Tag Archives: Allison Slusher

By: Allison Slusher, Staff Reporter

On September 24th, the Music Midtown Festival came back to Atlanta, Georgia, for the first time since 2005. The event was held in the city’s Piedmont Park in order to house the expected 50,000 audience members witnessing the festival’s reprise. In a successful attempt to bring back the excitement the festival once held, the event created a line-up featuring many big name artists including Young the Giant, The Black Keys, and Cage the Elephant to name a few. The festival’s headliner, however, was a band MTV puts in the same commercial category as U2: Coldplay.

Coldplay’s appearance was one of few in the United States until the upcoming release of their new album Mylo Xyloto on October 24th. The band took advantage of this opportunity by pulling out all the stops. Coldplay began the night with “Yellow,” one of the songs on their first album. They kept the night rolling by playing many songs from their upcoming album including “Paradise” and “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall,” but of course the band continually impressed its audience by playing some of its fan favorites including “Viva La Vida” from the same name album. The band even paid tribute to the newly dissembled band R.E.M. by covering their song “Everybody Hurts.”

In order to add a special touch to what could have been an average concert, the band added many unique features to make the concert unforgettable. The first of these features was a surprising firework show that captured everyone’s attention. Secondly, the band displayed the most incredible light show. Coldplay made each song more memorable by presenting a light feature for each particular song. During the song “Yellow,” for example, huge yellow lights streamed across the audience, making the song reach out to even those in the last row of the crowd. Another light effect came during the song “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall” in which fog machines dispersed clouds that were highlighted by an assortment of laser lights. With all of these special effects, the energy level at the concert was quickly lifted, and it became evident that this was no ordinary show.

Unfortunately, at concerts of any size, there is no way for every audience member to feel as though they were on the front row, right in the action. However, Coldplay’s efforts were obviously to include everyone in the audience during their performance by constantly mentioning the people in the back of the crowd and making sure they were enjoying themselves as much as the people closer to the stage. Coldplay even ended the night by claiming the audience at this event was one of the best audiences they had ever played for; however, whether or not that statement is true remains to be decidedly undetermined.

With all of the build-up of the festival’s return, the concert could have easily been over rated and somewhat of a let-down. Fortunately, the event wound up being anything but. After all was sung and done, the event was definitely one to be remembered, and with results such as these, the Music Midtown Festival and Coldplay will be around for many years to come.

Did you know…

• Chris Martin, Coldplay’s lead singer, majored in Ancient World Studies at the University of London?
• On May 18, 1998, Coldplay released a three-song EP entitled Safety. The band only made 500 copies of the album that were given to friends and family members.