I am back – at the end of my third working week in a row spent away from home – and shattered.

I’ve just been uploading photos, and of the 150 or so I took at Jay-play last night, there’s a handful or so which are half-decent, at least in my own opinion.

To be honest, I wasn’t entirely gripped by the music at the gig, which allowed me to focus a bit more on taking photos. Though lacking a proper tripod, you’d struggle to notice much in the way of focus in my shots.

The first band on was White Lies, who, while entirely competent at what they did, played a sound that was highly unoriginal. They seemed to be a mix of the Killers, the Smiths and various other punky/post-punk type bands, and the most fun that could be had during their set was attempting to sing the lyrics of the more famous songs each track sounded like.

Next up, apparently the greatest rapper in the world, hip-hop diva Jay-Z. I am not a fan of hip-hop in the slightest, but Jay-Z came over with humour, respect for his audience, and a nice personality. While it was not my scene it was definitely a solid performance, and he did what he does very well. It was an energetic performance with great visuals, and he got the crowd going.

Coldplay themselves were very good. Much as I am a fan, I like their gentler songs and am probably one of the few folk to think their best stuff was at the beginning and they’ve not entirely got better as they’ve gone. So their thumping, lively show with outstanding visuals, fireworks, massive balloons (they were all yellow) and millions of paper butterflies, all somewhat over-egged the pudding in my view. The show was colourful, spectacular, energetic and explosive. Their best music isn’t (which is no criticism), and so it didn’t all fit in my view.

In fact, some of the best music of the evening was during the breaks, when the excellent sound system put out a great sequence of ambient music, including Sigur Ros, Jon Hopkins, Ulrich Schnauss and others. Clearly they’d had a bit of a raid of my music collection, which was nice.

So it was all was fun, and I was glad I went, but just a week after Explosions in the Sky in Sheffield, Jay-play always had a lot to live up to. Poor folk.

Oh, and since I first used the phrase “Jay-play”, I’ve not heard anyone else call any Coldplay/Jay-Z gig by that name.

I believe that makes me a cutting edge trend-setter in the world of music, yes?