Coldplay in Buenos Aires, Argentina, February 26, 2010

[javilu]

Last Friday I attended Coldplay's concert at River Plate's stadium on their "Viva La Vida" tour.

I expected a depressing concert with basically a band on stage and not much else, like Oasis does.
Boy was I wrong!
Amazing stage, fireworks, lasers, giant yellow balloons, rain of multicolored paper butterflies, lots of running through the runways by the whole band, etc...

The show lasted for 110 minutes and included most of Coldplay hits, the most notorious absence being the songs "Trouble" from "Parachutes" and "Speed of Sound" from "X&Y".

At 9.20 PM the lights of the stadium went out and through the speakers sounded "Life In Technicolor", the instrumental that opens their latest album, "Viva la Vida".

The first song Coldplay played was "Violet Hill", from "Viva La Vida", an album that was a big success here and it showed for the 60,000 present in the audience would sing along to every tune.

Chris Martin looked a little drunk, in a festive mood, and sang his guts out. He also spoke in Spanish a lot. The rest of the band played great too.

The audience went nuts with "In My Place" and "Clocks", both hits from "A Rush Of Blood To The Head", Coldplay's second album, but the first real explosion in the night came with "Yellow". Beautiful lightning, yellow lasers and balloons filled the audience.

Mr. Martin looked surprised at how loud the Argentinean audience would sing claiming with the common demagogy "Everyone says Buenos Aires is the best audience in the world, and they're right".

More songs from "Viva La Vida" were followed by another highlight of the night, the song "Fix You" that had the audience singing the chorus.
Probably most had no idea what the words meant, but everyone was singing them:
"Lights will guide you home
and ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you"

"Strawberry Swing", a Tom Petty-like song from Coldplay's last album was followed by the first "runway" set, where the band got together at the end of one of the runways and played a remix version of "God Put A Smile Upon Your Face", "Talk" and an emotional version of "The Hardest Part" by Chris Martin alone on the piano. He dedicated the song to his dad.

2 other highlights of the night was "Viva La Vida", another song that had the audience singing even after it was over. It was followed by "Lost", another singalong from "Viva La Vida".

The band moved to the second runway while "Singing in the rain" was playing through the speakers. There they performed an acoustic set in which the drummer, Will Champion, took the lead vocals for "Death Will Never Conquer". A

After a "Cell phone wave" that was a thrill to see and was suggested by Chris Martin, the band played a hilarious version of Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean". The audience gladly clapped and sang along.

A new song not yet released was performed before the band moved back to the main stage and finished their main set with "Politik" and 2 songs from "Viva La Vida": a powerful "Lovers In Japan" that included an explosion of paper butterflies filling the stadium and "Death And All His Friends", the song that closes the album.

The encores started with "The Scientist", the beautiful ballad from Coldplay's second album, again with the audience singing along. I've read that Chris martin was fooling around at the piano with the chords of George Harrison's "isn't It A Pity" and came up with this beautiful tune.

The concert ended with "Life In Technicolor ii" from their "Prospekt's March EP" and that was it, a splendid time was guaranteed for all.
Thank you Coldplay!

Javier, March 1, 2010

Personnel:
Chris Martin (vocals/piano)
Jon Buckland (guitar)
Will Champion (drums)
Guy Berryman (bass)

Setlist:

Life In Technicolor
Violet Hill
Clocks
In My Place
Glass Of Water
Yellow
Cemeteries Of London
42
Fix You
Strawberry Swing
God Put A Smile Upon Your Face (partial rechno remix)
Talk (partial techno remix)
The Hardest Part (Chris solo piano)
Postcards From Far Away (Chris solo piano)
Viva La Vida
Lost!
Death Will Never Conquer (acoustic - sung by Will)
Billie Jean (Michael Jackson cover - acoustic)
Don Quixote
Viva La Vida (remix interlude)
------
Politik
Lovers In Japan
Death And All His Friends
-------
The Scientist
Life in Technicolor ii
The Escapist (outro)

Listen to the Argentinean Audience!

YouTube- Coldplay - Fix you (Estadio River 26/02/10 Buenos Aires Argentina)

[marianadelponte]

the best night of my life!!!!!!

[romi_chris]

pero que noche mas inolvidable!!!!!!!!!! the best!

[Juanma]

[tcrush]

I wish they would come around and do another here this time of year!