Konsert i reprise: Coldplay

Elsket og hatet – det britiske rockebandet Coldplay, med Chris Martin i front, er et av verdens største band. Over 120 millioner solgte album, nærmere 30 Billboard-plasseringer og utsolgte stadionkonserter verden over taler sitt.

Men slik har det ikke alltid vært. I år 2000 var Coldplay et ferskt og relativt ukjent band da de ga ut debutalbumet Parachutes (Parlophone). Gjennombruddet lot derimot ikke vente på seg. Med monsterhiten «Yellow» eksploderte bandet på den internasjonale musikkscenen – nærmest over natten, også i Norge, hvor de inntok førsteplassen på VG-lista.

Senere samme år spilte Coldplay sin aller første konsert på norsk jord. Den 1. desember 2000 sto bandet på scenen på Rockefeller.

Den britiske musikkbibelen NME var til stede og anmeldte konserten.

Coldplay

Oslo Rockefeller Music Hall

Norway in midwinter: total darkness for 20 hours of the day, bruise-coloured dusk for the other four. Birthplace of Munch’s The Scream and A-ha’s On These Roads, and home, for tonight only, to the most contentiously understated, controversially mild-mannered British band of the last 12 months. For those unwilling to rock, we salute you. Because at their best, Coldplay deliver everything great rock music should: pin-drop intensity with a single falsetto sigh or half-strummed acoustic chord. Which is way more rock ‘n’ roll than the bolted-on breakbeats or heavy metal doom chords which their detractors seem to expect.

If the killer opening swoon of breathless confessional “Trouble” doesn’t strum your heartstrings with its woozy melancholia, you are quite possibly dead—or a member of Chumbawamba, in which case death may be the favourable option.

Second song in and the frost-hardened Viking hordes of Oslo are dabbing their cheeks with matte-sized tissues at the aching, tender desolation of Chris Martin as he backs off from another soul-crushing romantic disappointment with a self-lacerating apology on his lips. Chris knows it takes a toll to cry—although folding up the tents of hopelessness and stealing away into the twilight of eternal despair might be overreacting just a tad. But Chris still believes we live in a beautiful world, or two, claims—or glides gracefully, unabashedly dedicating it to the audience. Who hasn’t got a girlfriend? You? Like the Smiths or Pulp in their early stages, it’s almost as if the Play are addressing a congregation of heroic losers. “Promise you,” Chris reassures us roomsomely, “I’ve just got something in my eye, it’s nothing.”

At times, Coldplay are unquestionably still hobbled by their muted emotional palette and slender songbook. There are still pockets of slack which need teasing out, from the clompy canter of “Bigger Stronger” to the unfocused drift of “Shiver.” Nobody expects them to compete with Primal Scream in the kaleidoscopic punk-funk stakes (except perhaps Alan), but a few musical shifts outside their current tasteful range of pastel greens and stripped pine mauves might add spice and piquancy—not a question of compromising their essentially low-voltage soul, merely of finding ways to animate and illuminate its depths.

This is where the new numbers come into their own. The rumbling “Animals” sounds broody and even—by Coldplay standards—malevolent, while “In My Place” swings the other way, with warm rays of beatific ambient gospel seeping from its softly glowing core.

Oh yeah, and they play too. Bit of a lumpy trundle, some nice heart-stopping moments, sounds a mite gimmicky now. All of Norway sings along to every word, of course, but give us “Trouble” any day—or even an encore cover of “You Twice”, played with suave sincerity and unexpected verve.

Better still, give us the many-splendoured ambi-folk and gospel-cathedral devotion and bitterness that Coldplay’s next album will surely be: the record Chris Martin will write after losing his virginity, kissing adolescence goodbye, visiting the hollow heart of million-selling fame, and experiencing real love rather than the towering ideal he craved for so long. Imagine the scope for crushing disappointment! Imagine the unfathomable depths of despair and pain! Imagine the tunes he’ll write as a result—in his own blood!

From despair to Oslo, Coldplay are en route to somewhere very special indeed. Stay on these roads.

Stephen Dalton / NME, 2000