Coldplay Concert

So I had a good time at the Coldplay concert last night. I talked David into not leaving until about an hour before concert time, not taking into account rainy, weekday evening traffic :-( So we arrived about 15 minutes after Richard Ashcroft got started.

Ashcroft put on a pretty good show. I thought the rendition of Bittersweet Symphony was a rousing success. He dedicated it to "all the fawkers who aren't paying me money", harkening back to my post from the Freedom of Expression book. I would have played the small sampled sound in question isolated and loud. Although that might be too painful! He was on for about 45 minutes.

Coldplay was fun, and the light show was really really nice. I wasn't too familiar with too many of the songs, but the one I really did know ("Clocks") was really rocking. The lead singer sound like Bono, maybe a little too much. A very earnest group, but it was quite fun. Coldplay came on about 9pm, after about a 45 minute wait, and played for about an hour and a half. What is the history behind encores anyway? Why not just play the extra couple of songs and leave? Don't the groups always come out for another couple more?

Sound was a little mushy. Couldn't really understand too much of what was said. Getting out of the Verizon Wireless Center was a mess, taking a good half hour or more, although we could have saved ourselves some headache by moving over a lane and going north before going south. And I think had I been just a tad more familiar with where it was in Manchester, I could have directed David to some side roads, keeping us out of the mess entirely. But it has been awhile since I've been there, so I didn't feel comfortable trying out new directions.