Coldplay at Shoreline was ... WOW!

Caught Coldplay at the Shoreline Amphitheater last week, after a fabulous dinner at Fiesta del Mar.

I don't know how many times I've seen them in concert, but this was the second time I've seen them on this tour. I feel like a teenager still sometimes ;)

I couldn't get any information from the Shoreline staff who the opening bands were, but the first one was a groovin' rockabilly type sound with lots of harmonica, and the second was an African soul group (heavy on bass and some pretty fantastic dancers). Both very different from each other and not at all like Coldplay's music, but very enjoyable all the same.

In between bands, they played a band that sounded like the Cocteau Twins, but wasn't. It was very good - anyone have any idea who it could've been?

This concert was spectacular. Coldplay is one of the few bands that I've seen that really interact with the audience and care about giving a top notch performance, not just a rehash of their albums. The Shoreline concert featured a different line up than when I saw them in the HP Pavilion (and the sound was a hundred times better. I love the HP Pavilion staff, but that place was NOT designed for acoustics!).

This show even featured some new tracks of the album, Left Right Left Right Left, which they gave to every attendee that night. Cool bonus that really made us feel that we were actually getting our money's worth (though I was still happy we didn't have to pay any TicketMaster monopoly fees since I bought the tickets directly from the box office).

Some happy moments of mine from the show:

When I saw them testing their lasers before Coldplay came out, I couldn't help but hear "Where my lasers at? Yo!" ala Coach Z.

Realizing that cell phones have completely replaced lighters at concerts and totally appreciated the lack of smoke (though, must be challenging to get those lasers to work! yo!)

Being told "There's an App for that!" (yes, an app... for an iPhone.. to make it look like you're holding up a lighter. *sigh*)

Hearing Blue Danube play and reminiscing about the number of times we played that tune on water glasses at the Gaslighter. Getting the correct variety of glasses to get all of the pitches, keeping them tuned, and staying all together was a feat of magnificent talent that we somehow pulled off most nights.

Loved the big giant yellow balloons floating around all sections that were filled with confetti during the song, Yellow. It made us all feel as if we were part of the performance. The balloons bouncing along, each of us reaching for them, sometimes they burst and released their confetti. Very cool. Very surreal.

Using our cellphones (everyone had one) and doing the Mexican Cell Phone wave. Not sure why Coldplay referred to it as such, perhaps it originated in Mexico?

Thrilled when the band did an acoustic tribute to Michael Jackson, doing a fantastic rendition of Billie Jean from the lawn.

Thinking, "Those who are dead, are not dead, they're just living in my head" is true. None of you will ever be forgotten by me.

The music was phenomenal, the performance was intense. Wow.