A confession: I actually quite like Coldplay. Ok so they can occasionally be lyrically naive, musically naff and, in 'Mylo Xyloto', have produced an album of such Godawful synthetic bombast, that it sounds like it was written by a Radio 1 chart computer, but I've always thought they were a great wee band. "Yellow" was one of the Songs Of The Summer in 2000, and Radio 1 started playing previous single "Shiver" and album track "Don't Panic" around the same time as a result. I liked.
Coldplay had announced a UK tour before "Yellow" catapulted them into the upper reaches of the charts, and the Leeds date had sold out months in advance. I guess I must have really liked, because I decided to go anyway and buy tickets from a tout. I persuaded my mate Spenner to come with me, along with Mike from Novacain and Chem, one of my friends from university.
Spen picked me up from my house in Headingley and we parked in the pay and display opposite Leeds Met. We quickly spotted a shifty looking gentleman, greasing his way around the car park. I thought he'd ask for £20 a ticket at most, which would have been a 100% mark up, but he said he wouldn't settle for less than £25. Having learnt from my disastrous experience of (under)selling a Leeds festival ticket to a tout a few years earlier, I took a hard line and explained that we only had £20 each. He was less than sympathetic and gruffly spat out some derisory sentence along the lines of "you won't get a chance to see them in a small venue again", before turning round to search for more prey. I consulted with Spen and we decided that we might as well go to the cash machine, get out some more money and pay the exorbitant figure the tout had quoted.
I rang Mike and Chem to tell them what had happened and they both said they weren't prepared to pay so much. Chem also informed me that her next door neighbours Rob and Duncan had managed to get on the guest list because Duncan knew Coldplay's drummer Will Champion. This made me feel much better as I handed over 25 pounds sterling to the gurning tout.
Coldplay played all of 'Parachutes', with the exception of ace bonus track "Life Is For Living". According to Wikicoldplay, the songs were performed in track order, which I don't remember, although I didn't actually own the album at the time of the show so probably wouldn't have noticed anyway. I do remember the set being quite intimate, with only "Trouble" indicative of the band's future as anthemic, multi-million selling, festival headlining, Q magazine staples. I thought "Trouble" was shit. Because it is.
The globe from the cover of 'Parachutes' sat on Chris Martin's piano throughout the gig by way set dressing, a far cry from the flashing bracelets and neon backdrops of the 'Mylo Xyloto' tour. Martin himself was a million miles away from the cuddly Bono of later years, shuffling about behind piano and acoustic guitar, like a shy teenager at a wedding. Two years later, when I next saw the band, the transformation was well under way.
Set list (Coldplay)
- Don't Panic
- Shiver
- Spies
- Sparks
- Yellow
- Trouble
- Parachutes
- High Speed
- We Never Change
- Everything's Not Lost
- Help Is Around The Corner Encore
- Bigger Stronger
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