Coldplay: Day 12

July 8, 2025.

Live 2003 was Coldplay's first "live" album release (they released a live EP a couple years before). Released in November 2003, this album contains the complete recording of a concert they gave in Sydney, Australia (apparently it contains material from two different shows on consecutive nights, more on that later). I think live albums are kind of annoying in general because it's just a bunch of extra content that isn't really providing anything new. I'm not sure exactly why artists release live albums, I guess it's just a matter of preference with some people liking them and some not. A couple things they can provide are alternative listening experiences, or just other methods to sell more records/get more streams.

The album itself is about 50% songs from AROBTTH, 25% songs from Parachutes, and 25% other songs. Concerts are usually structured this way with the latest album taking up a disproportionally large share of the songs and then popular hits and a few random additions taking up the rest of the space. At only 12 songs, this was a relatively short concert, most concerts I've been to are around 2 hours long with a ~20 song setlist. But releasing a two hour album is a little weirder than playing a two hour concert so they probably kept it shorter since this concert was specifically for a recording. I don't think that's always the case though. Much further down the line we're going to run into Coldplay's Live in Buenos Aires, a 24 song behemoth they released in 2018. Recently I attended the Clancy tour of Twenty One Pilots, and I know they were recording material for a live album at certain points throughout the tour (not when I was there), but not shortening the setlist or playing the shows differently just to record. So I guess at the end of the day I'm not sure entirely why this concert/live album is so short. I thought maybe the reason was that concerts have concerts gotten longer in the last 20 years, but I did a little bit of research and it looks like that is not the case, so Coldplay playing a short show is probably unrelated to any specific trends.

                                                                            Credit: Wikipedia

Although like I said I typically don't prefer live albums, Live 2003 was pretty good. I feel like live performance recordings can often sound tinny, or fuzzy, the singer can be off-key or just not singing as well as in the studio, and overall it just sounds worse than the studio version. I didn't feel that with this album though. In fact, they sound really quite good, dare I say better than the studio version? Maybe not necessarily better, but quite good. Live vocals can provide this extra energy that the studio version doesn't have, this extra feeling that makes the song seem more real. So I guess I might be changing my opinion on live albums a little bit. A well done one can be a treat to listen to. And yeah, this one is well done. The instrumentals all sound really strong and clear, Chris Martin sings everything pretty well.

The tracklist looked like this + where the song originates from:

Politik - Live in Sydney    ||    A Rush of Blood to the Head

God Put a Smile on Your Face - Live in Sydney    ||    A Rush of Blood to the Head

A Rush of Blood to the Head - Live in Sydney    ||    A Rush of Blood to the Head (no kidding huh)

One I Love - Live in Sydney    ||    In My Place B-Side

See You Soon - Live in Sydney    ||    The Blue Room EP (throwback!)

Shiver - Live in Sydney    ||    Parachutes

Everything's Not Lost - Live in Sydney    ||    Parachutes

Moses - Live in Sydney    ||    Completely original! This song was never released in any other fashion

Yellow - Live in Sydney    ||    Parachutes

Clocks - Live in Sydney    ||    A Rush of Blood to the Head

In My Place - Live in Sydney    ||    A Rush of Blood to the Head

Amsterdam - Live in Sydney    ||    A Rush of Blood to the Head

There are some interesting inclusions on the tracklist. I really liked hearing See You Soon again from the Blue Room EP, the live version sounded great. The song Moses, as I noted, is completely original to this live album. The song never received a studio version. Ironically (I think it's ironic?), this is a pretty important song since Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow's second child is named Moses. The song itself is just a song about his love for her, using the prophet Moses as some sort of metaphor for the power she has on him (in a good way) (I think). According to Wikipedia the song came first, inspiring the naming of their child, so it must have been pretty important to them. Maybe so important they didn't want to officially release it? Who knows. Overall the songs ebb and flow with a pretty nice pacing that you can really feel if you listen to it all the way through. It has sort of a hard-slow-hard-slow thing that actually feels like it works. I feel like the song Amsterdam was maybe a bit of a slow choice for the ending track, and I think maybe his voice was getting a bit tired for the last few songs, nothing crazy but it just sounded maybe not as nice as the first few.

Something sort of interesting about the recording is that there is no audio cut out between the songs. The recording runs straight through from the beginning to the end with crowd noise seamlessly continuing from the end of one track to another (this is why I'm confused as to why Wikipedia says this was recorded over two nights, since it's pretty clearly just one night of music). So of course you get to hear the couple of things that Chris Martin says to the crowd throughout. He really doesn't talk much, just a couple of thank you's, one line introductions to the next song, and exhorting the crowd to stand up or sing louder a couple of times. I always wonder when bands do that if that's because the crowd is being lame and not going hard enough for the songs or if like they just do it no matter what the crowd is doing. I've been at concerts where it feels like the performers are really trying to encourage the crowd to jump or dance or sing and it starts to make me feel like the crowd must suck or something. I really can't tell because I have no idea what it looks like from their end and what level of participation and craziness musical artists expect from their shows. I've also heard (no idea what the source was, so could be fake) that sometimes artists get really big and then their shows are kind of sad because all the attendees are just casuals who don't know the words to their music and so they're just up there singing on their own. IDK if that's actually something that happens, but kind of an interesting anecdote.

Overall, it's a well done-enough live album and it is an enjoyable listen. If you like Coldplay and any of the songs listed on here, I would recommend listening to it, unless you really hate live albums, then I wouldn't bother.

Songs Listened To:

Live 2003 - November 1, 2003