Monday, July 13, 2009

Coldplay Concert 7/11/09

Jacob and I had the pleasure of going to the Coldplay concert at the Gorge Amphitheater, which is easily one of the most beautiful venues for any concert. It was the hottest day of the entire forecast for the area. When we arrived at the theater, it was already 100 degrees. Jacob was so excited to go to the concert, which his aunt Sarah had promised to take him (as an early birthday present) to months before. Fortunately, he did not know the specific date of the concert until shortly before, otherwise I'd have been answering the 'what day is it' question for months. He has been a huge fan of Coldplay since hearing a song on Sarah's Ipod about 4 years ago. He has many of their songs memorized, and often writes out their lyrics just for fun.

When we arrived, he could barely keep it together until the show started. The only unfortunate part of the show was that the 2 opening acts seemed to have been plucked out of nowhere as neither their musical genre, nor intended audience demographic seemed at all in the ballpark of those of Coldplay. So, it was a difficult 2 hours to wait between the first opening act and when Coldplay finally came on stage. But, anticipation is half the fun. And, they made it well worth it. They played a full 2 hours, including 2 trips into the middle of the audience to play several songs on non-descript stages hidden until they ventured to them. Very cool.

If you are unfamiliar with their music, this is a free download of their most recent live album, which is a great sampling of their music, and is what they gave to each person who attended the concert.


This is Jacob in the car on the way. It was a good 4-drive. He did really well, but talked non-stop the whole way. He had lots of questions about what the concert was going to be like.

I thought this sign in the parking lot was hysterical. Apparently, drugs and alcohol are welcome, just not in the parking lot.

This is Jacob with his new concert T-shirt. He picked it out immediately--he wanted the one with the album cover on the front and the concert venues on the back. What a groupie. He was one of only 4 kids we saw the whole time (I'm sure there were a few others we didn't see), so he knew just what a huge privilege it was for him to be there.














Sarah had asked me to get the tickets on the day they went up for presale. I got them less than 10 minutes after they were available, but the best they had were General Admission tickets on the lawn. Sarah couldn't let that happen, so she picked up seats IN THE 25TH ROW a little while later. Yes, I said the 25th row. Awesome.
Here we are being patient. We got to our seats 20 minutes before the first opening act, but you can see how few people were there.

Jacob was so patient to wait that whole time. With every move on stage, he asked if it was Chris (Martin, the lead singer).


When the band appeared on stage, they came on swinging sparklers, which was so cool, just as it was getting dark, and behind a black mesh screen. You get the idea in the photo.


This is Jacob's reaction when the band came on. It's blurry, but I couldn't resist.



This was his reaction shortly after when they started playing his favorite song, Clocks.


The people behind us got a kick out of what a fan Jacob is. He was so enthusiastic the whole time. It was so much fun watching him there.



Jacob told Sarah 'thank you' over and over and over and over throughout our whole trip. He was so grateful.


This gives an idea of the stage set. The bulbs were illuminated in different ways all throughout the show, it was a very cool effect. The background you see is a few clouds scattered throughout the Columbia Gorge.

Of course, even though we had such awesome seats, we could also view the show on the Jumbotrons they had up near the stage. Sometimes they took artistic freedsom with them, too. Like here with the black and white effect.

This does not even give half of the idea of how many people were there. You can't even see to the top of the hill.



Towards the end of the show, huge cannons up above the stage shot out millions of tissue paper butterflies. It was so cool. I love this picture I took right from our seat.

This flag dropped down right at the end of the show. They had trouble getting it pinned down on the lower corners because of the breeze from the Gorge. Jacob thought it was awesome. The title of the album and tour are "Viva La Vida."

This is Jacob and Sarah right at the end of the show. We were hot, sweaty, dirty, and half-deaf. But, that can't hide the pure joy at the end of the concert.

The parking situation at the Gorge is less than ideal. We parked in a field. There are no lines painted on the grass, so everyone jams in, trying to get out, and it's a huge bottleneck. The concert ended at 11. Our hotel was less than 40 minutes from the theater, but we didn't get to our hotel until a little after 1 AM. Jacob was so proud of himself that he got to stay up that late. The next morning, he slept until 9:21. He was excited about that, too. Until that night when he completely melted down into an emotional, exhausted mess. Fortunately, the memory of the concert and our adventure has taken over the memory of being later consumed with exhaustion. He can't wait to go back to school to show all his friends his t-shirt, which he calls 'proof' that he got to go to a Coldplay concert. What a kid. What an Aunt. What a concert. Fun.

3 comments:

Stefanie said...

That is awesome! I saw Michael Bolton, Kenny G and Barry Manilow there many, many years ago.:)

Anonymous said...

Jacob:
I am so glad that your first concert was cold Play. Sarah has had you listening to them since you were really little. Live the dream baby!! Dad

Unknown said...

Great post Reba! What a great day and super pictures!