The 2012 Concert Season

Last year around this time I wrote about what the 2011 summer concert season looked like.  

Well, it is now 2012 and a whole new year of concert production on the road.  Last year may have been U2 but this year it’s Coldplay, at least for starters.  Other bands expected to tour in 2012 are Madonna, Lady Gaga, Van Halen (with David Lee Roth), Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac, Phish, The Dave Matthews Band, Radiohead, Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw, Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, The Eagles, to name a few. 

Last week I attended my first concert of 2012, Coldplay.  The concert was at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, and the first Coldplay concert I have been too.  I’ve liked the band since the song “Yellow” came out in 2000.  I had tickets to Coldplay in 2009 but had an accident and broke my leg a few days before, gave the tickets away.  So I have been looking forward to them touring again.  I have to say, this concert was worth the wait.  Upon entering the concert, I was given a pink bracelet that said Coldplay on one side and Twitter on the other, and told to put the bracelet on; it was part of the show. 

When the lights went off and Coldplay came on stage my bracelet lit bright pink: and those around me did the same: a myriad of rainbow-colored lights: red, yellow, pink, blue, green. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen at a show before, sort of like glow sticks but high tech.  The stage was painted with black light florescent paint, and the lights were like black lights, there was also a lazar light show. It was fantastic!!  The show went on with a continuous array of lights and neon colors, along with confetti falling off at different times throughout the show.  At one time the singer, Chris Martin, was rolling around on stage in the confetti.  Not only was the light and confetti show cool, but Chris Martin’s singing, piano playing, and guitar was very impressive.  Stacy Scales of Spinning Platters.com gave a great review on April 30, 2012. 

I think what really impressed me was the audience interaction. Chris and the band really made a point to interact with the band, starting with the bracelets, and ending with the band appearing on a small platform, in the audience at the back of the arena for the first encore.  This show was worth every penny and I would see Coldplay again. 

It looks like the 2012 concert season is going to be a good one. 

Next week I will be attending Roger Waters, The Wall, at AT&T Park, San Francisco.  I will do a blog post for this concert as it connects to a blog post from November 2011.  In that blog post I talked about the difference between Roger Waters, The Wall arena tour vs. stadium tour. 

http://soundcheck.ocregister.com/files/2012/05/coldplay1.jpg

http://spinningplatters.com/2012/04/30/show-review-coldplay-with-the-pierces-and-metronomy-at-hp-pavilion-4282012/

Jeff Kravitz/WireImage/LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images/Kevin Mazur/Johannes Simon/Getty Images