Posted: August 29, 2016, 12:00pm
After an inordinately long and wearisome journey (8490 miles) from India to Los Angeles, I surely needed a phenomenal beginning to my fall semester in Electrical Engineering here at USC. I wanted to make sure it happens and that’s certainly one of the reasons why I had booked the tickets for the Coldplay’s ‘A Head Full of Dreams’ concert way back in June.
Those 8490 miles were in fact insignificant when compared to the seemingly 100,000 steps I had to walk to the Rose Bowl stadium from the parking lot. As I entered the stadium, a throng of over 60,000 people was already waiting to be bewitched. The opening acts featured Bishop Briggs and really talented Alessia Cara. There was an exceptional energy brimming through the crowd and the impatience and excitement was nonetheless evident. I waited eagerly for the Xyloband (a wristband whose very invention was inspired from a Coldplay concert during the song ‘Fix You’) on my hand to lighten up. And then it did. In a terrific flash of rainbows and scintillating fireworks and the extra-ordinarily stimulating Charlie Chaplin’s monologue from “The Great Dictator”, with a sudden rush of blood to the head and the hysteria, I knew. Coldplay were on the stage.
What I experienced on 21st of August, 2016 at Rose Bowl, Pasadena, was an exceptional showcase of talent, enchantment and an unprecedented combination of efforts to unify people through music. They started with the tour’s title song ‘A Head full of Dreams’ and went on with their popular numbers throughout the 20 years of their existence. These included ‘Yellow’, ‘Viva La Vida’, ‘Fix You’, and many more to the relatively new ‘Everglow’ and ‘Hymn for the Weekend’. Our hearts sank when they sung ‘The Scientist’ and ‘In My Place’. And then there were those psychedelic dancing apes with the ‘Adventure of a Lifetime’. There also were a couple of the rather lesser heard numbers like ‘Amazing Day’ and ‘Don’t Panic’. There were so many surprise elements; my favourite being, a tribute to David Bowie. Yes! They sang ‘Heroes’ I had heard in ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’. They literally took me aback at Obama’s ‘Amazing Grace’ audio too. The hullabaloo was more than just justified.
I can, in no way, write a review for the concert because I was so immersed in all the technicolor, the surreal, unearthly bubble of happiness they had so created. They had a strong stage presence and took immense efforts at audience engagement. No concert had ever moved me to tears. The emotion was so powerfully conveyed through their music. On the long ramp that the stage extended into, Chris would jump and hop and chatter and shout joy and then run towards us to suddenly skid and kneel to sing the most meaningful choruses. It were all the beautiful memories, the really beautiful people, the most exotic places, dreams and the most exquisite images my mind would have ever contained, all put together in an oval playground with colors, fireworks, balloons, confetti, brilliant lights and the world’s best and the most meaningful music. I can’t believe how a concert can render such magic to you. Amid all war and hatred that ail our earth, Pasadena celebrated the worth of human lives and emotions that day. Coldplay put forth an incredible show, ending with ‘Up and Up’ to convey that love, peace and unity are absolutely achievable dreams. They begin from us.
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Published on July 25th, 2017
Last updated on August 10th, 2017