Coldplay have arrived in Melbourne! No need for any pre-publicity appearances on 'Rove' or 'So You Think You Can Dance' or anything like that. Last night, their music and their show did the talking.
The concert last night at Rod Laver Arena, their first of three Melbourne shows, played out with minimal fuss, minimal distraction, with no meaningless banter, no messages on poverty, no planet-saving, no water saving...in fact the only message was a sincere thank you to the crowd for coming to the show from wherever they had come from, including bushfire areas. This showed an understanding and a genuine sincerity. And so the party played on.
Coldplay belted out all their recent hits. Lead singer Chris Martin, whose birthday it was the day before (and was believed to have celebrated the occasion with friends at the Gin Palace) gave his all. The sound was brilliant, songs tight but still fluid and raw. The beauty of live music played well.
It was only a few days ago Bono (U2....and planet-saving fame) publicly criticised Martin as arrogant and casting him as, well...not a great person. There was no mention of any of this by Martin at the concert. Why would he? His band was there to entertain. Not save the world.
The stage was relatively simple but the production brilliant - and proved, like Martin that less is more. Amazing beams of light moved through the arena. A huge screen with clever imagery provided the backdrop, and four large illuminated globes hung from above the crowd. These globes were amazing, displaying a close-up feed of the concert under a variety of filters...including even a 'cartoon-like' filter!
The highlight was for the song 'Yellow'. Out of the roof fell a field of large yellow balloons, in a variety of sizes, they bounced around the arena, pushed by the fans throughout the whole of the stadium.
One was popped and the crowd then discovered that each of the balloons were filled with coloured paper. There were splashes of colour and surprise throughout.
Another memorable moment was when the band ran off the stage, into the crowd, and to the upper section. There was of course some microphones and leads waiting, and they played a semi-acoustic song with 'the people'. Nice and entertaining.
It was a production and a concert that had a clever 360-degree mindset, and importantly there was never too much going on at the one time. It remained focussed. It wasn't too long, and there was just one encore. I never really understand having two encores (if this in fact makes any sense!).
What did I see from a product marketing perspective? Take a look at this photo below taken after the concert. Quick quiz: Which company has the soft drink rights at Rod Laver Arena?
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