Cold Play at the Gorge

Time for our annual trip to the Gorge.
2006 Pearl Jam
2007 Pearl Jam
2008 Police
2009 Cold Play

97 degrees in the desert for a huge concert in one of the, if not the, most scenic concert venues in the world. What could be better than a Saturday in July at the Gorge?

This marks our fourth year in a row on or about this weekend heading to a concert in the Gorge. This year, same as last year, we went with the Klisch's and the Fosnick's:
Sorry about the quality of the above pictue, the canopy's shade ruined the contrast. Which is okay as the shade provided by the canopy is the only thing that allows us to survive for seven hours or pre-func in the blazing heat. A fair trade off for a bad picture if I ever heard of one.

Again, we stayed at the Wild Horse Campground and not the Gorge campground. While it is approximately 1.5 miles from the Gorge, I can't recommend it enough in comparison to the normal campground. The Wild Horse has real grass, clean (well as clean as port-a-pottys can get) bathrooms and running water. Plus it is a more normal atmosphere instead of the distilled craziness of the Gorge campground. The campground was sold out this year, thus they really packed us in there compared to last year:

This year we even had a little grill:

We left for the concert around 7 PM. Coldplay were scheduled to start at 9 with some random acts at 7. To our suprise, at 8 o'clock the Gorge was absolutely packed. Not kind of full where you could squish in the middle by just some creative blanket placement, but super packed where there were not any spots to sit. So we ended up over on the side:

This picture does not do justice to how crowded it really was, but it gives you an idea.

Have I mentioned yet how nice and scenic a venue the Gorge is:

That, my friends, is what $27 worth of beer looks like:

Paty was in rare form all night. Apparently she is a big Coldplay fan, or more accurately she is a big Chris Martin fan.

The view from our 'seats':

Overall it was a great show. I can see why Coldplay is such a large draw in concert. They really put it all out there in the performance. If I heard them correctly during the dialogue, this is their 130th show on this tour. And to be that good and add bit specifically for the Gorge after that many shows is something to be applauded.
After the show, back at the campsite a little post concert cool down:
It was another ultra successful trip to the Gorge. This weekend is the Sounders FC versus Chelsea of the English Premier League. I have seats in row 11 for all the Sounders games, including this one, so look for another post commemorating the Sounders first game against a huge international opponent. I can only think of one or two teams (Barcelona & Real Madrid) with more star power than Chelsea has right now so this should be a great event.