Coldplay Viva La Vida Tour At Darien Lake

I love when I plan to make an entry about a very interesting event in my life, but then get so caught up in other things that I completely forget about the entry until a week later. This is one of those times.

So, the day was June 1st, 2009, a Monday. That day I woke up, showered and shaved, did some chores around the house, and waited around to be picked up by a friend. Later that night, my friends and I would be attending an event that we'd been wanting to attend for a long, long time. We were going to see Coldplay live in concert for the 2009 Viva La Vida Tour at the Darien Lake Performing Arts Center at Darien Lake. A mutual interest in Coldplay's musical style was the main reason the friend who was coming to pick me up and I became friends. Going to a Coldplay concert was something we thought we could never fluidly orchestrate, due to conflicting schedules and potential obstacles such as transportation and money. Fortunately we planned it out well and ordered the tickets about a month and a half in advance. There was so much excitement going through us on the way there, that I could barely keep liquids down.

The concert opened with a band known as The Howling Bells from Australia and then with Pete Yorn, a singer-songwriter from the United States. They were alright as an opening band, but I would have preferred to hear Elbow. Elbow is the band touring with Coldplay for the summer leg of the 2009 Viva La Vida tour. A long wait later and Coldplay came out with a blast of energy playing Life In Technicolor and performed the following setlist:

1. Life In Technicolor
2. Violet Hill
3. Clocks
4. In My Place
5. Yellow
6. Glass Of Water
7. Cemeteries Of London
8. 42
9. Fix You
10. Strawberry Swing
11. God Put A Smile Upon Your Face (Partial Techno Remix)/Talk (Partial Techno Remix)
12. The Hardest Part/Postcards From Far Away
13. Viva La Vida
14. Lost!
15. I'm A Believer (Neil Diamond cover)
16. Death Will Never Conquer
17. Politik
18. Lovers In Japan
19. Death And All His Friends
20. The Scientist (Encore)
21. The Escapist (Encore)

When the band played I'm A Believer and Death Will Never Conquer, they played way in the back (about 30 feet from us) on what is known at the most recent concerts during the Viva La Vida tour as "Stage-C". When they came back near us, two thoughts ran through my head. The first one was this: "Oh my god! They're actually coming back here and performing for us?!" The second one went a little like this: "Wait, if they come back here, everyone will want to migrate closer to them, thus trampling anyone and anything in their path." And you know what? Unsurprisingly, that's exactly what happened.

In any case, they finished up the night with Lovers In Japan (arguably my favorite song on the Viva La Vida album) and Death And All His Friends. They said their goodbyes and left, but the audience starting singing the bridge in Viva La Vida (the ooohh-oooh-oh-oh-ooh one) to call the band out for an encore. Sure enough, they answered the call and performed an encore consisting of The Scientist and The Escapist. At the end of the show, each member of the audience was given a free copy of Coldplay's newest live album, Left Right Left Right Left, featuring a green butterfly on the cover that is representative of the butterfly-shaped confetti that is used during the performance of Lovers In Japan. And so concluded a very stunning and energetic performance by Coldplay.