Coldplay in Zurich - PlanetSarah.ch

Do you know, what real excitment is? If you can go and see Coldplay unexpected – and even at Golden Circle…

Act: Coldplay
Event: Mylo Xyloto-Tour
Date: 26.05.2012
Place: Letzigrundstadion, CH-Zurich
Time: 6.45 pm
Doors: 4.30 pm
Support Acts: Rita Ora, Marina and the Diamonds

I thought, I’d be at Letzigrund stadium by 2 pm, so either I was lucky and will be there early enough, or then too late and standing in the back of golden circle. What would have been okay too. It was a beautiful day. Blue sky, sunshine, very warm. Sun screen was necessary. There weren’t many people yet. Maybe 20, I’d say. Among them obviously some UK fans as well as some French speaking people. I checked the situation around the stadium, before I went to set time. I did pass the backstage area. There were about 20 Beat the Street busses standing, many lorries and the backstage area was huge. There was a big catering tent. Some were playing soccert and I think there was Marina (Marina and the Diamonds) sitting in the sun, but I coudn’t recognice it too well from the distance. I sat down at my sector then and been waiting for the doors to open a few hours later.

Around 4.30 pm admission started. It was quite civilized. Everyone got a weird looking wristband. It was said, the wristband will be glowing, but I couldn’t really figure out how it will be working. They got different colors, sponsored by twitter? Coldplay was on it in letters and it had some kind of sensor. Well, I would see. So I got into the stadium and was quite confused first. Where to go now? To get in there and down there to the front somehow. Down the steep steel stairs, over to the barriers of the golden circle. They only crossed the tickets, didn’t take them away. And so I reached front row. It was actually pretty easy. And even better, I was standing front row almost in the middle, directly in front of the catwalk. Fantastic! So I sat there in front row, eating ice cream, talking to the other people around me, trying to portion my smuggled in water. I spotted some known faces in the crowd and not much later I got company. They could get in and out of the front through the crowd easily.

The show started around 6.45 pm with the first support act, Rita Ora. I’d say she was okay. I’ve seen worse support acts. Though she didn’t really mange to get the audience into the mood, no matter what she tried. People seemed not very interested in her. It became better with the second support act, who was Marina and the Diamonds and I had only seen the night before. She was very special in her turquoise dress and the princess look on this huge openair stage. Most seemed not to know her.

And then finally, finally around 8.45 pm the show, 48‘000 people had been waiting for, started. Chris Martin, Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman and Will Cahmpion entered stage with quite a bang and let people freak out from the very first moment, when they started with the song, that gave the tour its name: Mylo Xyloto. It went over to „Hurts Like Heaven“. Chris Martin was for sure an important reason, why people were so thrilled. He jumped and ran across the stage, from one to the other side, from the back tot he front again over the three catwalks. Can’t remember anyone else, that ran around over the stage this crazy. At some point the guitare even went flying through the air and no clue, where it actually landed and i fit was still alive.

Suddendly the wristbands started glowing and blinking. Because it was still bright, eventaully you wouldn’t immediately realize it. „The Scientist“, „Yellow“, „Princess Of China“, „Viva La Vida“, „Charlie Brown“, „Paradise“, „Us Against The World“, „Fix You“… all the great songs and I even recognized several songs more than expected. There were fireworks, huge ballons were suddendly flying over the audience, variously shaped confetti was blown into the audience and of course the incredible lightshow on the screens as well in the whole stadiom with the integrated audience, that was wearting the glowing wristbands. They were glowing and blinking on command. Ând incredible energetic show. The visitors were jumping around, cheering, screaming and singing along. Chris Martin kept sitting down at the piano, so the audience could calm down and gave everyone a chance to breathe.

Around 10 pm they said goodbye and left the stage, to get up on a smaller stage at the back oft he stadium for the encore. They returned on the mainstage then to finish off the show completly. You could hardly believe that everything was over. A cleaning team started to go through the stadium with brooms and sending people out. I’ve read an article, that Coldplay ofthen get liste das „Band you got to see live before you die“ – they definitively belong on such lists and I recommend to go and see them! They are absolutely worth it.