Clocks! That’s the first song of Coldplay I had heard. The
sheer difference of the song sort of struck me and stayed with me. From that
day to this day I’ve been a big fan of Coldplay. Their music is magic. Their
older albums is so much better than the newer ones. One of my favorites is
still this non-popular song called “Message”. That’s the first song in the
“Coldplay” folder in my car. Every time that song plays time sort of stops.
Move forward to 7th April 2017. The day will be
etched in memory for a long time now. We had made the trip to Bangkok only to
see Coldplay. With immense difficulty where we had to navigate wrong directions
given, not knowing which National stadium to get to, taking a cab that couldn’t
go past the traffic to the stadium and finally a motorcycle guy that took two
of us in his bike zig-zagging between car lanes with our hearts in our mouths.
Coming from India the last part is nothing new to us. But seeing it here in
Bangkok sent a new kind of chill through the spine. Am glad we survived. We got
to the stadium nice and early where the crowd was steadily building. We were
handed these illuminating wristbands. We didn’t realize how much we were going
to be part of this amazing show until the band started playing.
At 8 pm, Jess Kent, came onto the stage to open for
Coldplay. Jess Kent is an upcoming artist from Australia and Coldplay picked
her to open for them. This is quite inexpliquable. It wasn’t that she was bad.
It was just that she was hopping around like a teenage kid and had almost no
stage presence. It mostly felt like she was lip synching and when she picked
the guitar and the notes got played even when she wasn’t strumming everything
sort of became clear. It was evident that she wasn’t used to this. Bad debuts
still have bright futures. I am overreaching here and calling it her debut. Am
not sure of it.
9:05 pm the lights go off and we hear Chris Martin for the
first time. They last came to Bangkok 13 years ago. On this day they started
with the ubiquitously famous “Yellow” and the stadium was on the metaphoric
fire. The crowd which was ambling along when Jess Kent was playing sprung to
life. We started waving along with our wristbands which created the much needed
lighting effect of the evening. Song after song the band went on to weave
magic. The screen the sound and the stage where all superb. The team that did
the effects was brilliant. We were standing in a poorly ventilated football
stadium sweating our guts out. We were people from Indonesia, Malaysia,
Singapore, China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India. We were all united
in our yells as we sang song after song. I had tears in my eyes when they played
“Paradise”. I could see a moon in the clouds. I thanked my gods for the sheer
opportunity to experience something like this.
They played for a little over 2 hours, relentless and
non-stop. The crowd was soaking in every bit of it. We were having our own little
party. I’ve seen some bands over the years. Not the really good ones but some
of them anyway. Nobody beats how Chris Martin talks. He spoke about the 21 year
old friendship of the band. They dedicated one song to the late king which was
so very thoughtful. He thanked his crew and the audience after almost every
song. The performance was simply sublime.
Only when the final thank you came and went did we realize
how sore our legs and throats were. We were all drenched in sweat, almost
exhausted and parched. Yet, the feeling we all had was having witnessed
something heavenly. This was a 6 month plan for me and I was telling my
co-traveler, my cousin, during the show that if they played “Clocks” I can
breathe my last happily whenever that comes.
They did play “Clocks”!
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