I'm typing up a barebones, ineloquent version now, so I might post it in a bit if you can wait around :D

 

 

 

Barebones:D sorry hadn't heard that since I saw Pirates of the C. it makes me giggle, don't ask me why!!!:laugh3:

We spoke to Phil at the set of the stage at about midnight and he said that he was fully intending to do the Q&A but because he was asked to appear in the video, he was unable to get from the shore to the boat.

so PLEASE, stop complaining, it wasn't all a complete rouse to get us into the video.

they WERE intending to do it, but it was out of their hands.

 

OK then ignore Phil...one person couldn't make it...no problem, we'd all understand (even though it was never explained to us), but all 3 of the promised guests? Two of whom were obviously a smokescreen. Please!!

 

Wood? Trees? Know the difference?

 

PLEASE stop complaining about people who weren't happy with tonight. You were - great - I'm genuinely happy for you :) Do you see people like me saying 'PLEASE stop praising tonight'? Of course you don't - we're all entitled to our different opinions, so please respect that and stop being so dismissive of others. If you'd read my earlier posts more carefully you'd know that no-one is more delighted than me for everyone who enjoyed tonight more than I did (and I did enjoy it).

I'm typing up a barebones, ineloquent version now, so I might post it in a bit if you can wait around :D

 

*waits* :)

I'm typing up a barebones, ineloquent version now, so I might post it in a bit if you can wait around

 

For you I'd wait till kingdom come! :P

Is it ready yet? Just picked up kids from school. Drove as fast as I could....

OK, this is really, really sloppy. I hope to have a more coherent version blogged on my personal blogs tomorrow or so if anyone wants to check that at a later point. And I'll post my pictures once they're sent to me! :D

 

 

 

 

I got to the boat early. I didn’t go to the pub because I just needed to make sure I was in the right place at the right time, and I knew everyone would come over soon anyway. The boat was parked (do you park boats?) at the pier, and I could see people setting up, but no one else was around. Other Coldplayers started to trickle in and we made our introductions. News had come only hours before arriving that not only would we not be able to Tweet on the boat, but we would not be able to take pictures, either. This was heartbreaking news, but Debs (DEBS!!!) took all our cameras and phones at the door. At this point I thought the band would still be there at some point, so I was a bit sad, but really my excitement overshadowed all of that.

 

Once we were all on the boat, which took AGES (100 is a lot of people, you know), two guys with a megaphone started to talk to us. They were PAs for a film crew, and they informed us that we were to be part of Coldplay’s next music video. Which a lot of us had guessed in the past week, but it was a lovely surprise nonetheless.

 

We had to sign really, really intense contracts. The first was about them using our image in any way they want. The second was a confidentiality agreement, saying that EMI would find us and kill us if we even talked about this before Wednesday, when the video and song come out. In the end they called EMI and overturned that one, so this is all legal, me posting all this.

 

They played us “Christmas Lights.” It’s very Coldplay, very Viva, but just so great. I teared up the first time I heard it. We had to learn how to sing a bit in the middle, which is very similar to the VIVA chant, so we practiced that about 400 times.

 

And then we all bundled up and went to the top, open-air deck of the boat. We were driven to South Bank on the boat, between the OXO Tower and the National Theatre, where a film set was set up and Coldplay were. The boat was anchored a bit offshore, so we couldn’t see anything of the guys or the set besides the camera shooting us and the lights on us, but it was thrilling anyway. We were each given a balloon, and were instructed to let go of them at a specific point in the song we were singing along to (which they will actually track onto the song, they recorded us singing thousands of times with huge mics). We did four takes over the course of two hours. It was kind of a riot: being told hundreds of times “LET GO OF THE BALLOON ON THE FOURTH ‘OHH’” and “THIS IS JUST A REHEARSAL, DO NOT LET GO OF YOUR BALLOON ON THIS ONE.” It was freezing and we were all politely cutthroat about being at the railing so we’d be visible, but it was just a blast. I was in the very front for all but one take, so I think I’m going to be pretty visible in the video. It was cold and a bit like being in school, but I thought it was epic fun, no matter what other people say.

 

Afterwards, they opened the bar and set up Coldplay karaoke and it was a very nice party. I had a pint, which would damn me later. I didn’t take very many pictures or anything—we didn’t have our cameras or phones most of the time anyway. It was nice to just talk to so many of the people I’ve known only through the internet, or only through meetings at concerts, for years. It’s also a shame, though, because there’s so much going on and so many people that you just can’t talk to everyone. I missed out on really talking to a bunch of people. But I would like to say that I love Debs Wild. This is not news, but she’s just such a nice person, and so lovely to talk to. I got a shite picture with her, and she’s just so adorable. I want to be Debs Wild.

 

We pulled back into the pier around 10. A few of us (me, Anna, Jamie, and Daniel come to mind first) decided to go back to South Bank on the off chance the band was still shooting. We, or I should say I, wasn’t getting my hopes up. We walked along the river for about half an hour to get to where the shoot was (I have a stupidly keen sense of direction) and the scenery and security were still there and everything, and we freaked out. They let us watch as long as we didn’t take pictures, again, for confidentiality reasons.

 

I was on a live film set from 11 at night til 3 in the morning with Coldplay. I saw the entire thing being shot, I know every word of “Christmas Lights” now. Regardless of who was in the shoot and what they were filming, it was FASCINATING to see how a real film set works. I could never be an actor, or a musician, or anyone who has to do all that over and over and over. Nerves were frayed, from crew and band alike, I think. They were running hours late and there were technical problems and sound problems, but it’s not like it was all a shambles, either: I think this is just how film sets run. There were BRILLIANT takes that made me just hug myself for how much I love these guys.

 

Phil came over and talked to us for a while, a good while. We talked about the boat and he answered some Coldplay-related questions for us, like how he came up with the name “Politik” (he was impressed we knew that he was the one that did: it’s from Karl Marx’s realpolitik, which isn’t exactly hard to work out). He said he meant to be on the boat with us, but got asked to be in the video instead. I said that made total sense, but I was actually looking forward to the Q&A with him, and he apologized and I said there was no need to, because we were talking now.But what a nice man. Oh my gosh.

 

It was also FUCKING FREEZING. Well, I mean, I have a very high tolerance for cold, so I’ve been colder, but it was not comfortable. My bigger problem was that I had to pee, and had since 10 when we left the boat and I downed a pint. All I wanted was a toilet, honestly.

 

I waited from about 10 to about 2, when really nice crew people that gave us handwarmers told me where a public toilet was. I ran to it. It was locked. I came back, the security guards told me how to break into the one at the OXO tower. I ran there. I couldn’t do it: the codes they gave me for the keypads were behind padlocked gates. And I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that I was missing what I waited all those hours for. I’m psychic like that.

 

I ran back, still bursting for a loo. I saw the others walking away from the scene, and I just knew they’d met the band. They looked at me and said “we’re really sorry…Chris came out and hugged us and signed things and took a group picture.” And I saw the autographs in their hands and I just couldn’t believe that I missed him. Daniel and Graham stayed with me as the others left, and the three of us were standing at the side barrier near the stage as I was feeling my chance slip away from me. I got upset. I’m not really a crier, so I didn’t cry or anything, but my heart just broke a bit.

 

Apparently Chris Martin saw my heart breaking. He waved at me from the stage a few meteres away and shouted “HI!” and I waved back and said something like “I’m sorry to distract you, I’m just sad I needed the toilet when you came around to speak to everyone and missed you!” and he said “Well you know how it is: when you gotta go you gotta GO!” and I laughed and made the poor choice of saying back “but I didn’t even go! Everywhere’s closed! AGH!” and he said something like “oh God, I’m sorry, that’s terrible!” He was drawn back into filming again, but I felt a bit better about things, even if I did just have a conversation about my bladder with Chris Martin. I was ready to just leave only half sad, but Graham and Daniel said they wanted to stay on anyway to see if they could meet the rest of the band. I was hesitant, because Chris already saw me being upset that I missed him and I was embarrassed, but I stayed. When he got a free minute about 10 minutes later, he came over to talk to me to make up for it. I think I behaved myself rather well this time. But he made eye contact with me when he shook my hand, and it sounds so disgustingly obsessive and girly to say, but I did wither a bit when I saw how blue his eyes really were. I like, had to look away. He shook my hand and asked my name and said “hey Chelsea, I think I signed your book,” and sure enough, when I’d been on my toilet adventure, Daniel got my Roadie book signed for me from him, with my name and everything. So I got a picture with him…it didn’t come out, but I’ll post it later anyway. I think I could tell he was just tired and ready to go home, and I felt bad taking him away from set for a silly fan picture, but he was just so, so nice despite all that. These guys are such good people.

 

I was ready to be satisfied with that, but I stayed on with Graham and Daniel to catch the rest of the band. And catch them we did. Around 3AM, a bunch of cars pulled round to the back of the set, so we went back there. Guy came out first—he looked worse for wear and was a bit cheesed off and in a rush to get out of there, but he was still so, so nice. I didn’t push him to sign my book, though. Jonny was next: oh, what a lovely man he is. HE SHAVED THE HOBO BEARD, girls. It’s regular scruff now. He seemed excited that we were some of the ones on the boat from earlier, and apologized for the cold, saying he couldn’t believe we’d been out there so long. And then Will. Oh, Will. Will is the nicest man ever. He came right over to us and hugged me and asked us a bit about the boat and took pictures with us and signed things, and acted nothing like he’d spent all night playing the same thing over and over and making nice to the camera over and over. To him, it was 11AM in the morning after a good night’s sleep, not 3AM after working all night. I apologized for keeping him from getting in the car to go home and he just looked at me right in the eye and laughed and said “there’s nothing to be sorry about, you’ve just been in our video for us, this is the least I can do,” or very close to that. The sincerity made me wilt in sheer love.

 

Daniel has the pictures of me with the other three on his camera, so I’ll post them when he sends them to me (and I still have his signed picture as collateral! SORRY, DANIEL! I forgot to get it out of my bag for you), but they all seemed to come out well besides the Chris one, which is just hilariously bad. The Will one was especially cute: he reached over the barrier to put his arms around me.

 

Simon Pegg was there too; he’s in the video. We only shouted hi at him and he waved and asked us how we were, but that’s OK. God, I love that man too. Anyone who knows me knows how obsessed with him and Edgar Wright and Nick Frost I am.

 

I know I haven’t talked about the details of the video shoot or anything: I will say that it’s reminiscent of the LiTii video, minus the puppets, with an old-fashioned stage and kind of a panto-like setup with confetti and fireworks. And the boys wear suits. Real suits and ties. And there’s some awesome camera work going on: Chris rises up from the floor like Frankenstein at the beginning. But they didn’t want details of the shoot itself getting out, so I’m not going to go into great detail about it. People will probably be cranky about that, but we’re all going to get to see it Wednesday, and I’d like to respect their wishes, as they were so gracious to us throughout the whole day, INCLUDING the boat with the drinks that it was “ridiculous” we had to pay for etc etc. I don’t want to enter all the drama I’ve been seeing bits of tonight, but honestly, guys, can we be grateful for what we got? I’d still say the same thing if I hadn’t hung around on set all night and talked to the boys, too. It’s amazing what we got to do, open bar or no open bar, meeting the band or not meeting the band (and I will tell you that the film set was so behind and stressful that they couldn’t have possibly gotten away to meet us—it’s about logistics rather than desire to be there). I know I was one of the ones convinced that the band would be there, and I turned out to be dead wrong, and I’m sorry if I got anyone’s hopes up by talking about it. But when nothing’s promised or confirmed, I don’t think we can turn around and say we deserved to have it when we don’t know all the circumstances behind why things happened the way they did.

 

 

 

 

WARNING: VERY, VERY LONG.

F*cking, f*cking hell you lucky, lucky lady!!!!! So worth waiting in the cold for. You should have bought some tena lady, lol....or just peed your pants like Paula Radcliffe! I so would have been with you at the shoot if I had been there....so HAPPY for you!!!!xx

 

OK, this is really, really sloppy. I hope to have a more coherent version blogged on my personal blogs tomorrow or so if anyone wants to check that at a later point. And I'll post my pictures once they're sent to me! :D

 

 

 

 

I got to the boat early. I didn’t go to the pub because I just needed to make sure I was in the right place at the right time, and I knew everyone would come over soon anyway. The boat was parked (do you park boats?) at the pier, and I could see people setting up, but no one else was around. Other Coldplayers started to trickle in and we made our introductions. News had come only hours before arriving that not only would we not be able to Tweet on the boat, but we would not be able to take pictures, either. This was heartbreaking news, but Debs (DEBS!!!) took all our cameras and phones at the door. At this point I thought the band would still be there at some point, so I was a bit sad, but really my excitement overshadowed all of that.

 

Once we were all on the boat, which took AGES (100 is a lot of people, you know), two guys with a megaphone started to talk to us. They were PAs for a film crew, and they informed us that we were to be part of Coldplay’s next music video. Which a lot of us had guessed in the past week, but it was a lovely surprise nonetheless.

 

We had to sign really, really intense contracts. The first was about them using our image in any way they want. The second was a confidentiality agreement, saying that EMI would find us and kill us if we even talked about this before Wednesday, when the video and song come out. In the end they called EMI and overturned that one, so this is all legal, me posting all this.

 

They played us “Christmas Lights.” It’s very Coldplay, very Viva, but just so great. I teared up the first time I heard it. We had to learn how to sing a bit in the middle, which is very similar to the VIVA chant, so we practiced that about 400 times.

 

And then we all bundled up and went to the top, open-air deck of the boat. We were driven to South Bank on the boat, between the OXO Tower and the National Theatre, where a film set was set up and Coldplay were. The boat was anchored a bit offshore, so we couldn’t see anything of the guys or the set besides the camera shooting us and the lights on us, but it was thrilling anyway. We were each given a balloon, and were instructed to let go of them at a specific point in the song we were singing along to (which they will actually track onto the song, they recorded us singing thousands of times with huge mics). We did four takes over the course of two hours. It was kind of a riot: being told hundreds of times “LET GO OF THE BALLOON ON THE FOURTH ‘OHH’” and “THIS IS JUST A REHEARSAL, DO NOT LET GO OF YOUR BALLOON ON THIS ONE.” It was freezing and we were all politely cutthroat about being at the railing so we’d be visible, but it was just a blast. I was in the very front for all but one take, so I think I’m going to be pretty visible in the video. It was cold and a bit like being in school, but I thought it was epic fun, no matter what other people say.

 

Afterwards, they opened the bar and set up Coldplay karaoke and it was a very nice party. I had a pint, which would damn me later. I didn’t take very many pictures or anything—we didn’t have our cameras or phones most of the time anyway. It was nice to just talk to so many of the people I’ve known only through the internet, or only through meetings at concerts, for years. It’s also a shame, though, because there’s so much going on and so many people that you just can’t talk to everyone. I missed out on really talking to a bunch of people. But I would like to say that I love Debs Wild. This is not news, but she’s just such a nice person, and so lovely to talk to. I got a shite picture with her, and she’s just so adorable. I want to be Debs Wild.

 

We pulled back into the pier around 10. A few of us (me, Anna, Jamie, and Daniel, most notably) decided to go back to South Bank on the off chance the band was still shooting. We, or I should say I, wasn’t getting my hopes up. We walked along the river for about half an hour to get to where the shoot was (I have a stupidly keen sense of direction, and I lived in London for a bit, so that’s why it was so easy to find), and the scenery and security were still there and everything, and we freaked out. They let us watch as long as we didn’t take pictures, again, for confidentiality reasons.

 

I was on a live film set from 11 at night til 3 in the morning with Coldplay. I saw the entire thing being shot, I know every word of “Christmas Lights” now. Regardless of who was in the shoot and what they were filming, it was FASCINATING to see how a real film set works. I could never be an actor, or a musician, or anyone who has to do all that over and over and over. Nerves were frayed, from crew and band alike, I think. They were running hours late and there were technical problems and sound problems, but it’s not like it was all a shambles, either: I think this is just how film sets run. There were BRILLIANT takes that made me just hug myself for how much I love these guys.

 

Phil came over and talked to us for a while, a good while. We talked about the boat and he answered some Coldplay-related questions for us, like how he came up with the name “Politik” (he was impressed we knew that he was the one that did: it’s from Karl Marx’s realpolitik, which isn’t exactly hard to work out). He said he meant to be on the boat with us, but got asked to be in the video instead. I said that made total sense, but I was actually looking forward to the Q&A with him, and he apologized and I said there was no need to, because we were talking now.But what a nice man. Oh my gosh.

 

It was also FUCKING FREEZING. Well, I mean, I have a very high tolerance for cold, so I’ve been colder, but it was not comfortable. My bigger problem was that I had to pee, and had since 10 when we left the boat and I downed a pint. All I wanted was a toilet, honestly.

 

I waited from about 10 to about 2, when really nice crew people that gave us handwarmers told me where a public toilet was. I ran to it. It was locked. I came back, the security guards told me how to break into the one at the OXO tower. I ran there. I couldn’t do it: the codes they gave me for the keypads were behind padlocked gates. And I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that I was missing what I waited all those hours for. I’m psychic like that.

 

I ran back, still bursting for a loo. I saw the others walking away from the scene, and I just knew they’d met the band. They looked at me and said “we’re really sorry…Chris came out and hugged us and signed things and took a group picture.” And I saw the autographs in their hands and I just couldn’t believe that I missed him. Daniel and Graham stayed with me as the others left, and the three of us were standing at the side barrier near the stage as I was feeling my chance slip away from me. I got upset. I’m not really a crier, so I didn’t cry or anything, but my heart just broke a bit.

 

Apparently Chris Martin saw my heart breaking. He waved at me from the stage a few meteres away and shouted “HI!” and I waved back and said something like “I’m sorry to distract you, I’m just sad I needed the toilet when you came around to speak to everyone and missed you!” and he said “Well you know how it is: when you gotta go you gotta GO!” and I laughed and made the poor choice of saying back “but I didn’t even go! Everywhere’s closed! AGH!” and he said something like “oh God, I’m sorry, that’s terrible!” He was drawn back into filming again, but I felt a bit better about things, even if I did just have a conversation about my bladder with Chris Martin. I was ready to just leave only half sad, but Graham and Daniel said they wanted to stay on anyway to see if they could meet the rest of the band. I was hesitant, because Chris already saw me being upset that I missed him and I was embarrassed, but I stayed. When he got a free minute about 10 minutes later, he came over to talk to me to make up for it. I think I behaved myself rather well this time. But he made eye contact with me when he shook my hand, and it sounds so disgustingly obsessive and girly to say, but I did wither a bit when I saw how blue his eyes really were. I like, had to look away. He shook my hand and asked my name and said “hey Chelsea, I think I signed your book,” and sure enough, when I’d been on my toilet adventure, Daniel got my Roadie book signed for me from him, with my name and everything. So I got a picture with him…it didn’t come out, but I’ll post it later anyway. I think I could tell he was just tired and ready to go home, and I felt bad taking him away from set for a silly fan picture, but he was just so, so nice despite all that. These guys are such good people.

 

I was ready to be satisfied with that, but I stayed on with Graham and Daniel to catch the rest of the band. And catch them we did. Around 3AM, a bunch of cars pulled round to the back of the set, so we went back there. Guy came out first—he looked worse for wear and was a bit cheesed off and in a rush to get out of there, but he was still so, so nice. I didn’t push him to sign my book, though. Jonny was next: oh, what a lovely man he is. HE SHAVED THE HOBO BEARD, girls. It’s regular scruff now. He seemed excited that we were some of the ones on the boat from earlier, and apologized for the cold, saying he couldn’t believe we’d been out there so long. And then Will. Oh, Will. Will is the nicest man ever. He came right over to us and hugged me and asked us a bit about the boat and took pictures with us and signed things, and acted nothing like he’d spent all night playing the same thing over and over and making nice to the camera over and over. To him, it was 11AM in the morning after a good night’s sleep, not 3AM after working all night. I apologized for keeping him from getting in the car to go home and he just looked at me right in the eye and laughed and said “there’s nothing to be sorry about, you’ve just been in our video for us, this is the least I can do,” or very close to that. The sincerity made me wilt in sheer love.

 

Daniel has the pictures of me with the other three on his camera, so I’ll post them when he sends them to me (and I still have his signed picture as collateral! SORRY, DANIEL! I forgot to get it out of my bag for you), but they all seemed to come out well besides the Chris one, which is just hilariously bad. The Will one was especially cute: he reached over the barrier to put his arms around me.

 

Simon Pegg was there too; he’s in the video. We only shouted hi at him and he waved and asked us how we were, but that’s OK. God, I love that man too. Anyone who knows me knows how obsessed with him and Edgar Wright and Nick Frost I am.

 

I know I haven’t talked about the details of the video shoot or anything: I will say that it’s reminiscent of the LiTii video, minus the puppets, with an old-fashioned stage and kind of a panto-like setup with confetti and fireworks. And the boys wear suits. Real suits and ties. And there’s some awesome camera work going on: Chris rises up from the floor like Frankenstein at the beginning. But they didn’t want details of the shoot itself getting out, so I’m not going to go into great detail about it. People will probably be cranky about that, but we’re all going to get to see it Wednesday, and I’d like to respect their wishes, as they were so gracious to us throughout the whole day, INCLUDING the boat with the drinks that it was “ridiculous” we had to pay for etc etc. I don’t want to enter all the drama I’ve been seeing bits of tonight, but honestly, guys, can we be grateful for what we got? I’d still say the same thing if I hadn’t hung around on set all night and talked to the boys, too. It’s amazing what we got to do, open bar or no open bar, meeting the band or not meeting the band (and I will tell you that the film set was so behind and stressful that they couldn’t have possibly gotten away to meet us—it’s about logistics rather than desire to be there). I know I was one of the ones convinced that the band would be there, and I turned out to be dead wrong, and I’m sorry if I got anyone’s hopes up by talking about it. But when nothing’s promised or confirmed, I don’t think we can turn around and say we deserved to have it when we don’t know all the circumstances behind why things happened the way they did.

 

 

 

 

WARNING: VERY, VERY LONG.

Thank you! :kiss:

This makes me so much more excited for Dec. 1st! :awesome:

OK then ignore Phil...one person couldn't make it...no problem, we'd all understand (even though it was never explained to us), but all 3 of the promised guests? Two of whom were obviously a smokescreen. Please!!

 

If you read on one of the previous pages, Matt was sick. So that only leaves Miller who didn't show without an excuse... At least Debs showed up, right? You should have talked to her about your dissatisfaction on the boat!

Wow!!! Sorry about the pee pee issue, but I'm happy that you were able to meet the boy's and thank-you for sharing your adventures with us!!

Miller was working very hard at the shoot, for the record. He was very involved.

 

Phil was in it and Miller was doing tech and camera things. I think that's a good alibi, for me, anyway. Didn't meet him or talk to him though.

So did anyone say anything about LP5? Just wondering. :P

Wow Chelsea!!!

That sounds like major fun!

Thanks for sharing all of that! :kiss:

Also, I edited a bit of my wording in my story...I'm sorry if some of the ways I said things sounded odd, like I made myself sound cool for finding where the shoot was even though any moron could have followed the river and found it too! :P I just meant that it wasn't a big secret where they were shooting and that it was easy to find if you knew what you were looking for and what direction to head in. And I'm really tired and my phrasing and tone and judgement are off :P

 

Also, as a pseudonym for the band, all the crew passes etc. read "SNOWY OWL" so people walking by didn't freak out at the name COLDPLAY splayed everywhere. Imagine that kind of fame: you can't use your own names, but you also can't use your BAND name for security reasons.

 

Apparently Chris Martin saw my heart breaking. He waved at me from the stage a few meteres away and shouted “HI!” and I waved back and said something like “I’m sorry to distract you, I’m just sad I needed the toilet when you came around to speak to everyone and missed you!” and he said “Well you know how it is: when you gotta go you gotta GO!” and I laughed and made the poor choice of saying back “but I didn’t even go! Everywhere’s closed! AGH!” and he said something like “oh God, I’m sorry, that’s terrible!” He was drawn back into filming again, but I felt a bit better about things, even if I did just have a conversation about my bladder with Chris Martin.

 

hahahahaha, I'm actually sitting here laughing out loud. I think this is my favorite meeting Coldplay story ever :laugh3: :laugh3:

 

but seriously, CONGRATULATIONS, Chelsea! so fucking amazing :)

OK, this is really, really sloppy. I hope to have a more coherent version blogged on my personal blogs tomorrow or so if anyone wants to check that at a later point. And I'll post my pictures once they're sent to me! :D

 

 

 

 

I got to the boat early. I didn’t go to the pub because I just needed to make sure I was in the right place at the right time, and I knew everyone would come over soon anyway. The boat was parked (do you park boats?) at the pier, and I could see people setting up, but no one else was around. Other Coldplayers started to trickle in and we made our introductions. News had come only hours before arriving that not only would we not be able to Tweet on the boat, but we would not be able to take pictures, either. This was heartbreaking news, but Debs (DEBS!!!) took all our cameras and phones at the door. At this point I thought the band would still be there at some point, so I was a bit sad, but really my excitement overshadowed all of that.

 

Once we were all on the boat, which took AGES (100 is a lot of people, you know), two guys with a megaphone started to talk to us. They were PAs for a film crew, and they informed us that we were to be part of Coldplay’s next music video. Which a lot of us had guessed in the past week, but it was a lovely surprise nonetheless.

 

We had to sign really, really intense contracts. The first was about them using our image in any way they want. The second was a confidentiality agreement, saying that EMI would find us and kill us if we even talked about this before Wednesday, when the video and song come out. In the end they called EMI and overturned that one, so this is all legal, me posting all this.

 

They played us “Christmas Lights.” It’s very Coldplay, very Viva, but just so great. I teared up the first time I heard it. We had to learn how to sing a bit in the middle, which is very similar to the VIVA chant, so we practiced that about 400 times.

 

And then we all bundled up and went to the top, open-air deck of the boat. We were driven to South Bank on the boat, between the OXO Tower and the National Theatre, where a film set was set up and Coldplay were. The boat was anchored a bit offshore, so we couldn’t see anything of the guys or the set besides the camera shooting us and the lights on us, but it was thrilling anyway. We were each given a balloon, and were instructed to let go of them at a specific point in the song we were singing along to (which they will actually track onto the song, they recorded us singing thousands of times with huge mics). We did four takes over the course of two hours. It was kind of a riot: being told hundreds of times “LET GO OF THE BALLOON ON THE FOURTH ‘OHH’” and “THIS IS JUST A REHEARSAL, DO NOT LET GO OF YOUR BALLOON ON THIS ONE.” It was freezing and we were all politely cutthroat about being at the railing so we’d be visible, but it was just a blast. I was in the very front for all but one take, so I think I’m going to be pretty visible in the video. It was cold and a bit like being in school, but I thought it was epic fun, no matter what other people say.

 

Afterwards, they opened the bar and set up Coldplay karaoke and it was a very nice party. I had a pint, which would damn me later. I didn’t take very many pictures or anything—we didn’t have our cameras or phones most of the time anyway. It was nice to just talk to so many of the people I’ve known only through the internet, or only through meetings at concerts, for years. It’s also a shame, though, because there’s so much going on and so many people that you just can’t talk to everyone. I missed out on really talking to a bunch of people. But I would like to say that I love Debs Wild. This is not news, but she’s just such a nice person, and so lovely to talk to. I got a shite picture with her, and she’s just so adorable. I want to be Debs Wild.

 

We pulled back into the pier around 10. A few of us (me, Anna, Jamie, and Daniel come to mind first) decided to go back to South Bank on the off chance the band was still shooting. We, or I should say I, wasn’t getting my hopes up. We walked along the river for about half an hour to get to where the shoot was (I have a stupidly keen sense of direction) and the scenery and security were still there and everything, and we freaked out. They let us watch as long as we didn’t take pictures, again, for confidentiality reasons.

 

I was on a live film set from 11 at night til 3 in the morning with Coldplay. I saw the entire thing being shot, I know every word of “Christmas Lights” now. Regardless of who was in the shoot and what they were filming, it was FASCINATING to see how a real film set works. I could never be an actor, or a musician, or anyone who has to do all that over and over and over. Nerves were frayed, from crew and band alike, I think. They were running hours late and there were technical problems and sound problems, but it’s not like it was all a shambles, either: I think this is just how film sets run. There were BRILLIANT takes that made me just hug myself for how much I love these guys.

 

Phil came over and talked to us for a while, a good while. We talked about the boat and he answered some Coldplay-related questions for us, like how he came up with the name “Politik” (he was impressed we knew that he was the one that did: it’s from Karl Marx’s realpolitik, which isn’t exactly hard to work out). He said he meant to be on the boat with us, but got asked to be in the video instead. I said that made total sense, but I was actually looking forward to the Q&A with him, and he apologized and I said there was no need to, because we were talking now.But what a nice man. Oh my gosh.

 

It was also FUCKING FREEZING. Well, I mean, I have a very high tolerance for cold, so I’ve been colder, but it was not comfortable. My bigger problem was that I had to pee, and had since 10 when we left the boat and I downed a pint. All I wanted was a toilet, honestly.

 

I waited from about 10 to about 2, when really nice crew people that gave us handwarmers told me where a public toilet was. I ran to it. It was locked. I came back, the security guards told me how to break into the one at the OXO tower. I ran there. I couldn’t do it: the codes they gave me for the keypads were behind padlocked gates. And I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that I was missing what I waited all those hours for. I’m psychic like that.

 

I ran back, still bursting for a loo. I saw the others walking away from the scene, and I just knew they’d met the band. They looked at me and said “we’re really sorry…Chris came out and hugged us and signed things and took a group picture.” And I saw the autographs in their hands and I just couldn’t believe that I missed him. Daniel and Graham stayed with me as the others left, and the three of us were standing at the side barrier near the stage as I was feeling my chance slip away from me. I got upset. I’m not really a crier, so I didn’t cry or anything, but my heart just broke a bit.

 

Apparently Chris Martin saw my heart breaking. He waved at me from the stage a few meteres away and shouted “HI!” and I waved back and said something like “I’m sorry to distract you, I’m just sad I needed the toilet when you came around to speak to everyone and missed you!” and he said “Well you know how it is: when you gotta go you gotta GO!” and I laughed and made the poor choice of saying back “but I didn’t even go! Everywhere’s closed! AGH!” and he said something like “oh God, I’m sorry, that’s terrible!” He was drawn back into filming again, but I felt a bit better about things, even if I did just have a conversation about my bladder with Chris Martin. I was ready to just leave only half sad, but Graham and Daniel said they wanted to stay on anyway to see if they could meet the rest of the band. I was hesitant, because Chris already saw me being upset that I missed him and I was embarrassed, but I stayed. When he got a free minute about 10 minutes later, he came over to talk to me to make up for it. I think I behaved myself rather well this time. But he made eye contact with me when he shook my hand, and it sounds so disgustingly obsessive and girly to say, but I did wither a bit when I saw how blue his eyes really were. I like, had to look away. He shook my hand and asked my name and said “hey Chelsea, I think I signed your book,” and sure enough, when I’d been on my toilet adventure, Daniel got my Roadie book signed for me from him, with my name and everything. So I got a picture with him…it didn’t come out, but I’ll post it later anyway. I think I could tell he was just tired and ready to go home, and I felt bad taking him away from set for a silly fan picture, but he was just so, so nice despite all that. These guys are such good people.

 

I was ready to be satisfied with that, but I stayed on with Graham and Daniel to catch the rest of the band. And catch them we did. Around 3AM, a bunch of cars pulled round to the back of the set, so we went back there. Guy came out first—he looked worse for wear and was a bit cheesed off and in a rush to get out of there, but he was still so, so nice. I didn’t push him to sign my book, though. Jonny was next: oh, what a lovely man he is. HE SHAVED THE HOBO BEARD, girls. It’s regular scruff now. He seemed excited that we were some of the ones on the boat from earlier, and apologized for the cold, saying he couldn’t believe we’d been out there so long. And then Will. Oh, Will. Will is the nicest man ever. He came right over to us and hugged me and asked us a bit about the boat and took pictures with us and signed things, and acted nothing like he’d spent all night playing the same thing over and over and making nice to the camera over and over. To him, it was 11AM in the morning after a good night’s sleep, not 3AM after working all night. I apologized for keeping him from getting in the car to go home and he just looked at me right in the eye and laughed and said “there’s nothing to be sorry about, you’ve just been in our video for us, this is the least I can do,” or very close to that. The sincerity made me wilt in sheer love.

 

Daniel has the pictures of me with the other three on his camera, so I’ll post them when he sends them to me (and I still have his signed picture as collateral! SORRY, DANIEL! I forgot to get it out of my bag for you), but they all seemed to come out well besides the Chris one, which is just hilariously bad. The Will one was especially cute: he reached over the barrier to put his arms around me.

 

Simon Pegg was there too; he’s in the video. We only shouted hi at him and he waved and asked us how we were, but that’s OK. God, I love that man too. Anyone who knows me knows how obsessed with him and Edgar Wright and Nick Frost I am.

 

I know I haven’t talked about the details of the video shoot or anything: I will say that it’s reminiscent of the LiTii video, minus the puppets, with an old-fashioned stage and kind of a panto-like setup with confetti and fireworks. And the boys wear suits. Real suits and ties. And there’s some awesome camera work going on: Chris rises up from the floor like Frankenstein at the beginning. But they didn’t want details of the shoot itself getting out, so I’m not going to go into great detail about it. People will probably be cranky about that, but we’re all going to get to see it Wednesday, and I’d like to respect their wishes, as they were so gracious to us throughout the whole day, INCLUDING the boat with the drinks that it was “ridiculous” we had to pay for etc etc. I don’t want to enter all the drama I’ve been seeing bits of tonight, but honestly, guys, can we be grateful for what we got? I’d still say the same thing if I hadn’t hung around on set all night and talked to the boys, too. It’s amazing what we got to do, open bar or no open bar, meeting the band or not meeting the band (and I will tell you that the film set was so behind and stressful that they couldn’t have possibly gotten away to meet us—it’s about logistics rather than desire to be there). I know I was one of the ones convinced that the band would be there, and I turned out to be dead wrong, and I’m sorry if I got anyone’s hopes up by talking about it. But when nothing’s promised or confirmed, I don’t think we can turn around and say we deserved to have it when we don’t know all the circumstances behind why things happened the way they did.

 

 

 

 

WARNING: VERY, VERY LONG.

 

That's fantastic! Thanks so much for staying up to write up a review! I'm so glad you got meet the whole band and sounds like they were very appreciative of your efforts (even though some on here seem to think they weren't). Like I said before, your story evidences the trials of a film shoot, and people tend to not think about all the logistics involved that might result in last minute changes, delays, etc.

 

So happy for you, and can't wait for the pics!

So did anyone say anything about LP5? Just wondering. :P

 

No, I didn't even ask. I might get beat up for that, but honestly, it's intimidating talking to your heroes, let alone ask them band questions, and I felt bad enough tearing them away from the set or getting home faster, so I wasn't going to badger them with questions that they must hear every damn day anyway. Every other word out of my mouth was "thank you," whether it was for today or just for talking to us or for all of their work and music thus far, and I felt that thanking them and just kind of shooting the breeze about the weather or the boat (or my fucking bladder) was politer and more fitting than trying to pump them for info. I'm really sorry, guys, seriously :sad:. I just went with the flow and the flow was "don't keep them, thank them, apologize for being annoying and staring at them all night and hanging around like leeches."

It's fine! :D

It's still nice to hear all the stories! :D

So do you have any idea when you are getting those pictures eh? :wink3:

I really don't know, I have to find and contact Daniel through the board, and I know he's a new member and stuff so that could take awhile...

 

I'll share my Chris one tomorrow night GMT, but it's blurry, I look like a frog, and Chris's eyes are open SO WIDE it's kind of scary :P.

Chelsea, did you tell Debs that you worked on the postcards project? :idea2:

 

man, that was so long ago now :surprised:

I really don't know, I have to find and contact Daniel through the board, and I know he's a new member and stuff so that could take awhile...

 

I'll share my Chris one tomorrow night GMT, but it's blurry, I look like a frog, and Chris's eyes are open SO WIDE it's kind of scary :P.

 

Coolio! :cool:

Chelsea,

Enjoyed your account so much..Im glad you got so much out of it..

 

Nice to read a really positive story:)

Apparently Chris Martin saw my heart breaking. He waved at me from the stage a few meteres away and shouted “HI!” and I waved back and said something like “I’m sorry to distract you, I’m just sad I needed the toilet when you came around to speak to everyone and missed you!” and he said “Well you know how it is: when you gotta go you gotta GO!” and I laughed and made the poor choice of saying back “but I didn’t even go! Everywhere’s closed! AGH!” and he said something like “oh God, I’m sorry, that’s terrible!”

 

for some odd reason, i hear a British accent when I read your quotes talking to Chris, but you're not British :P

 

what an awesome story, thanks for sharing :)

 

and FYI, i think boats dock, not park ;)

If you read on one of the previous pages, Matt was sick. So that only leaves Miller who didn't show without an excuse... At least Debs showed up, right? You should have talked to her about your dissatisfaction on the boat!

 

Do you know anything? Miller was never coming, Phil was probably a smokescreen as he would have been planned in the vid a long time in advance. Having actually been on the boat we were told that EVERYTHING (get that?) was a 'trick' to get us there to film the video.

 

I'll talk to debs as and when I please thanks, as I always do. In the meantime, you might like to notice that this is a discussion forum, which is why I'm discussing things here :)

 

Miller was working very hard at the shoot, for the record. He was very involved.

 

Phil was in it and Miller was doing tech and camera things. I think that's a good alibi, for me, anyway. Didn't meet him or talk to him though.

 

Exactly, Miller was a lie. Not very happy about that.

Chelsea, did you tell Debs that you worked on the postcards project? :idea2:

 

man, that was so long ago now :surprised:

 

Haha, I thought about it, but no, I didn't :P. I just am not a big toot-my-own-horn sort of person (except some of the lines I wrote in that post may beg to differ :uhoh:), and I was just embarrassed. She said she put my name to my face, though, so I assume that means she remembers me in some way, and I assume that means Postcards?

 

It's 6AM. Fucking hell. I have to check out of my hotel by 10:30. Should I sleep at all?