A national campaign to convince Coldplay to let a local band open for them has been running for a month with no sign of letting up - Coldplay are yet to respond according to Juliana Down, via PRNewswire.
When Juliana Down, an independent rock band in the UAE, contacted the promoter's for Coldplay's Abu Dhabi show to take place on the 28th of March, they were under the impression that a local support act slot would naturally be created for home grown talent. They were sadly mistaken. Upon contacting the local promoter, the general manager commented that:
"It would be my preference to support local and regional bands but in the end it is not [the local promoter] who dictates who or if a band will play the opening slot."
Upon the realization that there in fact was no slot for any local band, a campaign on Facebook was launched. Local support was also supplied from nearly all local newspapers with the latest being an award for a community report written in the Gulf News.
Several individuals close to Coldplay including representatives from their record label and their official online website have been contacted and almost everyone has expressed that it is ultimately Chris Martin and Co.'s decision.
"It is important for the local music scene that opportunities like this are made accessible to local acts, otherwise our fledgling scene will not go anywhere at all. We believe that Chris and Co., based upon the way they are portrayed, would care enough about making a difference at any given opportunity to make this happen if they knew about the campaign," Saleh Hamed, campaign coordinator commented.
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