Coldplay - Live In Singapore Concert Review

Who: Coldplay

What: The Viva La Vida Tour

When: 23 March 2009

Where: Singapore Indoor Stadium

Setlist:

1. Life In Technicolor

2. Violet Hill

3. Clocks

4. In My Place

5. Yellow

6. Glass Of Water

7. Cemeteries Of London

8. 42

9. Fix You

10. Strawberry Swing

Stripped Set:

11. God Put A Smile On Your Face

12. Talk (Dance Version)

13. The Hardest Part (Chris Martin solo on piano)

14. Postcards From Far Away

15. Viva La Vida

16. Lost!

Acoustic Set:

17. Speed Of Sound

18. Death Will Never Conquer (Will Champion on vocals)

19. I'm A Believer (Monkees cover)

Interlude/Mexican phone wave/Viva La Vida (Thin White Duke Remix)

20. Politik

21. Lovers In Japan

22. Death And All His Friends

Encore:

23. The Scientist

24. Life In Technicolor ii

25. The Escapist (outro)

So, the biggest concert of the year so far, where 10,000 fans crammed into the Indoor Stadium on Monday and were treated to an awesome show. This is the third time they've been here and they seem to get more and more love with each visit.

The band have had an amazing year since the release of their fourth studio album, which not surprisingly, was the biggest-selling album for the WORLD in 2008, with 6.8 million copies sold (and counting). They also scooped up 3 Grammys last month, where it can be argued they were robbed of the Record Of The Year award, losing out to Robert Plant & Alison Krauss' Please Read The Letter.

Their Viva La Vida Tour has been selling out stadiums all over the world, and Singapore was no exception. All 10,000 tickets were sold out in less than 5 days. Recession? What recession?

If you thought they were good in 2006, think again. This is Coldplay at their most assured and confident. They have honed their skills both musically as well as showmanship wise. 

Their music is more mature and textured but still capable of rousing audiences to their feet and singing along. Chris and co have enough confidence to strut down the catwalk and mingle in the crowd and even do the cliche "wave your lighters in the air" move, except that it's handphones now instead.

Amazingly, they performed almost all the songs on their latest album (9 out of 10, with the exception of Yes), plus a couple of new tracks on the Prospekt's March EP - Glass Of Water and Life In Technicolor ii. Not many artists dare to perform that many songs from their latest album, even though the tour is in support of that album. This is surely a testament to the strength of the album.

However, they also managed to squeeze in all the favourites, like In My Place, Fix You, The Scientist, Yellow and Clocks. My only grouse is that they didn't perform Trouble and Don't Panic. But it was still an excellent setlist so not much complains there.

The highlight of the concert has got to be Viva La Vida. When the (pre-recorded) strings came on, the crowd just erupted and threw their hands in the air. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was singing along to the chant part and it continued even after the song ended. And the chant came on spontaneously after the end of the concert as well. It's such a powerful and uplifting song and in my opinion, it should have won the Record Of The Year award.

The concert was well-produced, with great lights and gimmicks like the yellow ballons during Yellow (a stunt albeit recycled from their previous tour), the butterfly-shaped confetti that rained down during Lovers In Japan, and the fancy orbs hanging from the ceiling, that doubled up as screens.

But most of all, the band sounded really good. Too often, the Indoor Stadium has been accused of having terrible acoustics and making good bands sound bad. But the truth is that you need a good sound mixer and equipment and you can still sound good in there. But perhaps it's also a little due to the fact that Coldplay aren't that heavy to begin with. But I was still very impressed with how good they sounded.

It was a concert to remember. Even after 2 days, I'm still thinking about the concert, and so are loads of other people. The press reviews are excellent, and all the DJs are raving about it on air too. It's quite safely the Concert Of The Year for me. Sorry Jason Mraz, I really enjoyed your concert as well but Coldplay just winged it.

Let's hope their next album will be as good. They have been 4/4 so far - all their albums have been hits. It's not going to be easy, but I sure hope they remain grounded and concentrate on the music. And the fans will naturally come.

For now, let us just be content with chanting along to Viva La Vida...oh oh oh oh oh......oh oh oh oh oh.....