they play "Yellow" all the lights turn yellow. As dramatically rocking as the material can be, Martin's dweeby, common-denomenator earnestness makes it all feel too scripted. Their instruments look like movie props, covered in faux finishing and neon graffiti. The acoustic guitar looks like a blackboard, and like a hired artist spent three days decorating it.

There were silly rumors circulating earlier backstage that Jay Z would appear. Only his "99 Problems" made an appearance, introducing the band before a bit of John Williams pomp. Instead of surprise guests, Coldplay offered a version of Amy Winehouse's "Rehab." Sorry, everyone else, you were beaten to the punch, rather wonderfully. Next to Foster the People's Neil Young cover, an unlikely highlight of the day.

An honest to god lighter was held aloft at one point. Typically nowadays you just see the azure glow of iPhone screens at the end of all those pale arms. It was a hearwarming reminder of rock's classic era. And it made me overlook the band's bright new Ghostbusters uniforms and postmillennial pastiches. For a moment I was swept up in the hallelujahs. For a moment I considered Coldplay a classic.

http://timeoutchicago.com/music-nigh...riday-coldplay

Lollapalooza Day 1: Hello, Brazil, and Coldplay says 'So long' to Amy Winehouse

9:50 p.m.: Coldplay brings its set to a close by paying tribute to the late British singer Amy Winehouse, when Chris Martin performs a muted version of her darkly prescient hit “Rehab” at the piano. It segues into the quartet’s “Fix You,” a small gesture turned into a big stadium moment by a band that has become expert at such transformations. Coldplay once again focuses on what it does best. They write simple songs in two major categories: hymn-like ballads and rockers that exploit soft-loud dynamics. When a band can sprinkle guaranteed crowd-pleasers such as “Yellow” (even with no stars to “shine for you” in the hazy sky, the glowing city skyline was a strong visual counterpoint), “Clocks” and “Viva La Vida” through its set, it doesn’t have to worry about prolonged dead spots. Martin, with his falsetto voice and self-deprecating charm, presides over the world’s biggest karaoke bar as the audience joins him in a string of sing-alongs. Love or loathe them, Coldplay and its trove of indelible choruses are ideal for wrapping up the opening night of a big rock festival.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entert...5349194.column