Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Coldplay Live 2012 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 23, 2012

Coldplay Live 2012 isn’t just a live concert video, as it features several so-called “Intermissions” where we get various musings by the band about all sorts of things from what it means to be rich and famous to what it means to be incredibly handsome (one assumes that last is said somewhat in self-mocking jest). But there’s one salient question that is never answered by Coldplay’s front man Chris Martin, a burning query which I’m sure is at the forefront of many fans’ minds: Why did you name your daughter ‘Apple’? Of course that’s a joke, but Martin reveals himself to be a fairly cogent comedian himself, as well as a philosopher of sorts, and the rest of the band also offers some interesting, if at times pat, commentary about their lives in what has become one of the most successful bands of the past decade and a half or so. Coldplay Live 2012 is a fairly energetic reboot of the basic concert video genre, with lots of post production tweaking which sees all sorts of effects added, including everything from grained up imagery to words and graphics being superimposed over the images of Chris Martin, Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, and Will Champion jumping around various humongous stages in various even more humongous stadiums and arenas in several world metropolises. While the concert portions may well be the drawing card for most fans, the confessionals may well be the most memorable sequences of this offering, especially since the concert portions are marred by some strange mixing choices that often leave Martin’s voice completely buried in the wash of instrumental backing and overarching crowd noises.

Coldplay Live 2012 was captured as the band toured in support of their fifth studio album, Mylo Xyloto, which was released to a mixed critical reception in October 2011. The album continued Coldplay’s kind of meditative, philosophical approach to lyric writing, and continued the band’s collaboration with famed producer Brian Eno. Eno has really brought out the sort of quasi-ambient wall of sound approach that has defined Coldplay’s last few albums at least and which, to my ears anyway, is often quite redolent of U2 (songs like "Yellow", one of the band's first significant hits, could easily be mistaken for the Irish superstars, in my not so humble opinion). In fact Chris Martin’s well publicized support of a number of charitable causes is also quite reminiscent of similar efforts on the part of U2’s Bono.

Martin mentions in one of the comments caught on this not-quite-a-concert video that he thinks Bruce Springsteen once commented that any given live performance might be the first time someone is seeing that particular artist perform live, as well as being the last time someone might be seeing that artist, and the artist needs to keep that in mind, rather than just thinking of a show as “another day at the office”. Martin seems to have taken that idea to heart, for he seems genuinely interested in interacting with his audience, something that he himself mentions in another confessional he wasn’t always willing or able to do. He talks about trying to make actual eye contact with people, especially when he struts or dances out on one of the catwalks that make up the almost palm tree looking stage of the tour. Martin mentions that he can create “tethers” for an instant with maybe 1,000 people a night at any given concert.

The album cover of Mylo Xyloto is a riot of color, as if an explosion occurred in a tie-dye factory and then some hyperactive graffiti artists came along to finish the job, as it were. That continues not only onto the design of both the keepcase insert as well as the actual imprints on both the Blu-ray and CD included in this set (the CD features a nice graphic shout out to my hometown, Portland—thanks, guys), but to the video itself. All through this piece little jots and tittles suddenly magically appear on screen, and the fans’ use of “lightstick” bracelets illuminates the arenas almost like they’re humongous Christmas trees. Playing behind the guys are swirling panoplies of designs and mandala like projections that make this all a kind of retro-psychedelic experience at times. By contrast, the talking head “intermissions” are frequently completely desaturated to black and white, with little bursts of color suddenly thrown in at unexpected moments.

Several different concerts were utilized to compile the performance footage here, but it’s quite apparent that Coldplay has reached a level of consistency in their live offerings to where you’d be hard pressed to tell which moments came from which venues if the identifying locales weren’t superimposed on the proceedings. Martin and his cohorts seem only too aware of how much they’ve grown not just as artists but as human beings over the past few years of their incipient superstardom, and the results are on fine display throughout Coldplay Live 2012.

The concert portions of this Blu-ray (without the interstitial talking head segments) are:

• 01. Mylo Xyloto
• 02. Hurts Like Heaven
• 03. In My Place
• 04. Major Minus
• 05. Yellow
• 06. Violet Hill
• 07. God Put a Smile Upon Your Face
• 08. Princess of China
• 09. Up In Flames
• 10. Viva La Vida
• 11. Charlie Brown
• 12. Paradise
• 13. Us Against the World
• 14. Clocks
• 15. Fix You
• 16. Every Teardrop is a Waterfall

Coldplay Live 2012 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Coldplay Live 2012 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Capitol Records with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 2.36:1. This is another hyperkinetic outing which features nonstop quick cutting in the concert sequences, with barely any shot lasting more than a couple of seconds. If you can tolerate that aspect, which is only heightened (or exacerbated, depending on your point of view) by the "whiz bang" effects that have been added in post, the high definition presentation here pops quite well most of the time. Some of the effects added include increased "grain" and smearing, not to mention tons of superimposed text and graphics, which makes critiquing the "naturalness" of the image kind of moot. Colors are generally good (though, again, they've been considerably color graded at times), and fine detail is quite good in close-ups. The concert portions are somewhat hobbled by the dual aspects of huge arenas, which are dark save for the glowstick bracelets of the fans, and the aggressive lighting in back of the players, which at times leads to some slight banding, mico- blocking and other brief anomalies. Some of the effects give the indication of video noise, but that is no doubt intentional.

Coldplay Live 2012 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Perhaps after we've gotten our long sought after answer to the burning question surrounding Apple's moniker, then someone can move on to explaining the somewhat maddening mixes on Coldplay Live 2012. Both the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix as well as the LPCM 2.0 stereo fold down offer superior fidelity, with precise recreation of the massed midrange that Coldplay loves to evoke, but why, oh why, did they mix Martin's voice so far down? Sometimes this tends to happen in 5.1 mixes, especially in stadiums and arenas like the ones Coldplay plays, where the ambient environmental noise and huge "geography" of the venue simply swallows up the singing, but typically those issues disappear once one choosed the 2.0 mix, in whatever form it's delivered on any given Blu-ray. While things are moderately better on the LPCM mix, there are still vast swaths of the concert footage where Martin simply more or less disappears in the mass of instrumental sound and overwhelming audience noise. By contrast, he is completely audible in the accompanying CD, so this is definitely a mix issue, not one of the source elements being shoddily recorded. Still, even with this niggling concern, Coldplay Live 2012 offers some fantastic sounding music, with nicely detailed channelization in the 5.1 mix. Dynamic range basically boils down to an "on/off" switch: it's loud during the concert portions and quiet during the interstitial confessionals.

Coldplay Live 2012 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Don't Let It Break Your Heart (1080i; 4:17)


• The Scientist (1080i; 5:55). What is that roadie-stagehand running around picking up while Chris plays?


• Photo Gallery (1080i; 4:04)

Coldplay Live 2012 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Mylo Xyloto kind of split critics and even longtime fans of Coldplay. Some evidently don't really cotton to this "Brian Eno era" with the band, though there's no denying the evocative walls of sound the producer is able to cull from the players, something that's very much on display throughout this concert, even in some of their older, pre-Eno, material. The band is very energetic and appealing throughout these performances, and the confessional sequences find them to be rather thoughtful, even meditative, types who haven't completely been bowled over by their status as Rock Gods. This Blu- ray offers good video but the two lossless mixes may frustrate some who want to hear more of Martin. Still, overall Coldplay Live 2012 comes Recommended.