Live Review: Coldplay

Live Review: Coldplay

Coldplay's intimate Fillmore show worth whatever you paid: Aidin Vaziri | While hardcore fans offered to trade cars, bottles of expensive wine and even their bodies for a pair of black-market tickets, those lucky enough to actually land a couple for the measly asking price of $26 per ticket stood in the rain for hours Wednesday as the line outside the Fillmore ran down and around a very sizable block. Even there, people with sad faces marched back and forth through the gray drizzle holding cardboard signs offering hundreds of dollars to anyone who could get them into the show. It might seem a little much. But, really, when will anyone ever get the chance to see Coldplay this up-close-and-personal again without the aid of NASA's gamma-ray telescope? And it was well worth it. Chris Martin led the charge through 90 minutes of beautifully crafted songs, broke into his inimitable dance routines -- in which he hopped on one leg, wobbled his head and humped the piano -- and delivered every song with unblinking intensity. Yet the best moment came when the band briefly veered off the set list for an endearing but disastrous run through "Don't Panic," from its multiplatinum 2000 debut, "Parachutes." After forgetting the chords and the words midway through, Martin stood up from the piano and cut it off, drooping his head. "That's why we're the third-best band in the world," he laughed.