Coldplay and wrestling in the mud

Written by The Rock Radio staff, July 2005 © The Rock Radio

Evacuation, closed roads, military. If you turned on the Austrian Radio on Sunday July 10th, you could have thought that you were in Baghdad or Basra but that was not for the Iraq war; only for a Coldplay show.

Playing for the first time in "Australia - ah Austria" as frontman Chris Martin joked to an audience of 15.000, the most popular soft rock band in the world had to fight against the weather big time.

After 3 days of pouring rain and music from Jamiroquai to Lauryn Hill, the Festival Site in Pielachtal collapsed. With mud all over the place, Woodstock was very much alive just an hour's drive from Vienna. And like Jimi Hendrix back in 1969, Coldplay did manage to put on a magical show.

Starting with "Square One", Gwyneth Paltrow's husband Chris Martin treated his piano like a rough heavy metal instrument. "Thank you for giving us the best job in the world" – When he delivered those words as opening lines for "Yellow" it was clear that the guy was having as much fun on stage as the audience wrestling in the mud. At least five times Chris, who had written MTK for Make Trade Fair on his piano, apologised for the bad weather as if it was Coldplay's fault.

After cruising through almost-classics like "Warning Sign" , "White Shadows" and "The Scientist", Chris Martin (vocals/piano/guitar), Jon Buckland (guitar), Will Champion (drums), and Guy Berryman (bass) made their way to a small sub-stage for an nice unplugged set with a few instrumental changes: And while Will played the acoustic guitar, Jon used an empty beer bottle to brush-up his drumming skills.

For "Clocks" they had some nice videos with sunflowers and images of happy people on a big screen in the background of the stage while "X&Y" showed some drug-inspired colour images.

After just 65 minutes, the main set was over. "Swallowed In The Sea" a song hardly played on this tour was a nice surprise and Chris Martin's gift for "people hanging out in the rain for ages just to see a rock band". The rest was business as usual: "In My Place" and "Fix You" both delivered with pure emotion.

"Thank you for having us. We will be back soon; next time without the rain". So if you ever wondered where the magical spirit and soft rock heart that for years belonged to U2 had gone, search no more. Coldplay has got it now – and it seems they won’t lose it for years.

View Coldplay photos from the Austria show

The setlist was as follows:

Square One
Politik
Yellow
God Put A Smile Upon Your Face
Speed Of Sound
Low
Warning Sign
Everything's Not Lost
White Shadows
The Scientist
Till Kingdom Come
Don't Panic
Clocks
TALK

Encore
Swallowed In The Sea
In My Place
Fix You