Hi everyone!

I got off this sub March 17th to avoid set list spoilers and finally saw my first ever Coldplay show tonight in Houston.

I really enjoyed the concert (I was right at the front of the B stage!); the performances and production quality was incredible as expected, but I honestly left the venue with a feeling of being underwhelmed by the set list.

Don’t get me wrong, I still had a good time! But the set list was literally just the top 1 or 2 hits from the first 7 albums, plus MOTS.

I understand it’s unrealistic to expect less popular songs to show up on the set as the set has to appeal to casual fans - but I feel like the chosen set has taken “playing it safe” to the extreme.

There was only one real C-stage song, and no more audience choice songs. There are songs one might argue could make sense to bring back to the tour set, like Hurts Like Heaven, Politik, etc, but we honestly received no real positive surprises regarding the set. They even removed the Everyday Life songs that had made some of the first leg tour sets in Mexico and Costa Rica!

Magic being left off was also a surprise, and it was a tad disappointing, though not entirely surprising, to see HFTW and SJLT return to the set after being excluded from the promo shows.

Perhaps the worst offender, I was absolutely shocked to see Coloratura left off. I was so sure the goodbyes and bows were fake and we would get an encore. How you can choose to omit Coloratura for “fit” reasons but then continue to play Let Somebody Go over songs like Everglow, play Human Heart with a puppet, use Biutyful as a closer when you have an entire catalog of elite closers, etc makes no sense to me.

The set organization also seemed meh. Feel like the band intros were not as clear (used to be during the B-stage opening after AIMH and Magic), and after Higher Power as the opener, it seemed like a greatest hits tour for ages before we finally got additional MOTS songs. Seemed weird to have a number songs after the My Universe/ASFOS sequence - thought that into Coloratura like the promos would’ve been the move. I feel like Humankind should’ve come much earlier in the set, and if you insist on nixing Coloratura just close with Up&Up again or end on A Sky Full of Stars!

I guess my point is, I thought the range of possible pleasant set list surprises was from a few to many: we could’ve gotten some EL plays, or the Kaleidoscope EP plays that were promised to us, or some throwback oldies. But we literally got zero.

I became a Coldplay fan in 2018, so I’ve lived vicariously through watching all their old shows on YouTube praying to one day be able to see them live. Today was that day, but I feel like compared to the countless AHFOD and MX tour sets I’ve watched, the MOTS tour was lagging slightly. Did I set my expectations too high? Am I being unreasonable? Would love any thoughts!

This could just be me falling victim to my own super-fandom - I feel like if I was LESS of a Coldplay fan and hadn’t built up some hopes for the set list, I’d have enjoyed the set more!