Coldplay/Ash

I arrive at Jones Beach on this brisk late summer night with three dirty secrets.

One, I came to see Ash, would be giddy if they were topping the bill.

Two, I very actively don’t want to like Coldplay. In fact, I’ve been taking a hard-line anti-Coldplay, pro-Radiohead/Travis, stance whenever possible, which is pretty often these days, what with copies of A Rush of Blood To The Head as ubiquitous as profoundly disturbing Bush-inspired news stories.

Three, I only picked up the album yesterday, never having bothered to get the first. I’m familiar enough with it, however, to recognize its cover art in tonight’s sky: big, low, broody moon. To my credit, I listened to A Rush about ten times yesterday. The experience filled me with a distinct sense of dread regarding the show. I’ve been walking barefoot all summer quite happily; now autumn and heartbreak are in the air. Add the likes of Coldplay to that and I fear the worst.

This time last year I might have needed Coldplay, the way I needed Travis to play Radio City, to turn up wearing “New York City” t-shirts, offering kind, the-world-is-with-you words, playing songs with words like “safe” and “home” in them. This year, I’m thinking, Girlfriend, don’t go there! But here’s the twist; I’m the one who rounded up tonight’s posse, Coldplay devotees all. My resolve is apparently weakening.

A word about the venue: the outdoor theater at Jones Beach is as close to Slane or Red Rocks as the New York area is likely to get. While most of the semi-circular arena remains on solid state parks grounds, the stage is built up out of the waters off Long Island. Let your eye wander from the performers and all you’re really going to find is sea or sky.

But it’s a bitch to get to. In rush-hour traffic, the trip of a mere thirty miles from mid-town Manhattan takes two hours by car. I miss a good half of Ash’s prompt set. What I do hear confirms that the band’s touring is paying off big time. Even local college kids, tailgating in the parking lot, can be heard saying, “Should we go in, they sound pretty good?,” as the booming beauty of ‘Shining Light’ does battle with car stereos blasting the new Coldplay. Inside, Ash look great and sound even better. There’s an air of stadium-band confidence about them, and there’s no good reason I can see that they shouldn’t be playing venues this size on their own next time around. ‘Sometimes’, with its plaintive, sliding guitars; ‘Burn Baby Burn’, with its alarm-clock urgency; ‘There’s a Star’, with its sexy, flickering melody – all that these songs need is more exposure before crowds will be on their feet singing along. “Gimme, gimme world domination,” the frightfully buff-armed Tim Wheeler sings. I want to say, Um. Okay. You’ve got it.

Here’s the thing I didn’t know about Coldplay: Chris Martin is insane. When your first and most lasting impression of someone is one long shot of him walking down a dreary beach looking maudlin whilst singing about an unpopular color, you hardly expect this kind of stage presence. The man can barely keep his ass on the piano stool, and when you put a guitar in his hand, Lordy! The stomping, gyrating, jumping, and head thrashing are enough to make you forgive the rather lengthy – and increasingly chilly – break between bands.

Coldplay’s opening song, ‘Politik’ – by turns barely-there and apocalyptic – serves as a brilliant call to action for a crowd that is soon on its feet screaming. Martin has requested that everybody pretend the band is N’Sync and “go nuts”. Soon strains of ‘Bye Bye Bye’ are cropping up in the middle of ‘Trouble’. Later on, as fog rolls in off the water and conspires with smoke machines and yellow-and-red spotlights to send spooky clouds over the crowd’s heads, Martin’s working bits of Nelly’s ‘It’s Getting Hot In Here’ into another ballad off Parachutes. Never mind that we’re windswept and freezing our asses off – having earned the crowd’s affections, Martin commands everyone to stand up before ‘Yellow’; without further instruction, the audience carries the song, with barely a touch of assistance from the lead singer.

Okay, so it’s a musical sin of omission on my part: I’d no idea. They may remind me of everyone from The Waterboys to James but these are no imitators. They’re doing their own thing and doing it shockingly well – particularly if you count the production, which makes you feel like you’re watching carefully edited videos on the big screens bracketing the stage. It’s the most gorgeous show I’ve ever seen.

A final confession: I scoffed a few days ago when a review of A Rush in Time Out New York said there was true genius at work in this band. Tonight, I’m humbled. I’m sorry, Chris. Forgive me.

In other news: everyone in the city thought tonight’s show was sold out. It wasn’t. Not by a long shot, actually. But perception is everything. Tomorrow night, at happy hours around the city, people will be talking about how they heard Ash were brilliant and how Coldplay is this amazing live band and how they should have gone to the show.

It’s true. I just didn’t want to admit it.