Brixton Academy

Website: http://www.brixton-academy.co.uk

Last Monday night ABJ and I went to a free Coldplay concert at Brixton Academy. It was my first time there and I was excited to go inside - especially for free! Doors opened at 6.30pm so we arrived at 6pm and joined a long queue down the side of the building. After half and hour the queue began to slowly move forward.

There was a lot of security at the entrance and ABJ even had to surrender her chewing gum. Once inside, past the big bouncers, there were hordes of Oxfam helpers dispensing free badges and postcards saying "Be Humankind".

We walked away from the security through the crowds of freshly frisked Coldplay fans into the "Stalls". This was a huge downward slope that led to the stage. A few leaning railings broke up the space and we headed straight for the nearest one. Fans were standing around packed in near the stage. Most of the other railings were full up but we managed to nab a space wide enough for us two. As more people arrived this had to be guarded strongly against everyone else. A beer cheered me up during the long wait until 7.45pm. I spent the time looking at the venue. There was a balcony for the audience above the stalls and high up on both sides of the stage were Roman-style terraces with fake plants and classical architecture.

By 7.45pm the arena was packed full of hip young people and Jon Hopkins came on to DJ some music. He accompanied a surreal 30 minute animated film that was projected onto a 20ft screen:
It was all a "very 21st Century" form of entertainment.

The film ended, the crew laboriously packed up the screen and his equipment and started a sound check for Coldplay. At this point I'd been standing/leaning/slouching for about 2 hours... At last, finally, after such a long wait, Coldplay emerged from the shadows and appeared on stage.

They played their first few songs with lots of energy and lead singer Chris Martin was visibly sweating. For the first few songs he had an odd habit of acting out the lyrics he was singing using his fingers. Luckily this stopped early on.

The audience were loving it and sang along to the songs they knew. At one point Chris Martin segued from one song to another magnificently - only to then come to a crashing halt and shout "Wasn't that a smooth transition!". Yeah Chris... It would have been great if you hadn't stopped to say how great it was...

They played "Yellow" gently from a balcony and we were in a good position clutching to our railing to see it all. The experience wasn't so good for people at the back under the balcony - they could just see the crowd's heads aimed upwards at the front. Finally Coldplay returned to the stage and played their final song with a burst of butterfly confetti.
Summary: A good looking venue - especially to see the "world's biggest band" for free.