Turning pressure into brilliance - Coldplay's pivotal moment at Glastonbury

[Sparky]

Ahead of headlining Glastonbury for the first time on June 28th 2002, the nervous four piece, Coldplay were anticipating what was probably their most important live date in their careers. Publicly, opinions were split on the British band. Their first album, 'Parachutes' was a huge success but they had their critics, such as Alan McGee, who labelled the band as "bed-wetters". The band did not have any doubts in their ability though and so much so, they decided to perform a set with eight new songs. As if the pressure wasn't enough already!

 

And within a blink of an eye, Chris sat at his piano, Will behind his drum set, Jonny strummed his guitar, Guy readied his bass and all of the pressure, nerves and pre-conceptions were gone, as Coldplay delivered a fine and mighty set, as the crowd went 'bananas' for tracks off their new album, 'A Rush Of Blood To The Head'. There's a fine line between good and great. Their mental resolve had taken them up to greatness and it's stuck with them ever since.

 

 

Long time Coldplay fan, Matthew Ceiley writes on Youtube of the defining moment:

 

I was there at this gig, faithless were on before these guys, i wasn't going to stay because i thought they were going to be boring, and faithless were awesome. my mates went back to the tent to get drunk and i decided to give them 3 songs to see what their new stuff was like. It was one of the best decisions i have made to this day. That was single handily the best performance i have seen by any band. To hear politic, the scientist, god put a smile, in my place and clocks for the first time was an imminence feeling. it changed a lot of things for me, i bought the album and every single and watched them 6 times on the rush of blood tour. I am so glad that i was their to witness the rise of coldplay. Thanks guys for making it a night i will remember for ever.

 

Roadie 42 blog

 

Link to Coldplay.com timeline post

 

Looking back on this, I remember only one thing: pressure.

 

 

If we set aside the simple weight of being a festival headliner for the first time and look beyond that, the amount hingeing of the day was much more significant.

 

 

In addition to being the date they’d been building towards throughout the entire recording of Rush Of Blood, this performance would very likely set up how the album would be received. The intention was for the album to be out before Glastonbury. Recording ran later and later until it was obvious that wasn’t going to happen.

 

 

If this show was a disaster, most discussion about the new record would be tainted by talk of their disappointing Glastonbury set.

 

 

And make no mistake, it could very easily have been a disaster. They weren’t months into a tour, with all the swagger and slickness that brings, they were still learning how to play the new songs. The crowd had only heard In My Place – the rest of the new material was completely foreign to them at this point. That’s the folks in the crowd who were actually even familiar with the older stuff! This was a festival crowd after all and a certain proportion of them might have only known Yellow.

 

 

Many bands with spectacular starts to their career begin to stall on their second record. It’s often the beginning of the slip towards “oh yeah – whatever happened to them?”. A stinker of a show here certainly wouldn’t have helped put them on the right track.

 

 

This is all overthink, without a doubt. One thing’s for sure though: if there’s one man prone to a little recreational catastrophising, it’s Mr Martin.

So yes – pressure.

 

 

Coldplay have a habit, though, of throwing themselves into situations that by rights, should crush them – and they have a habit of rising quite spectacularly to the occasion. This show is perhaps the strongest demonstration of this.

 

 

They came out swinging with Politik. Bigger Stronger indeed! They might have been shaking, but they showed the world a new Coldplay – and the world (or at least the representatives of it standing in the tens of thousands in this farmers field in Somerset) went bananas.

 

 

And yes – the laser in Clocks *did* look awesome.

R42

 

 

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