The last decade hasn’t just been about albums however, and as I finalise my albums list, I thought I’d post my other notables from the last ten years.
First off, best gig. Now ten years ago, I hadn’t even been to a gig so this has the horrible responsibility of deciding which has been the best gig I’ve ever been to. It’s changed incessantly as memories fade and tour t shirts are slowly thrown out but there are a few gigs that will always be just that little bit better. There are of course many Bloc Party gigs to choose from, a stunning gig by Foals at Concorde 2, Radiohead at Victoria Park or the Apollo, littered with many Feeder gigs, some youthful trips to Less Than Jake and even some of my own gigs in there, Dear Reader being one of the best gigs I've been to in a LONG time.
This may be a bit of a rash decision and I'm sure in 6months time I'll think differently but I'm going to award the title to this year's Coldplay at Wembley stadium gig.
I'd never seen Coldplay before, despite beign a massive fan of all their albums. For some reason unknown to me, it's not cool to like Coldplay. They can write a sad song like nobody's business, Viva La Vida is a dense record, filled with interesting sounds and hooks and they're exceptionally talented musicians, succesful at both stripped-back and orchestral arrangements. Coldplay's songs were also built for stadiums, a point which became evident before they'd even taken the stage.
We were seated to the left of the stage, about halfway up the stands, a fantastic view of both the main stage, the smaller stage in the crowd and a panormaic view of everything around us. As the lights dropped on a rainy, hot summers evening and the opening bars of Life In Technicolour rang out, 75,000 people errupted into the singalong refrain of Viva La Vida, creating a moment like none I've ever experienced.
The setlist was brilliant, heavy on the new album and rightly so, an album whose grandiosity perfectly suited Wembley Stadium. It was also telling that the older songs, Yellow or God Put A Smile were no more special than the Viva material; this was a showcase of a catalogue of superb material, not a crowd yearning for the old songs with obligatory new album songs. The reworkings of God Put A Smile and Talk were fantastic, finally making Talk their own without the Kraftwerk snippet.
Best gig of the last ten years? It's the biggest gig I've been to by one of the most influential bands I've ever seen at the end of an extensive world tour. It was of course slick, it was a little gimmicky at points but it was a truly earth-shattering experience watching a band such as Coldplay work the crowd and hearing those familiar and well lvoed songs with a 75,000 strong backing choir was simply superb. Sadly there are not enough superlatives to describe how good it was but it's going to take some beating
No comments:
Post a Comment