Coldplaying in the Heat & Dust

They were here. Did you see them? Has your life changed?

If you did not see them - get the recording off VH-I. I have been told they will keep broadcasting it.

If your life has still not changed - sunny boy, this is the time to recognise your dad was right. You need a real job. Like in an office, with a tie.....

If you, like me has seen the future. Then you in the right place. A few columns ago I wrote that we were in the best of times and in the worst of times. Coldplay was the best of times.

In my opinion Chris Martin is a Star. Cut in the mould of the greatest Rock Stars of his generation. Amongst a crowd of 80,000 (reported) he connected to everyone there. He was best friend.... or brother or lover or whatever you wanted him to be. That is his gift and we all felt it that night.

Also in my opinion the rest of the band was about the most boring, average set of musicians who were supremely lucky to have befriended a Rock God. Lucky Them. Was that boredom or resentment on their faces ? While Superstar Martin obviously was enjoying every moment on stage and ensuring that every one of his new best friends or lovers or brothers in India also enjoyed every moment, the rest of the band looked like they were going to burst into tears or just wanted to be somewhere else.

Now let’s talk about the real hero of the evening. The Staging.

The Sound - Impeccable. All the work and the attention to detail paid off. The Colden King was transmitted to each one of us there. The unique timber of his voice sitting on our shoulders. As for the rest of the guys - the PA made them actually sound good.

The Lighting - Vast. Who says that a massive inventory of cheap Chinese lights doesn’t look great. Who would have thought that DMX delays and many cylinders of carefully released smoke can fill a space with shock and wonder. I learnt a huge lesson that day.

The Staging. That vast flying wing of blinding light flying at you. The confetti, the balloons, the bridge and even more confetti. Simply WOW.

Everything put together makes me feel that tomorrows Global citizen has much to look forward to.

Clean Toilets, Digital Currency, No corruption and every time somebody powerful wants to make a connect to India’s unbounded youth - we can celebrate these gifts with a huge concert.

There was so much around the concert. So much to read, so much fuel, so much hype. Like good little children being groomed to be global citizens, concert mama also advised us on what to wear - loose comfortable clothing. What to pack - water, salt tablets, nutrition bars. We were told to bring cash. Not cards. Apparently the ringing of cash registers and the airwave consumption of card machines would adversely affect the technology of the evening. Hopefully next time we will learn to behave in the presence of our betters. But mama - we were good children right? Nobody got hurt or was led astray.

I was led astray. After ages some excitement crept into my cynical old bones. I danced, bad leg and all, and still had energy to walk to the car.

I am a minimalist. I believe that great lighting is about the minimum darkness we displace. One carefully placed spot light in a beautifully timed fade, to me is orgasm. In the theatre my mentor would yell at me. ‘I don’t care how big the show. You don’t need more than 15 dimmer channels - as long as you have a finger on each one of them ‘

Even in a Pink Floyd Concert with its amazing light shows - when you break it down it is always so simple. Every song has ONE big look. That you can never forget. Against them you have the Rolling Stones with their jumble of joys. But the Coldplay light guy had it all. Simple stuff like in the obviously lit ‘Yellow’ to the complexity of ‘In My Place’ From Garage Band to Outsize stadium in a switch. Break it down guys. Watch it over and over. It was lesson in showmanship. What can I say - Respect !

This issue is all about Outsize DJ’s. This is a Visual Designers dream. Like the self effacing Pink Floyd once said - ‘None of us are in the Robert Redford looks department, so we got have our audiences see something’

Fortunately for us, most of the DJ’s are not much better looking than Roger Waters. Can I be mean and say - perhaps even including the ladies !

So here’s your chance to stand up and give those incredible audiences ‘Something to See’

All the advertisers in this issue offer many tools in that journey. Coldplay has taught us that being a maximalist with cheap Chinese lights is the new way forward. I finally understood why people would invent boxes that control mountains of DMX universes. Ok sorry - I was slow - but I got there !

Break out of the square box stages. Fly off in a hundred new directions and bring back the stages that immerse you in light, shower you in fine smoke and fill all the air around you in tightly controlled LIGHT.

The beat is steady and easy to bounce off. The girls are pretty and everybody is moving in chic convulsions. Come on we got Mr Modi to sprout ‘Too cool to show up for a Nobel, Dylan’

Step up and take the space before these Global citizens come yapping on your heels.