THE SIGHT of grass bleached by the dry weather of recent days made it feel like a late summer’s evening in the heart of the countryside and not in the biggest urban park in Europe.
Coldplay might be as fashionable as Formica in certain circles but there are few acts that could draw a crowd of more than 30,000 people to the Phoenix Park on a Monday night in September.
The band with the biggest selling album of the last two years – Viva La Vidahas sold eight million copies to date – brought their stage show to Dublin at the end of a marathon 15-month tour.
It was gig number 156 of a 159-date odyssey which began in June 2008 and will end in London on Saturday night for a group that lead singer Chris Martin described as the “world’s biggest soft rock band”.
“Thanks for missing your homework or whatever else you do on a Monday night,” he said.
He told the multitudes singing along to Yellowthat they blew every other audience away.
Last night’s audience was predominantly female but there were plenty of twenty- and thirty-something couples. It was eminently civilised, as one would expect from a Coldplay concert.
Even the weather matched the lyrics of Coldplay's latest single Strawberry Swing: "It is such a perfect day".
It was dry and even the cloud cover made it balmy for the time of year.
The band opened up with two songs from Viva La Vida, an instrumental version of Life in Technicolor, followed by Violet Hill.
But the biggest reactions were to songs such as Yellow, which produced a cascade of yellow balloons, In My Placeand Fix You, which encouraged the production of lighters and mobile phones. In an unaccompanied section, Martin played snatches of Jimmy McCarthy's Ride Onfor the home-town audience.