You might wonder, as I did, how a band just two studio albums into their career can pull off a live concert DVD. Well, the answer is - quite well, actually.

Coldplay have in their relatively short musical lives carved themselves a cozy little niche in the music community, selling huge amounts of their unpretentious melodic pop-rock to a predominantly 25-40 year old middle-class market. And this DVD shows the tight musical foursome toward the end of their massive 15 month world tour, playing to an arena-sized crowd at the Horden Pavilion in Sydney, Australia, in July of 2003.

From the opening moments of the band crashing into Politik, this 90 minute concert shows a surprisingly good live act, running through their hits, from the 2000 album Parachutes and 2002's A Rush of Blood to the Head.

They expand their dynamic range far better live - Daylight and Shiver rocking harder, Trouble and The Scientist more languid than their recorded versions. Everything's Not Lost, Yellow, and In My Place are high points of the show, but the standout track is clearly the encore Amsterdam - a light, beautiful melody that slowly builds into a mass of noise and emotion.

There are three new tracks as well for the fans - the up-tempo One I Love, the mid-tempo Moses and the ballad See You Soon. At the fore is Coldplay's charismatic front man Chris Martin, moving effortlessly back and forth between piano and acoustic guitar - warm vocal and falsetto. In contrast to the ever-bouncing Martin are the painfully statuesque figures of guitarist Jon Buckland and bassist Guy Berryman.

However, man-of-the-match honours should go to Buckland, for creating immaculate soundscapes with his guitar, always playing the perfect lines and having the finest tones for what's needed. Berryman and drummer Will Champion provide a solid, if unspectacular dynamic foundation for Martin and Buckland to build from.

The camera work is very much in tune with the music - quickly changing angles on the rockers, more lingering on the ballads, liberally switching back and forth between colour and black-and-white.