The Barryfest Chronicles

There we were, taking the gritty-as-shit alternate route to Louis Armstrong Airport – forgoing the interstate, with its road construction and rush hour induced bottleneck circa the Causeway Blvd. exit, in favor of the scenic drive through the blocks of shotgun houses and tire shops in Hollygrove and then past the endless row of seedy motels on Airline Highway – when I had my second favorable encounter with the nefarious group of “musicians” know as Coldplay.

The first time I listened to this band with a smile on my face was over three years ago in East Troy, Wisconsin.  A variety of factors, not one of which even remotely having to do with the band itself, led me to purchase a ticket to see England’s softest rockers at Alpine Valley Music Theater during the waning days of the summer before my senior year of college.  And through another set of circumstances, again completely unrelated to the group of hacks crooning sweet nothings into the cool August air, I was breaking out into fits of hysterical ecstasy towards the end of the first set.

See, when it comes to live music venues, Alpine Valley is something of Taj Mahal/Parthenon hybrid constructed smack dab in the middle of Valhalla.  At the point I decided to tithe to the musical undead né Coldplay, I was at the precipice of breaking a four-summer-long streak of enjoying at least one concert engagement at this mecca of primal musical enjoyment, a streak I felt needed to be preserved in spite of 2005’s uncharacteristically weak lineup.

So with a large group of good friends and an even larger stash of chocolates made on the Mayan Day of No Time, I headed north for what was sure to be a ferocious psilocybin trip cloaked under the ostensible cover of seeing a shitty band support their sub-par new album with a live show.

After chasing about twice the recommended human dosage with about eight or ten High Lifes, I couldn’t really concentrate on Rilo Kiley’s opening set or the first two-thirds of whatever the hell Chris Martin was trying to pull off on that fine evening.  But somewhere around the opening bars of “Don’t Panic,” I was confronted with a few moments of the hilarious lucidity that signals the beginning of the exhilarating death rattle of any boomer journey worth its salt.

It was hard to pass any negative judgment with that much dopamine surging through my veins, so I had no choice but to surrender to the flow and join my fellow concertgoers in an emotional singalong for the remainder of the show so graciously performed by this savage group of goldbricking ass clowns.

So imagine my horror when, on the way to the airport to catch a flight to New York City for the Thanksgiving weekend, the CD changer in my roommate’s Toyota Camry shuffled its deck and filled the car with what turned out to be the opening track of Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends; and I sat there immeasurably intrigued by what I was hearing.  By the good grace of Jah, I recognized what was going on just moments before I planned to turn to the driver and Pollyannishly ask “Hmm.  This is good.  Who is this?”

I may have narrowly avoided blowing my cover – which actually would have been extra damaging to my reputation, considering this time I was dead sober and the gentleman in the car with me was there the last time tColdplay infected my soul on that fateful Wisconsin evening three years ago – but that doesn’t change the fact that, once again, I was earnestly grooving out to one of the most destructive scourges of modern popular music.

In my defense, the album was produced by Brian Eno.   And in this instrumental opening there was no room for Chris Martin’s inane lyrical styling to stomp out Eno’s in-studio composition expertise, technical mastery he flaunted on work like Here Come The Warm Jets but that ultimately met it’s blissful match when he got behind the board for Talking Heads.

His new pairing with Coldplay stole a fair share of the headlines surrounding the new album, so it was impossible for me not to try and draw parallels between Viva La Vida and More Songs About Buildings and Food, Eno’s first work with David Byrne and Co., even as I was doing my best to allow the dribble emanating from the car stereo system to leave only footprints as it quickly passed in and out of my psyche.

Luckily, other than the unusually long album titles, there are few things in common between these disparate works.  But it is hard to deny that Viva La Vida feels more important that anything Coldplay has ever done in the same way that I would say More Songs seemed even more impressive when directly compared to the equally satisfying, yet more straight forward aesthetic of 77.

But Brian Eno is no miracle worker, and all in all I think Coldplay’s new joint sucks as hard as the rest of their catalog.  But the fact that More Songs turned out to be a stunning masterpiece didn’t make the world any more ready for the brain-twisting perfection of Fear of Music and Remain in Light, as such groundbreaking, innovative work has no real ancestors and too few progeny.

So saying that Viva La Vida is a piece of trash does nothing to disqualify Coldplay’s potential to release some really fascinating stuff if they stick with Eno, as he has a unique ability to snatch epic masterpieces from the ether with little warning, regardless of the track record (good or bad) of the group he is leading.

With this in mind, I sometimes wonder why I continue to hold a grudge.  I mean, if Lester Bangs was finally able to admit that he enjoyed a James Taylor record, surely I could bury my similar hatchet with those mopes in Coldplay, especially if their output is actually getting better, right?

And wouldn’t it be great if, unbeknown to anyone at the time, we were witnessing the next More Songs if only because if meant that we could be only a few months away from hearing the next Fear of Music and maybe just a few years removed from the next Remain in Light?

And so what if the modern day incarnations of some of the most stunning recordings in the history of mankind could potentially come from a group with Coldplay’s incredulously checkered past.  Right? Right?

Wrong.  I don’t know what my problem is, but I can’t bring myself to give those shitbirds any respect at all.  I just can’t.  Even before the infamous “You know how I know you’re gay?” scene from The 40 Year Old Virgin made “making fun of Coldplay” the new “enjoying Coldplay’s music”, my disdain for those cretins was palpable.

And although I have tried to be more open minded these days, I still do not have the capability to wipe clean any pre-existing slates I’ve held for musicians or groups thereof.  There is no escaping the fact that my prior feelings about Coldplay have unfortunately been grandfathered into my newfangled musical world view.

So while I would would warmly welcome any new album that could even hold the jock of Talking Heads in their prime, I just pray it doesn’t come from those limey bastards in Coldplay.  I think that would be worse than it not existing at all.