The Lord can take me now, for I have seen Coldplay in the flesh.

A really poor example of how awesome the concert was last night. Taken in the nosebleeds by my crappy digital camera

I can't even start to babble incoherently about last night's concert, because I'm still in a state of absolute shock. Alby and I have been hyperventilating about seeing Coldplay for months now. It was every bit as awesome as we expected it to be and then some. A few random musings, as you can read loads of reviews by professionals here and for the previous night's show here.

1. I am very glad that I trusted my better judgment and took my binoculars despite the jeering.
People weren't laughing when the show started though. We had crap seats, and that mofo was powerful enough that I could see the rings on Chris Martin's hands and Richard Ashcroft's pasty white feet and funny looking toes.

2. Richard Ashcroft is a badass.
I could have seen controller.controller eight times with the amount of money I spent on my Coldplay ticket. If the opening act was crappy, this would have made me question the value of my investment. However I didn't find myself in that situation, because Richard Ashcroft brought the house down. Even though he is ridiculously gangly and all sorts of fug, I wish he had taken his aviator glasses off. I thought my head was going to explode when he ended his set off with Bittersweet Symphony. I have loved The Verve since I was a brat in the 90s, they were an absolutely essential part of my BritPop experience. I totally agree with the writer of this article, if circumstances had been different and members of the band had been able to get their shit together, it could have EASILY been The Verve headlining at the ACC last night.

3. I enjoyed the show in all of its sell-outy goodness.
When you're an indie snob, it's a given that you a) never EVER admit to enjoying mainstream bands and b) never go and see said band in an stadium for a concert. I saw screw that. Seeing as how I had never been to a mother concert that had 17,000 people in attendance and all the requisite pyrotechnics, I was utterly floored by the whole experience. I'll definitely be buying the DVD when it comes out.

4. Chris Martin made me feel like a lard
I think it's wrong that a 29 year old man should be so thin and rubber-like. But perhaps that's jealousy on my part, I can't imagine being able to do all the running, leaping and jumping he did over the course of the evening let alone two nights in a row for the entire tour. Must be all the yoga he does with the wifey.

5. Alby did not provide me with waterworks or any other form of hysterics, and for that I was disappointed.
When we got past the hissing scalpers and managed to get inside of the ACC we were greeted by loudspeakers piping out The Scientist which is our favourite Coldplay song of all time. Alby started to get teary eyed, and I looked on with glee thinking that the evening's waterworks were getting underway a littele earlier than anticipated. She totally psyched me out, I don't know what's going on, but Alby's becoming a hard ass. She didn't weep, pass out, or do anything remotely Albyish. Although I'm hoping it's because she was inhaling drugs during Richard Ashcroft's set.

6. Played the best game of 'spot the brown' ever.
As you know, a favourite leisure activity of ours was to play a little game called 'spot the brown' where you'd count the amount of brown people in a specific locale. Most times, I would be the only one. Coldplay was a sea of white, I don't think I saw a single black person in there, unless they were the big burly security guys forcing people to throw out their potentially lethal bottled water. However there was a smattering of brown, we had three guys sitting in the row ahead of us, the horribly stereotypical type. You know wearing pressed severely pleated khakis and dress shirts in some variation of indigo blue. They were also responsible for getting two rows in our section baked. That's right, they were smoking up at a Coldplay concert.

7. I don't know how to WOOOO properly
I can't sing. Therefore it should come as no surprise that I can't even do a fangirl scream properly. I either yell in my normal voice range, or one that is so high it can shatter glass. Since Alby was sick last night and wasn't deafening me with her screams, she was able to hear the horror which I inflicted on the greater Coldplay audience.

8. Stop with the PDA.
I don't care if you're TomKat or another dog sniffing Ollie's nether regions, PDA is i) so trashy and b) so unwanted. If I wanted to watch someone being groped in public I'd go to a club in Woodbridge.

Quips
A special Coldplay version of quips. (I know, I haven't done this in a long while)

Richard Ashcroft: Everything is about branding, I used to be McVerve, but now I'm known as Cocashcroft

Alby and I simultaneously: Oh gosh, who ever knew he had a son let alone a wife! (upon hearing that it was Richard Ashcroft's son Sonny's 6th birthday yesterday. For those of you who care, they were at the zoo yesterday and they saw porcupines and what Ashie thought was a chimpanzee, but turned out to be an orangutan. He dedicated a song to both his son and wife Kate)

Chris Martin: (During God Put a Smile Upon Your Face) God gave you style and gave you the Arcade Fire (!!!!)

Chris Martin: Playing with Richard Ashcroft is like if the Beatles played with Michael Bolton. That's how huge this is.

Chris Martin: Good-bye Toronto, see you in a few years.
Alby and I: BOO.

Tool: (In a post-show convo) Who the hell is Richard Ashcroft?! I've never even heard of him.

And this was supposed to be a short post. If you've stuck this far you must be a real Coldplay fan. Click here to see the rest of my (crappy) clips from the concert, and here to see someone else's amazing photos from the show on the 22nd. I've posted some pictures as well, but you all know where to look for those.

*ouch*

I'm starting my Oscar Party a bit early this year.

*groan* I got my wisdom teeth taken out yesterday. It wasn't as nightmarish as I thought it would be. Since I had already braced myself for the worst before getting to the dentist's office I was in a significant state of neurosis by the time they were prepping me for surgery. The most paramount fear that was dancing through my head was the thought of loosing my sense of taste. For. Ever. You don't joke around about that stuff with a glut. It's just not cool.

It's a shame that I don't drink. My super cool oral surgeon (hi Dr. Baron!) told me that for a person of my size I'd have a really high tolerance level. They were unable to sedate me! The laughing gas didn't work so I got IV-ed instead. It wore off before the surgery was over, I remember waking up and demanding for a blanket because I was cold. I'm always cold.

A few other random things. The heart monitor freaked me out, and the blood pressure machine squeezed the shit out of my arm. Who knew that my veins were so small AND traveled? Apparently they too have no sense of direction, it took so long to get the needle in my arm. Ranjan Bappa's leaving to Sri Lanka this afternoon, so we went over to punchy's place last night, I was still all frozen so I was okay to go. What I was not okay to do was sit there and watch while everyone was eating punchy's cooking. I was stuck drinking some bland ass Campbell's Gardenay.

So. What are in the cards for me today? Other than stuffing my face with Jello cherry cheesecake (thathi picked some up for me, they're awesome) and letting out the odd groan, I'm going have an Oscar party for two and try to watch as many Oscar nominated movies as I can. Ollie gets the George Clooney mask, and I'm going to wear the Keira Knightley one, my jaw is so swollen and mannish that I can totally play the part.

On the list for today, Capote, Tsotsi, and Walk the Line. Throw in a few episodes of My Name is Earl, The Office and of course Project Runway and you've got yourself a really happy, sedated and swollen camper.

Hmm, now the only thing I need to do is find some J-list Hollywood star to sell my oxycoden to so that I can call it a day well spent.