Coldplay stink. I saw them three times at HFS events back in the day. They went from an opening slot at the HFSmas Nutcracker in 2001 to headlining it in 2002. Both times I was not enthused. Nickelback was at the 2001 one and I thought they had the better show!
Then I saw them at an HFStival and they put on a slightly better show. A lightning storm was going on outside of the city and it made it cooler(?). But so many other bands killed it that day (Social D, Foo Fighters, NY Dolls, Billy Idol etc) to make their performance negligible.