I. LOVE. COLPLAY.
I have never loved a band the way I love this one, and seeing as I am still riding high from seeing them last month, I thought I would just pay homage to my favorite band and tell you all a little bit about the concert. Perhaps you would like to take a minute to put on your favorite Coldplay album and and listen while you read in order to get the full experience. It's cool, I'll wait.
Okay, since there is no way to signify the passage of time in cyberspace, I'll just let you know I waited, like, 10 minutes while I listened to the new Prospekt's March EP. Glass of Water is my favorite!
Moving on. The original Viva La Vida tour date for Kansas City, Mo was on my birthday (July 9th, in case you want to buy me a present) but it seems Gwyneth Paltrow was worried I would steal her man and therefore caused some 'technical difficulties' with the tour. She was right, too. I would've stolen her man. You should've seen the hot dress I wore. Smokin'!
So the show was rescheduled to Nov. 13, 2008. It was a Thursday, which meant I had to find an Annie the Nanny stand-in. So naturally my sister Claire (who basically looks exactly like me, except she has beautiful golden red hair, a boyfriend and is a freaking goddess) stepped in. She arrived at the Fagan Family Funhouse a little before 3 and I hopped into her car and took off....to get gas, pack my clothes, run by the library for some good books on tape and by Walgreen's to pick up some much needed Diet Dr. Pepper.
The concert began at 7:30. It takes about 4 hours to get to KC from STL. I got on the highway around 4:30...and made it in time for the opening act. Go cruise control set at 88mph! I even had time to stop in Columbia for a pee. Amazing.
I used to be completely anti-KC, but a visit there this spring changed my perception a little bit. My aunt, uncle and their 4 boys drove me around, showed me the sights and taught me that Kansas City has more fountains than any other city in the world. Pretty cool, huh? But in my opinion (which is pretty much always accurate) Kansas City feels a lot like a glorified Chesterfield. Maybe not the downtown, but it's suburbs just sprawl and sprawl. It's like, why not just go hang out at Boone's Crossing? Oh, that's right. Because Boone's Crossing sucks and St. Louis is amazing. Whammy!
But I digress. Where was I...oh yeah, I arrived at the Sprint Center just in time to meet up with my friends Kate and Stephen Bell. The Bell's won the prize for best seat location. They were in the 12th row and I'm willing to bet Kate copped a quick feel when Chris was writhing on the ground in front of her. I sure as hell would've.
When I got to my seat (Floor A, Row 8, Seat 14) I noticed that there was an empty chair next to mine. Not a huge shock, considering the fact that I bought my ticket with my, by myself. But there was a nice looking man sitting two seat away and he seemed normal enough. He was chatting up the people around us and eventually introduced himself to me. It went like this:
"Hi, I'm Jim. What's your name?"
"Hey Jim. My name is Anne. Are you having a good time tonight?"
"Sure am! I got these tickets for free from my work, so I'm working on my 4th beer. You want one?"
"Well, sure! I would love a Bud Light. Thank you so much!"
(time for a hair toss, breath check and breast readjustment)
"So, do you live around here...."
And so our conversation continued in a polite, friendly fashion for the next several minutes. I learned that Jim works for AT&T, grew up in St. Charles, Mo., likes to travel and has two dogs. Also, he had two tickets (b/c when he bought them, he had a girlfriend but they had recently split) and offered to let me call up my friend Katie Adams (who I was staying with that night) and invite her to the show. So nice, right? I mean, I had had a dream that I met a guy at theColdplay concert back in July, but I thought that was just wishful thinking. But this delightful interlude was leading me to believe that perhaps I was mistaken.
And then, just as the lights started to dim and Life in Technicolor (my second favorite Coldplay song, despite it's lack of lyrics) began to stream through the speakers, Jim leaned over and whispers in my ear "Hey, the beer guy is coming around again. You wanna get this round?"
Seriously, that's what he said.
Dammit.
I was so thrown by that comment that immediately I was like "Yeah, sure. Two more Bud Lights down here!" And while I was disappointed, I also sort of thought that it was okay because, you know, I'm an independent woman and I can buy a guy a beer. This doesn't mean he's not still a nice, normal, interesting person, right?
Wrong. Jim was a tool. An 'obnoxious, sing-along way too loud, yell things at the band, drink far too many Bud Lights and then accidentally spill one on my dress' tool. I mean, I thought people were supposed to get more attractive when the lights went down. Jim, not so much. He just got drunker and incredibly annoying. When he was screaming the lyric of The Scientist off key and off beat, people kept looking back at him and I felt the need to inch my way down the row in order to prove that we were not, in fact, on a date.
In truth, I found Jim rather bourgeois. People don't go to the symphony and hum really loud when you hear a overture you recognize. They don't go to a movie that they've already seen and proclaim loudly to the entire theater, 'Here's the part where that guy dies!' And they sure as hell do not go to a Coldplay concert and bellow "AND I WILL TRY TO FIX YOU" effectively ruining that sweet song for your fellow concert-goers.
Jim, you are a douchebag and I hope we never meet again. Ruiner.
Douchebags aside, the show was amazing. There was a wonderful mix of vintage Coldplay (can it be vintage if it's only 6 years old? oh well) and the newer, more experimental 'Radioheadesque' songs from Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends. Chris danced around onstage, but only in the most appropriate way and it was way less weird than his fairy-like writhings from the X & Y tour. And by the end of the night, I had developed a deep affection for Will Champion (he's the drummer) because he was so freaking hot when they played their 'God Put a Smile on Your Face' medley. Also, at one point the band ran up into the stadium to a make-shift stage in the middle of the audience and Will sang solo on this cool, Johnny Cash-like song. I was tingling all over! During Lovers in Japan they shot thousands of paper butterflies into the crowd from the scaffolding above and it was so lovely, I got the chills. It probably would've looked spectacular if you were on acid, but I don't do drugs and it was still pretty amazing.
Wow, that was quite a doozie of a post, wasn't it? I hope you have made your way through to Strawberry Swing by now. I'm in the middle of Now My Feet Won't Touch the Ground and feeling pretty good about it. God Bless you. And God Bless Coldplay!
