Coldplay...and a cold...

A few weeks ago, my friend Melinda called me and asked if I wanted to buy her extra Coldplay ticket (they came in concert last Saturday). I told her I'd think about it. 'What's there to think about?' you might ask...well, I'm looking at the number of concerts I've been to in the last year...and the tab is starting to look bigger than my grocery bill for the same span of time. Kind of pathetic. But I said screw it and bought the ticket from her. You're only young once, right? Suuuure...

Saturday afternoon rolled around, and I did not feel well--I had kind of been struggling with some cold-like crap, nausea, and migraines. I had Rachel feel my forehead and I was running a mild fever, even. I don't run fevers. But, stubborn as I was, I went to the concert anyway. Maybe not the best decision I've made in my life, but I'm glad I went.

Before the concert, my friends and I went to Settebello in Salt Lake for some great, Italian-style pizza. If you've never been there before, I recommend it. They've imported an Italian pizza oven made of brick which makes for some pizza crust that is quite tasty. And the gelateria that's attached to the restaurant was a treat as well. (It was there that I discovered I had left my credit card at the restaurant where Lacy and I had been to lunch...I always knew the day would come when I would forget to take it out of that little bill sleeve.)

After dinner, we headed over to the Energy Solutions Arena (which will always still be the Delta Center to me). The opening act, Sleepercar, was just finishing, so we were ready for some Coldplay action.

A little history of my Coldplay fandom: I hated their radio singles from a few years back. I thought they were overplayed and that people gave them way too much credit. I never even considered buying their albums because I was disgusted by the stuff I heard on the radio. Then this summer, I saw on iTunes that their new album, Viva La Vida, was going to be pretty cheap...so I listened to the 30-second snippet of each song. Hmmm...I'd be willing to give the album a shot. And I liked it. This was before the 'missionary song' (as my sister Natalie so lovingly calls it...ha!) was overplayed on the radio. It was then that I discovered that whomever was choosing the Coldplay radio singles was totally underselling the band. They actually have some good music!

Anyway, back to the concert...we're sitting there, waiting for the band to take the stage. The next time we heard music, though, it wasn't Coldplay. For some strange reason, they got this weird synthesizer DJ to come and do this odd music with crazy video animation. I wish my describing it would do it justice...it was like Dr. Suess meets Fantasia meets M.C. Escher. I was intrigued at first, but after awhile, it was just creepy. We kept turning to each other with looks of confusion and bewilderment everytime he started a new song. Thirty minutes of this. How in the world...?

Finally Coldplay came on. And I was headed downhill, physically-speaking. I brought earplugs so my headache wouldn't get worse, but the nausea was rampant. I felt horrible that I might be putting a damper on my friends' fun, so I put on a happy face and tried to sing along. I think I did alright.

Ok wait...this is sounding like the concert was a completely torturous experience! Let me back up. Coldplay was great live. Seriously amazing! You know how sometimes you hear a band's album and you fall in love with it, but then when you go to their concert and hear them live, you realize that they must have some sort of genius sound mixer because they are awful? This was definitely NOT the case with Coldplay. Chris Martin has an amazing voice, and his stage presence was so energetic and delightful. Plus, he can play the guitar and the piano to boot! Definitely a great concert all in all. I heard a couple songs that I'd never heard before, and I liked them enough that I did a little research, found out which album they were on, and I bought the album on Amazon.com last night.

A sad tid bit: my camera's batteries had died, so the only pictures I got of the concert were on my camera phone. And from as far away as I was, the pictures aren't very clear, but you can get the gist...