VANCOUVER - Coldplay has been on the road more or less for a year now, but they are good boys and write home often. They write to everyone, nearly every day through Myspace, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. The top-selling band in the world is also the most connected, writes the Vancouver Sun.
What once was a one-way conversation between rock stars and fans — we release a record and you buy it — has become a 24/7 chum-fest, at least for the Coldplay community. Chris Martin, Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman and Will Champion Twitter daily to more than one million followers. Their Facebook site has more than 2.2 million registered fans and their Myspace page has ticked over 32 million views. They also have a YouTube channel boasting views in the millions.
While the record industry tries to make sense of a crumbling business model in the iTunes era, Coldplay has it goin’ on. When the 2008 release Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends became the top-selling album in 2008, Coldplay rewarded fans with a whole other live record from the supporting tour, for free.
You just click the link for Left Right Left Right Left on their website and download without paying. They give the disc away at their shows as well. They are the Anti-Metallica. Coldplay in November released a five-song EP titled Prospekt’s March, made of tracks that were not included on Viva but hail from the same sessions with super-producer Brian Eno. “Our sessions with Brian Eno over the last year or so, we really did a lot of different things,” Martin said, “and I think some of the more extreme things, just took us a little while to finish basically.”
He was quick to dispel the notion that the leftover songs weren’t good enough for the original record. “No, I would say they’re better but I might get in trouble for saying that,” he said with a laugh. In Martin’s eyes, Eno brings “confidence and colour” to the band, two things they were lacking. “It’s like working with a genius nymphomaniac,” said the singer. “He’s very excited about life and all that it brings, and music and everything. He’s a ball of energy.”
Fans were similarly enthusiastic, making the album the most-downloaded record in history just two week after its release. Almost one year later, Vancouver will have a chance to see their rock gods in person when they play a two-night stint at GM Place this weekend.
While success in the studio does not always translate to success on stage, Coldplay appears to be on a roll in terms of delivering a top-notch concert experience, according to both newspaper reviewers and bloggers.
“Recently we’ve got a lot better live,” says Martin, attributing the improvement to better songwriting. “As clichéd as it sounds, you can just filter out the bad songs from your set and keep putting in the good new ones. So now our concert is all songs that our audience likes. It’s a big singalong at the moment.”
It’s the best feeling in the world, he says, to see the crowds and hear their voices. “It’s an unbeatable feeling. It’s like when your wife or girlfriend or partner has a baby, it’s on that level of euphoria. It’s big.”
Be ready for another ultra-modern Coldplay innovation that reportedly started in Aukland earlier in the tour: the cellphone wave. Put your Bic away, this is the future, baby.
Source: Vancouver Sun
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