It was around 8.55am when I got an email from my friend and teacher Nami. Would I like to go and see Coldplay perform live at Saitama Super Stadium tonight? She’d got a couple of tickets for 3500 yen each – almost a third of the normal price.

With telephone conversation calls going on until 7pm, there was no way I was going to get there for the (7pm) start, but fortunately they had a support act, and then there was a short delay, so in the end they only appeared on stage after I’d arrived.

Good of them to wait.

It was bloomin amazing.

Those who know the ins and outs of my Japan story may recall that Coldplay have in a way been the soundtrack to the last 7 years of my life, releasing a new album to mark the start of each new era. Thus, it was a pretty emotional experience for me right from the start.

But more than past lifetimes, it was the band’s achievements that I was moved by. I mean, look at this amazing sight. Thousands of fans loving what they were doing. The four of them loving what they were doing.

Ha. That’s pretty damn groovy I thought.

And I thought again of that quote.

Don’t die with your music still in you.

night