A Night at Camp Coldplay

This weekend in Hartford, all the Coldplay concert needed was a campfire. Everyone was already singing along; why not cast a warm orange glow? Sing alongs are appealing, but there's something weird about a band that makes their performance easy enough for the audience to accompany. Don't get me wrong, I was singing my heart out with Chris Martin and the entirety of Hartford's XL Center, but partway through the show, I longed for them to think outside the box for a song or two, maybe even a solo or, hell, even a mere chord.

The campy feel made for a comfortable environment: everyone knew what to expect and there were no surprises. But a live show is far more interesting with a musical curve ball thrown in every once and a while. Come on Chris, make us marvel at a surprising pitch. If anything, the Hartford show made Coldplay look like they were on cruise control. Unlike in Coldplay's two previous concerts that I've seen, Chris Martin offered very limited amusing self-deprecating comments. They went seamlessly from song to song, never wandering from their set list. The show was good, but it wasn’t great—something that is very hard for me to say about a band that I will blindly love and admire for the rest of my life.

Ultimately, Coldplay is endearing and charming enough so that I forgive the band for their lack of creativity. The live version of "Yellow" always thrills the crowd. Near the end of the show, the four band members pranced up to the back of the arena, up in the second tier, and did an “impromptu” acoustic set. I throw quotation marks around impromptu because I found out that they did this at the Boston show, if not every other show. Somehow the relocation lost its charm when I discovered it was all a part of their cruise control performance. That being said, “The Scientist” always brings me to tears, and hearing it in the acoustic set still got the waterworks going.

The best parts of the show were when Coldplay didn’t rely on the amped up top 40 hits, flashing lights and enchanting globe projectors. For “The Hardest Part” the lights were up and it was just Martin playing on the piano. Though, near the end of the song he stopped and said "This song isn't big enough," and quickly started up another. You'd think that a band with 4 platinum albums would actually WANT to sing a "small"song. It was different enough from the version on X&Y that the audience didn’t sing quite as loud because they were actually watching and listening. The other great part was during the “impromptu” set, in which the drummer Will Champion sang “Death Will Never Conquer.” As the member of the band who agreed to play drums because it was the only slot left, Will’s chance to sing and be the front man was a great moment. Chris Martin handing over the microphone for one song was about as close to a curveball as Coldplay got.

A 90-minute set passes quickly, and before I knew it, my favorite band was wrapping up the concert, bowing, and exiting the stage. I stood waiting, knowing that their encore would help tip the scale from a good concert, to a great one. During the last tour, they played “Fix You,” essentially the song everyone came to see live, in the encore. They saved the best for last and it was brilliant. This time around, however, I stood in vain. House lights when on, despite the crowd’s protest, and the road crew started dismantling the stage. Coldplay was long gone, leaving the campers with nothing but embers that were growing colder by the moment, and the longing for a little something more from a night at Camp Coldplay.