[5-11-2021] Coldplay open BRIT Awards with brand new single Higher Power

[Gideon_Mx]

 

INFO

> Coldplay Set to Open 2021 Brit Awards | Billboard

> Coldplay announced as opening act for 2021 BRIT Awards | NME

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Gideon_Mx

[Coeurli]

Alright folks! Streaming starts soon!  

 

 

[Suhit]

Oooh! I'm excited! This is the first time I'm tuning into a live stream of a Coldplay performance since the early festival shows of MX. (Coincidence then, that I'm catching them live for what could very likely be MX pt. 2?). 

Well, actually, I did watch the live broadcast of EL live in Amman, but for some reason I think of that broadcast as a film, rather than a streamed live concert.

Also, I can't imagine watching this stream alone, so I had to post here and say hello to everyone else who's watching along!

[Suhit]

Now that was a great performance of Higher Power! Damn! Those fireworks made an already energetic song so much more powerful!
But hang on, was this really live, or did they use the footage from last week when they rehearsed? Because I'm really wondering how they managed to have the (wonderful) ambiguous dancing company VFXed into a live stream. 

I also loved the camera flying through the fireworks in the chorus. Whenever they get back to tour, it's going to be amazing!

[maeli]

19 minutes ago, Suhit said:

Now that was a great performance of Higher Power! Damn! Those fireworks made an already energetic song so much more powerful!
But hang on, was this really live, or did they use the footage from last week when they rehearsed? Because I'm really wondering how they managed to have the (wonderful) ambiguous dancing company VFXed into a live stream. 

I also loved the camera flying through the fireworks in the chorus. Whenever they get back to tour, it's going to be amazing!

It was recorded last week…

Edited May 11, 2021 by maeli

[Bauk]

Was it really just now broadcasted? I came home 15 min ago thinking I had already missed it anyway ?

Edited May 11, 2021 by Bauk

[timyyy]

Download available HERE

[Coeurli]

Well ohmygod that was the BEST TV Coldplay performance!!!!   

I'm so hyped!!!! Hope we get LOADS of HD pics from it cause there are so many cool and amazing shots!!

This is era is going to be incredible!!!! Drones!! Fireworks! The boys were AMAZING!!! The live mix is so good!!!

The first second actually startled me  They are starting this era with a BANG and i'm here for it!!

[Gideon_Mx]

Well that was amazing and very short!

[Bauk]

Thanks Tim! Amazing performance, they look so happy! ?

[MosesTheMarshmallow]

I was worried they were going to destroy their own drone with those fireworks. ? 

Guy has a good smile in the first verse. ? 

[Gideon_Mx]

2 hours ago, maeli said:

It was recorded last week…

That's what I thought. It looked like it was pre-recorded. It's also probably the exact same recording like the American Idol performance  

Edited May 11, 2021 by Gideon_Mx

[timyyy]

 

[harrisonrules]

One of the amps in back has 5 kao symbols looks like LIO Possibly in first 3

Could it be Lions?

[Gideon_Mx]

10 minutes ago, harrisonrules said:

One of the amps in back has 5 kao symbols looks like LIO Possibly in first 3

Could it be Lions?

''Light'' it says!

It was also seen in the video for Higher Power! The other amplifier (in the music video) says ''love''.

[CP-EST]

Even if there was tiny bit, what was actually recorded live from this performance it still has a lot of post production. I'm still waiting to hear it when they actually perform it live without hiding behind any perfect post production or perfected miming.

Still, very effective performance visually.

[anniea89]

That was lovely! I especially enjoyed Chris's daggy dad dance moves towards the end (3:19)

[Gideon_Mx]

13 hours ago, CP-EST said:

Even if there was tiny bit, what was actually recorded live from this performance it still has a lot of post production. I'm still waiting to hear it when they actually perform it live without hiding behind any perfect post production or perfected miming.

Exactly, same here. Waiting for a real LIVE performance that doesn't sound "perfect because of the post production, however it's called. The Live at Worthy Farm show will be more of a live performance (that hasn't already mixed all the instruments beforehand), hopefully!

The American Idol and BRITs performances of Higher Power (both (probably) pre-recorded) are great but they are (promo)performances to just promote the new single after all. So I'm really looking forward to the real live performances of Higher Power, it will always sound a bit different (which is a good thing)!

Edited May 12, 2021 by Gideon_Mx

[CP-EST]

5 minutes ago, Gideon_Mx said:

Exactly, same here. Waiting for a real LIVE performance that doesn't sound "perfect because of the post production, however it's called. The Live at Worthy Farm show will be more of a live performance (that hasn't already mixed all the instruments beforehand), hopefully!

The American Idol and BRITs performances of Higher Power (both (probably) pre-recorded) are great but they are (promo)performances to just promote the new single after all.

I mean it's ok to make these perfect pre-recorded versions for TV promotion, that's what artists do these days, although it's annoying for people who pay attention. Also it's annoying that a lot people are tricked and think that artists actually sound so good.

Idols and BRITs were pre-recorded definitely, they did it last week already I guess, so absolutely nothing purely live about them. I'm just not very sure how it was technically done. After quickly going through both "live performances" this is just an hypothesis. For American Idol they recorded the whole band actually and created a "perfect live version", there probably was several attempts mixed together. Everything was mixed and edited to sound close to perfect - meaning heavy post production. In BRITs they just recorded some little bits (maybe just some vocals) and mixed these into this "perfect live version". As you said in another thread there are very subtle differences in vocals. So maybe it's true, knowing that for Super Bowl was just live vocals as well, wasn't it?

But we also know they are capable sounding really good in actual live performance. Everyday Life live performance on YouTube raised some suspicions that it was pre-recorded and I read somewhere that their sound guys were actually a bit insulted by that. ?

Waiting for that Worthy Farm performance for sure!

[Gideon_Mx]

30 minutes ago, CP-EST said:

As you said in another thread there are very subtle differences in vocals. So maybe it's true, knowing that for Super Bowl was just live vocals as well, wasn't it?

But we also know they are capable sounding really good in actual live performance. Everyday Life live performance on YouTube raised some suspicions that it was pre-recorded and I read somewhere that their sound guys were actually a bit insulted by that.

 

Yes, that's right. All the instruments were mixed and pre-recorded for the Superbowl Halftime show in 2016. Except for Chris's vocals, + the other artists that have sung on Coldplay's songs I guess.

About the Everyday Life (Live in Jordan) performance, it's been all over the internet (YouTube/Twitter/Coldplaying) that Chris's vocals during the first song, Church, were NOT live. Everyone was thinking the same thing.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Gideon_Mx

[CP-EST]

2 minutes ago, Gideon_Mx said:

Yes, that's right. All the instruments were mixed and pre-recorded for the Superbowl Halftime show in 2016. Except for Chris's vocals and the other artists I guess.

About the Everyday Life (Live in Jordan) performance, it's gone all over the internet (YouTube/Twitter/Coldplaying) that Chris's vocals during the first song, Church, were NOT live. Everyone was thinking the same thing.

Oh yeah! I was just talking about this Everday Life Live in Jordan performance generally, which was really good. Chris's vocals in Church are definitely not live, although it somehow seemed that there was possibility of clever mixing with live vocal and pre-recorded/studio vocal track. It's really difficult to tell actually, but it stands out that it is not 100% live.

[atlas2000]

Would anyone have the audio that is available on Amazon? I've tried multiple times to purchase it but it seems to be region-locked for me here in Ireland 

[jossec]

Coldplay have a long history of making their live music less live than one would initially assume in various ways. They’ve been evolving up to this point over the years.

They like to have control over their live performances after the fact. They go to town on the post-production whenever they get the chance. For their iTunes festival concert in 2014 it took multiple days before Coldplay’s VOD was available after the live stream, while other artists had their VODs up immediately after broadcast. When it finally arrived it was clear that the audio was tampered with. They’d adjusted the mix and fixed mistakes (most notably Chris’ mistake on Atlas) but also messed up by introducing artefacts throughout.

It’s easily verifiable that many of their live releases didn’t actually originate where they claimed to be, simply by comparing the release with fan-recorded footage. For example, the track names of the CD of Ghost Stories Live indicate where they where supposedly recorded, but those locations are largely just a lie. The Tokyo Remix of Something Just Like This differs clearly from the actual Tokyo performance if you look it up on YouTube.

Then there’s the habit of reusing audio. Again take the Tokyo Remix of Something Just Like This, which was reused for the Buenos Aires CD, including vocals. On Love in Tokyo all the tracks sounded exactly the same as their Buenos Aires equivalents aside from some superficial differences. The audio of the alternative version of Always In My Head on Ghost Stories Live (the one with an audience) is exactly the same as the main one, except the crowd noise that was added.

The instrumentals for Clocks during their performance at the iHeartRadio Music Festival 2020 were the same ones as those used for the Ghost Stories TV special from 2014. (The lead vocal track was different, and the instrumentals are mixed slightly differently.) Yes that’s right, they took the time to film new footage of the band playing the song, and probably spent a lot of money on those visual effects, but didn’t bother making the musical performance authentic.

There’s lots of fakery on stage. Backing vocals are rarely live. Lead vocals are sometimes not live, or live with auxiliary tracks. When Jonny or Guy play on keys it’s usually muted. Acoustic guitars are usually augmented with more acoustic guitar in a backing track. The laser harp during Midnight sure looked cool but Guy never played it live. (You could see him play a mistake at one point but you didn’t hear it.) So if you see a band member playing anything besides their main instrument, it’s a pretty safe assumption that you’re not hearing what they’re playing. (I know that there are exceptions.)

Besides the clearly lip-synced vocals on Church in Jordan, people questioned whether it was realistic to make the instruments, especially the drums, sound so good in such an environment. While I don’t have hard proof of fakery, I have to agree with them.

Knowing all this, it should surprise nobody that these “live” performances of Higher Power are really just music videos to a studio mix. (Was that badly applied autotune really necessary though?)

The use of backing tracks at all, starting with In My Place at the end of the Parachutes era, was the first blow to the musical integrity of their live performances. Since then it’s been a slippery slope of ever-more non-liveness in various ways. These days, generally, if they can make something sound better – or just be lazy – by faking it, they’ll do it without hesitation, it seems.

These most recent videos are more of a pop act than a musical performance. What it comes down to, I guess, is that they mostly cater to their main audience, who enjoy the richly textured, highly melodic music and the visually interesting show, but aren’t necessarily their biggest fans. That audience is their bread and butter after all. Clearly, musical integrity isn’t as important to this audience as it is to some of us. Coldplay’s main concern is that their show is as good as it can be, and they’re probably making the right tradeoffs. They definitely succeed in putting on a great show. But it is a bit unfortunate for us die-hard, overanalysing fans.

Over time I’ve gotten less and less excited about any of their live output, but I guess the most healthy attitude is to enjoy what they’re putting out there for what it is. If you desire musical integrity, maybe look elsewhere. There are enough musicians that value it more highly than Coldplay do. I’m mostly happy that they can still make new music that’s interesting and enjoyable, for both fans and the general audience, at this point in their career. I’m excited for the new album.

[Captain Crieff]

35 minutes ago, jossec said:

Then there’s the habit of reusing audio. Again take the Tokyo Remix of Something Just Like This, which was reused for the Buenos Aires CD, including vocals. On Love in Tokyo all the tracks sounded exactly the same as their Buenos Aires equivalents aside from some superficial differences. The audio of the alternative version of Always In My Head on Ghost Stories Live (the one with an audience) is exactly the same as the main one, except the crowd noise that was added.

The instrumentals for Clocks during their performance at the iHeartRadio Music Festival 2020 were the same ones as those used for the Ghost Stories TV special from 2014. (The lead vocal track was different, and the instrumentals are mixed slightly differently.) Yes that’s right, they took the time to film new footage of the band playing the song, and probably spent a lot of money on those visual effects, but didn’t bother making the musical performance authentic.

holy fuck, I'm pretty shocked at this, especially the Clocks thing, that's so weird. What is it with that song? First it's the vocals that are almost never live, now it's the instrumentals   and the other songs they played at the iHeart Radio festival last year were new recordings?

[LisaFeehily]

It's quite sad to think how much higher of a priority visuals have become in their performances vs musical integrity. they used to be so authentic back in the day.