Coldplay

Live 2012

EMI

Well, you could say that this “endearingly captures the energy of the world’s biggest band” – as indeed this person did but with all that neon/fluoro to distract it’s easy to forget that the world’s “biggest band” got that way by simply writing a bunch of old Radiohead songs, new U2 songs and, erm, one Joe Satriani song. And so all the hits are here and it’s a case of break open the highlighter pens, as in actually break them open and spray the sky. After three songs you may just want to drink the contents of the glow-stick. It will offer more substance than so much of the music. It will, in the end, feel far less toxic.

Coldplay are not the enemy. X-Factor is the enemy. So You Think You Can Dance and American Idol and the cold-hard-cash seeking Kardashians are the enemy.

But what Coldplay allowed themselves to become is what is frustrating. The first album had something. The second album was not entirely terrible. But, bereft of ideas, the band soldiers on – and through some triumph of marketing is to be heralded as one of the true greats of an era. Not on my watch. Coldplay, increasingly, have become a band that it is hard to believe. I get no feeling that Chris Martin cares about music; I get no indication that he likes music. Or knows anything about it.

And I doubt that three-quarters of the band’s fans can name the other three-quarters of the band. That says something. Doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?

The big boring trick with this live DVD/CD is for each song to start slowly, an acoustic guitar leading a chant of the chorus or opening verse. And then: BOOM! The song explodes. Euphoria is reached! And all by 10.30pm – so as to not have to pay the babysitter for overtime.

There are some backstage asides where Martin really tries to be Bono-Junior with his shtick about how overcome he is by wanting to please everyone that attends a show and how gosh-darn grateful he is to be the jester for the evening.

It was probably a dazzling show. But it meant nothing to me. The way Coldplay has meant nothing to me in the decade since they released this trick the first time around – a live CD/DVD package that was more black’n’white rather than lolly-scramble rainbow colour overload we’re faced with until the band’s stylist comes up with a new way to cast the band when it needs to re-sell similar-sounding tunes to the devoted audience.

And I’m convinced that the huge number of people who rave about Coldplay’s live energy just simply do not attend other shows. I’ve seen this band live. And it was really fucking boring. And that was back when I could admit to liking one or two of the songs they’d almost-written.

Hey, but if you attended Radiohead recently and were upset and wounded by the band ignoring its first two albums there’s a good chance you’ll hear here what you didn’t hear there. And it will all be so bright, so vivid.

Me? I’d rather be in a coma. Full stop.