As many of you may know I attended Coldplay's Viva La Vida tour at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre last night, having never been to a concert before I didn't quite know what to expect, though what transpired over the course of the four hour event was certainly one of my most memorable nights of my life.

I was attending the concert with my girlfriend Jess and my good friend Steven, both of whom are (like me) large Coldplay fans. So skipping the tedious two hour train commute, I'll get straight down to the concert itself. We were standing on the floor in front of the stage, barely 20 meters from the front, and luckily for us a mere five meters from the side stage (the stage was U-shaped, allowing the performer to walk up and down each side. First to go on stage was the opening band from Australia, known as Decoder Ring, their music comprises of the instrumentals you'd usually here backing an Indie film, indeed most of their work is for movie soundtracks. Despite, the lack of lyrics they were a good band and set an interesting mood amongst the sellout crowd.

Unfortunately, there was a second opening band, Mercury Rev from the United States, the unfortunate part being the lead singer was absolutely cringe-worthy, prancing around the stage like it was he who we'd paid to see and with a helium high voice straight out of a cartoon. And after a forty minute set, which seemed like all eternity and certainly agitated the crowd, we waited as the stage was surrounded in a black curtain.

15 minutes later, the opening twangs of Life in Technicolour began and the crowd erupted, behind the curtain the dancing silhouette of Chris Martin and the others appeared and even though it seemed impossible the crowd got louder. Then the curtain dropped and once more the crowd let it's love for the band known, roaring with applause and cheers. Straight after the song segued into Violet Hill and for the first (and certainly not the last time) it sounded like the entire audience was singing along. As it got to the end of the song, the music dissipated and Chris continued singing the lyrics, "If you love me won't you let me know", which he changed to "If you're from Queensland won't you let me know!" much to the excitement of the very vocal crowd. And with that bit of improvisation, so began one of the most impressive examples of interaction I've seen from a band as big as Coldplay.

From Chris joking with the audience about writing The Hardest Part for the Shane Warne musical, to the thoroughly surprising moment when the entire band ran off stage, up through the stairs to the back of the tiered seats at the back where a makeshift stage had been erected right amongst the crowd, to show that without all the smoke and lights that they are just four normal guys who love music. And from that stage up in the grandstand they played Green Eyes as well as a cover of I'm a Believer by the Monkees before returning to the stage.

The highlight of the concert however was when they moved the piano down to the end of the U-shape where we were standing and after exclaiming that this was the part of the show where "the rest of the band go back stage for a massage, and champagne and a smoke, while I'm left to keep the show going by myself" at which point he began a beautiful acoustic rendition of The Hardest Partthat was genuinely moving. So close we were that we could see the individual drops of sweat dripping from his nose onto the piano. Another similarly excellent moment (and lucky for us it was at the same end of the stage) was when the entire band came down to the end to perform God Put A Smile Upon Your Face and Talk, but combining them as one back to back epic, with seamless transition.

Apart from being a treat for the ears, it was a visual one as well with an amazing amount of work put into the lights and other facets of the show, but words can only say so much, luckily I have photos (taken by my friend Steven)!

Politik with Chris on the piano.

Yellow complete with giant balloons filled with confetti! Lots of fun!

Strawberry Swing with the giant turning picture globes behind them with constantly changing images, there were five others located around the arena.

42 with Chris on piano and live footage of himself behind him.

Probably the best quality shot of the entire band performing Cemeteries of London

Lovers in Japan first photo with video backdrop.

One of the most magical moments of the aforementioned song as tens of thousands of paper butterflies floated down from the ceiling.

Beautiful.

And finally...

The band performing Talk on the side stage, there was only one row of people in front of us, it was so excellent to be so close!

I could go on for ages about how amazing Coldplay was, how after the band said goodnight the entire audience began chanting 'oo-oo-oooh-a-oooh' from the song Viva La Vida until they came out to perform an encore, but I think you get the idea. I will remember that night for the rest of my life. Thanks for reading, hope I didn't bore you too much with my prattle.