Coldplay has put itself at the service of one of the world's oldest famine relief organizations, the British-based Oxfam.
The group opened its Viva La Vida World Tour at the Forum in Inglewood on Monday night with Oxfam volunteers busily working the corridors, where they handed out fliers urging action against poverty and social injustice. The Oxfam website (www.oxfam.org/coldplay) was projected onto a large rotating sphere in the middle of the arena after the show.
Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin has been a strong supporter of Oxfam's Make Trade Fair campaign, which seeks to end the dumping of cheap goods into poor countries.
Martin -- who has visited Africa, the Dominican Republic and Haiti with Oxfam -- witnessed firsthand how the practice has undermined the local economies. Farmers and manufacturers, struggling to compete, end up out of business and in debt.
On its 2003 world tour, the band collected 10,000 postcards calling for fair trade agreements. This time around, the U.S. presidential election is also a concern. (Small booklets urging people to vote were handed out at the Forum show.) Oxfam's Pete Lusby, who will be traveling with the band members as they make their way across three continents in the coming months, blogged about the experience on the relief organization's website Monday night. He noted that more than 700 people had signed up for more information on Oxfam.
Lusby wrote: "On the way out, people were still singing the chanting chorus to 'Viva La Vida,' " a soaring peace anthem.
He added: "It didn't take the crowd long to learn the words."
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