Last week I extended my weekend through Monday night by traveling to Portland, Ore., to accompany my daughter Jenny to the Coldplay concert at the Moda Center. We started the evening off right with dinner at a small neighborhood pizza joint in Northeast Portland. Dove Vivi features a unique cornmeal crust on its pizzas, offering a whole, 12-inch pizza for $25.75; a half pizza for $13; or a slice for $4.50. The regular menu offers 10 pizzas (most are vegetarian, with a classic sausage and a pepperoni in the mix) plus two vegan options and at least one daily special. Dove Vivi has some unique combinations, and I liked the fact that they incorporate a variety of cheeses (smoked and fresh mozzarella, blue, goat, feta, fontina, ricotta) and herbs (thyme, basil, rosemary) into their pizzas as well as house-pickled jalapeños. One can add a salad (beet, mixed greens or kale, plus a daily special); wash it all down with craft sodas, bottled or draft beer and wine; and finish it all off with chocolate chip cookies or vegan truffles from neighboring business Missionary Chocolates.

The dining room holds about a dozen tables which filled up pretty quickly on this Monday evening. The atmosphere of this family-run restaurant is welcoming, and they pride themselves on locally sourced grains, meats and produce, and the quality certainly showed in the finished products. We ordered a half Sausage Classico (with house-made fennel sausage) and a half Potato Panchetta (the night’s special, with house-cured meat) pizza       and ordered the special salad, a roasted carrot with goat cheese on arugula, to share.   I found the crust crisp — not too thick nor yeasty . . . the cornmeal really lets the flavors of the toppings shine. We enjoyed the salad thoroughly, as the carrots were sweet and nicely set off by the peppery arugula and tangy goat cheese. I’m going to have to try to replicate this one at home!

We had some expectations for the concert, as we’d seen Coldplay at the same venue for their Mylo Xyloto concert about five years ago. We arrived about 8 o’clock, missing the first opening act . . . and, apparently, the chance to get the LED-lit wristband (how they ran out when they knew how many attendees they had I don’t know) which makes each audience member a part of the show. After the second opening act, the band didn’t hit the stage until just past 9:30, but being savvy users of social media, the fans were alerted to the delay via their phones. On this night after the massacre in Las Vegas, Chris Martin began the show with a request for a minute of silence, lit only by the glow of everyone’s cellphones. Only slightly flawed by a few drunken and immature yahoos who couldn’t restrain themselves from bellowing a few epithets into the silence, it was a solemn and haunting tribute. The opening number was another tribute, this time to Tom Petty, as the band was joined by R.E.M. member Peter Buck in a rendition of “Free Falling.”

The rest of the concert was a rollicking ride with Coldplay’s exuberant and skilled use of lasers,      projections,   videos, bursts of confetti,   staging and, of course, those flashing wristbands. I don’t claim to understand the technology behind them which (wirelessly, I presume) causes them to flash in a range of colors and rhythms depending on the song being played, but the result is a sensory treat. It expands the staging to every corner of the arena and makes each audience member part of the performance, which certainly amps up the energy level.

They played for just over two hours — in a day and age where I’ve become accustomed to headliners playing maybe for 90 minutes (including encores), I was happily surprised. They played songs from their latest album, Head Full of Dreams, but didn’t skimp on serving up their biggest hits, too (“Viva la Vida,” “Everglow,” “Yellow,” Every Tear’s a Waterfall,” “Paradise”), and the audience was encouraged at every turn to sing along.

We spilled out of the Moda Center just before midnight, and though I’m sure most in the crowd had worked a full day and faced another one early the next morning, not a single one seemed to mind a bit. Indeed, we all were buzzing with enough energy to take us through the entire week!

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor