Gig review: Coldplay / Jay-Z

Published on Thursday 17 September 2009 00:31

COLDPLAY/JAY-Z *** HAMPDEN PARK, GLASGOW

COLDPLAY may be noted for many things, but an adventurous streak is not one of them. And yet the decision to invite the world's most respected rapper to be their stadium tourmate is both open-minded and risky. And, despite Jay-Z's professed interest in indie music, his willingness to play second fiddle to a guitar band also appears to be out of character.

However, once you have turned a potentially hostile Glastonbury crowd into putty in your hand, the prospect of mildly bemusing a Coldplay audience cannot be terribly daunting. He and his band came out all guns blazing, and the crowd succumbed by degrees. Jay-Z's catalogue is so varied that if you didn't like one style, there would be something else along in a minute, be it a U2 sample, a bhangra backing, or an old-school soul workout, which made full use of a funky brass section and athletic drumming.

Over the course of a one-hour set which was refreshingly free of the time-wasting posturing which often blights hip-hop shows, the rock/rap collision of 99 Problems was the most charged, climactic number, although arguably the biggest cheer was reserved for the image of a Saltire on the big screen.

The audience swayed to the mellifluous strains of The Blue Danube Waltz, heralding Coldplay's arrival on stage, brandishing sparklers. Laser danced off the rim of the roof and the crowd created a lightshow of their own as mobile phones were duly held aloft.

Coldplay opened their account with the momentous Violet Hill, but even their blandest songs, such as In My Place were boosted by the epic embellishment of massed voices, by frontman Chis Martin's reserves of energy and no less than a galactic panorama emblazoned across the backdrop.

Suddenly, there were huge balloons bouncing around the crowd – and they were all yellow, as the song says. An obvious gambit, perhaps, but more effective than the cheesy X Factor-related routine which followed. Fix You required no gimmicks, again just relying on the emotional power of the 40,000-strong singalong.

Eschewing the anthemic for a moment, God Put A Smile Upon Your Face was rocked out garage band style on a runway into the crowd, and there was a further intimate interlude featuring an acoustic Trouble and a cover of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean on another platform deep in the heart of the crowd.

Jay-Z returned for a brief, mismatched cameo (it would have been rude not to rope him in), but sections of the audience were still singing along to the previous number, a mighty Viva La Vida. By this point, it was almost all over bar the butterfly-shaped ticker-tape shower.

Coldplay are new to this stadium business and could be forgiven for wanting to test out so many of the accepted conventions of such a show (the free CD on the way out was a particularly nice touch). But next time, they might want to try streamlining their surfeit of ideas.