Chris Martin — as famous for being Gwyneth Paltrow's husband as for leading Coldplay, one of the biggest bands in the world — has bitter memories of his last visit to Australia.

In 2003, with Martin and Paltrow endlessly pursued by paparazzi in Byron Bay, he blew his cool and was charged with malicious damage for attacking a photographer's car.

"I didn't want to come back here, to be honest," Martin conceded yesterday afternoon at Southbank, prior to his band's second Melbourne show. "Particularly for me, it was horrible. I didn't want to go through another three weeks of hatred and aggression."

Read the full article here

Excellent photos from Coldplay's recent gig on the 26th in Sydney are here

[Thanks mohit]

Coldplay frontman Chris Martin has revealed an unlikely start to his friendship with Shane Warne.

At Coldplay's first Melbourne show on Saturday, Martin dedicated 'Til Kingdom Come to the cricket star, who was in the crowd.

On stage Martin revealed how Warne had been his "wingman" while attempting to chat up a woman -- who didn't like Coldplay -- in an elevator when the band first became famous. However yesterday Martin claimed he'd exaggerated the incident, which happened long before his marriage to Gwyneth Paltrow."When there's 11,000 people there, the truth becomes less important than the flow of the story," Martin said.

"Parts of that story I was making up blatantly. I was just trying to think of a nice way of giving him props. We love Shane to bits.

"I just wanted to be nice about him, tell a personal story which was only really half true. But the half that was true is true."

The crowd at Rod Laver Arena cheered Warne as he walked backstage with St Kilda star Aaron Hamill on Saturday night. Australia is at the end of Coldplay's year-long world tour for their third album X&Y.

Their previous visit in 2003 was marred by Martin being involved in a fracas with a photographer in Byron Bay who had been chasing the singer and Paltrow.

This trip sees the singer minus his wife and children Apple and Moses.

"I didn't want to come back," Martin said of returning to Australia.

"Last time we were here sucked serious eggs. I hated it. It was horrible.

"I didn't want to go through another three weeks of hatred and aggression, but so far it's been the best leg of the tour."

Martin also spoke about the backlash surrounding X&Y.

"Every great band has been through it a number of times, from the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin," he said. "All of them have had people saying 'This is terrible music'. We're still quite young, we're only on our third record, I don't expect us to be faultless."

Martin hinted that Coldplay would explore a new sound on their next album, away from the moody piano ballads and stadium rock.

"We've become so good at being Coldplay that now we're going to stop making that sound. We and some other people have tried to push that sound as far as it would go, now we're free of it, we can do anything now.

"Whether it'll sell any records or not is another question, but we can do it."

Coldplay's final Melbourne show is tonight at Rod Laver Arena.

Source: http://heraldsun.news.com.au

Three years ago, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin warned that his band wouldn't be "in this neck of the woods again for quite a while".

Since that tour, the English quartet have staked their claim for the title of biggest rock band in the world, selling millions of albums and playing to vast crowds nightly.

The group even affected the share price of their record company, EMI, when they missed the deadline for the release date for their third album, X&Y.

Read the full reviews for this night here

A charity beloved of the hedge fund kings is Ark (Absolute Return for Kids), which pays close attention to how the money is spent, primarily on tackling HIV-Aids in South Africa, helping orphans in eastern Europe and on academy schools in Britain. It was founded by Arpad “Arki” Busson, best known as the former boyfriend of the supermodel Elle Macpherson, with whom he has two children.

Busson, 44, began his career selling toothpicks in his native Switzerland and is today one of the most powerful and flamboyant figures in the City, running his EIM hedge fund operation from a penthouse office in Mayfair. Thanks in part to his contacts, Ark recently raised £17.5m at a lavish ball at Marlborough House where 1,000 guests, including the environmentalist Zac Goldsmith, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou of easyJet and the former racing driver Eddie Jordan, were serenaded by Sir Elton John.

A game of tennis with John in the south of France was auctioned for £70,000, while a guitar lesson with Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay — followed by dinner with his actress wife Gwyneth Paltrow — made £140,000. Bill Clinton sent a personal letter of endorsement to every guest and Archbishop Desmond Tutu videotaped a message of thanks. Ark’s supporters had pledged £3 for ever £1 raised at the auction.

Read the full article here

Some music critics have labelled English rock band Coldplay as "bland", but surely they did not mean the outfit that played Rod Laver Arena last night.

Chris Martin and his three band mates had the capacity crowd in the palm of their hands for the first of their three Melbourne shows.

Last night's audience saw how success has transformed a band that was unknown when it played Melbourne's Big Day Out several years ago. Martin now leaps and prowls around the stage like a showbiz veteran.

Read the full review here

Various video clips from Coldplay's concert at the Sydney Entertainment Centre on Wednesday the 28th of June are available here [thanks xcitindesigns]

Discuss the videos at the Coldplaying messageboard

The current tour of Australia is underway and they have so far played Brisbane and Sydney. This coming Monday (3rd July) the popular TV programme 'Enough Rope with Andrew Denton' will be showing an exclusive with Chris. The show will be transmitted on ABC at 21.35 (local time).

If you are unable to watch the show, they have an official website with archived interviews available as videos, audio and transcribed text, so check abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope for more information.

There will also be various radio promo interviews on Triple M, Triple J and Nova. (The links below gives more info on the stations in the local areas).

triplem.com.au

abc.net.au

dmgradio.com.au

Source: coldplay.com

Don't take any "hot" tips from Coldplay's Chris Martin. Not only did he lose his deathmatch versus Bono, he is £10,000 out of pocket after backing Australia in the World Cup. Chris, who is touring Down Under, had great faith in the Socceroos - until they got knocked out by Italy.

He admits: "I lost a lot of money because I gambled on Australia getting to the semi-finals. If you play with that much passion, you deserve to do well. England need a bit of that Aussie passion. We need to be thinking, 'We could die tomorrow, so let's start playing the best we can."

You tell 'em, Chris.

More on this story here [thanks Ondes Martenot]

Jonny gets a good cheer tonight for his vocal contribution to 'Don’t Panic'. The crowd continue cheering and even chant “Jonny, Jonny, Jonny” as the song finishes.

I make my own contribution to the acoustic section. From where my gear is set up, I can’t actually see them doing this section of the show.

I think that they’re done after two songs, and so kick off the drum machine that throbs the intro to Clocks. I see Will running back to the drumkit, however, eyes bulging with a look that clearly expresses displeasure.It seems that they were just about to start playing ‘Trouble’ when the kick drum and synth from the Clocks intro appeared in the sound system. Panic all around and profuse apologies on my part in the encore break.

Thankfully, they see the funny side and decide to slot Trouble into the encore instead.

I think it’s far better there, so frankly, I reckon I did ‘em a favour...

Tour Journal: Travel Day Brisbane-Sydney

It’s a short hop over to Sydney today.

Jonny mentions that Australia and the world cup make for a great timeto be jetlagged, as there’s always something to watch on TV. There’s and England game later ontonight, which means we get some tiem to spend in town, the maybe a ltitle nap, followed by watching the game at midnight in the band’s hotel.

We get there, and find that lovely uncle Franksy [tour manager] as arranged a conference room, with a projector and a sound system, along with drinks and nibbles for all.

Little by little the crew drift in, Jonny turns up, then Chris and eventually will. Guy, it seems, couldn’t give a monkeys about the footy.

I have to say that I’m with him on this one, but I hang out for the hell of it. We win, but apparently it’s a dull game. They all are to me, so it’s hard to tell...

Source: The Coldplayer

More photos from Coldplay's recent gig on the 28th in Sydney are here

[Thanks SEZ77]

British band Coldplay have shrunk their jamming and composing sessions for their upcoming fourth album, after being disheartened by over 50 people during the recording of X&Y [pictured].

On the Clocks rockers' previous albums, frontman Chris Martin has always been open to hearing friends, family and studio colleagues' opinions on the new tracks.

Martin says, "I don't want to listen to 55 people next time we record. We went through a period of believing everyone. I literally listened to the tea boys last time."

More on this story here

The British band could be living it large, driving fancy cars and playing with expensive toys.

They've sold millions of albums, played stadium gigs around the world and are arguably one of the biggest bands in the world, often referred to as this generation's U2. But a playboy lifestyle couldn't be further from their minds. "At a time when we could just buy speed boats we are really fired up about trying to do something," said frontman Chris Martin. "We have had three albums now, sold lots of records and we've taken a lot of shit ... played to lots of intelligent people. Now it is time to do something great."

Coldplay have been on the road for 15 months, touring for their third album, X&Y. Australia is the second last leg of the tour, with the band wrapping up in Japan in July.

Read the full article here or here [thanks coldpatrix]

Triple M radio in Australia recently did an interview with Chris Martin while Coldplay were in Sydney.

In the interview, Chris talks about how Coldplay's best music is yet to come, how the World Cup has affected their shows in Australia, why X&Y is only "80% good" and why he's not doing any surfing in Australia. It's available in streaming audio, a podcast and/or download here

More on this story here [thanks Triple M]

Chris Martin and Johnny Buckland of Coldplay do Dylan, sympathize with Brad and Angelina, and put in a plug for fair trade.

You can watch the video here [8m9s]

[Video courtesy of CBC. Thanks EverydayIColdplay]

Boring, bankable, inoffensive, easily duplicated - is Coldplay the ultimate 21st-century rock'n'roll band?

Big numbers sure come cheap these days. A year ago, New York's discerning culture filter The Village Voice awarded Coldplay a hefty 7.5 rating for their third album, X&Y, at the end of a review that was nothing less than damning: "Precise, bland and banal, their sensitivity emotionless and their musicality never surprising, they're the definition of a pleasant bore - easy to tune out, impossible to care for."

Even London's often rancorous New Musical Express succumbed to the album's easy listening charms, stamping a giddy nine out of 10 on a review that read more like corporate prospectus than artistic appraisal: "Confident, bold, ambitious, bunged with singles and impossible to contain, X & Y doesn't reinvent the wheel but it does reinforce Coldplay as the band of their time.

Read the full article here or here

The World Cup has lessons for everyone (apart from the key tip that cynical diving can gain a result). Twenty to 30 years ago there was a handful of elite teams, a slightly larger second tier who could occasionally trouble them and a large swathe of enthusiastic but outclassed performers who made up the numbers and dreamt.

These days the largest group is the second-tier where, thanks to the globalisation of skills and opportunities, most of them can regularly match it with the elite, push them hard and, if opportunity arises, spring a (mild) surprise. There are a lot of good to very good teams.

Here is the rub: there still is something indefinable but undeniable that the great teams have which separates them from the pack at crucial moments. Greatness isn't thrust upon them; it's within them.

Read the full review here

New York: A representative for Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow denies Internet speculation that the mother of two plans to add musician to her resume.

Publicist Stephen Huvane said there is no truth to online reports that the Oscar-winning actress planned to record an album of music, Tmz.com reported.

Paltrow sang in the 2000 film "Duets," which focused on the world of karaoke. She is married to Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin.

More on this story here

Coldplay frontman Chris Martin was stuck in an elevator for two hours in Australia last week.

The Fix You hitmaker was staying in a Brisbane, Queensland hotel, prior to the band's Friday (23JUN06) gig at the city's Entertainment Centre, when the elevator broke.

A hotel source says, "The lift broke down and Chris ended up stuck in there with a few other people for nearly two hours.He was bursting for the toilet when they were finally rescued."

More on this story here

Check out the 2005 section of Coldplay.com for a new star.

Nightswimming - 28 Sept 05

Chris and Michael Stipe performed 'Nightswimming' in the middle of the concert in Atlanta, Georgia. This was unannounced and the audience went bananas for REM's incredible frontman!

GB

More on this star here onwards.

Read the full chronology, including all Prospekt updates, at WikiColdplay

Meet the new penguins — septuagenarians, octogenarians and even the occasional nonagenarian. That would be 70-, 80- and 90-somethings in plain language — the stars of the Sundance Film Festival's Young@Heart, about a senior-citizen chorus group that tries to reclaim a little vigor by tackling punk, rock and R&B songs.

There were moments of poignancy: among them, Fred Knittle, suffering from congestive heart failure and breathing with the aid of an oxygen tank, crooning in a rich, deep voice Coldplay's Fix You, lending the song an entirely different dimension. It's all the more heartbreaking to know his solo rendition was originally planned as a duet.

Only U2 expressed their refusal to use their songs. "Everyone else we could get," Director Stephen Walker said. "Coldplay, no problem at all. They were absolutely fine about it. Talking Heads, really no problem at all. There was a helluva lot of music to clear in the film. We got the Jimi Hendrix estate to sign off, and they came on board. There's a ton of music."

Read the full article and watch the performance of 'Fix You' here

A reminder that Coldplay have this week posted the acoustic version of a rare Coldplay track, 'Careful Where You Stand', onto the timeline at coldplay.com.

The track was originally a B-side to 'Shiver', but this version featured on a four-track CD which was given away with the Independent on Sunday newspaper in October 2000.

Head over to the site to hear it in full and to check out the other items they've been adding this month (including last week's note from Jonny about the tenth anniversary of Coldplay's first gig).

Source: Debs Wild / Coldplay MySpace

Lead singer Chris Martin of Coldplay sang in support of Australia during a concert by slamming Italy whom Australia played against in the World Cup.

Martin yelled out to the crowds during the show in Australia saying, ‘We f**king hate spaghetti anyway!’ contactmusic.com reported. He continued his rant by changing the words to the song ‘God Put a Smile Upon Your Face’ to ‘God give me style and give me grace, who needs a penalty in any case?’

Australia lost to Italy by one goal through a penalty.

Source: here

For anyone having computer trouble and still wish to view [unwatermarked] pictures from The Coldplayer, click here

[All pictures courtesy of Coldplay.com]

Coldplay have became reacquainted with some old Sydney haunts since they lobbed on Sunday.

After their sensational opening night at the Entertainment Centre on Monday, frontman Chris Martin led the charge to the North Bondi RSL to watch the Socceroos' valiant effort to reach the quarter-finals of the World Cup.

The band said the tournament had saved their sanity, particularly watching the Australian team play, reports Kathy McCabe.

"This has been the best time of our lives to have jetlag because finally there's something to watch at that hour of the morning," guitarist Jon Buckland said. Martin added: "The thing about Australia is they play that game like life should be lived. It's great to watch it." While they spent most of yesterday catching up on well-deserved sleep, the band members said

they were going to catch up with friends when they had days off later this week.

Drummer Will Champion said he hoped to go fishing tomorrow while Martin said he was going to "a samba concert or mambo ... something ambo".

"It was good to save this part of the tour until last," Martin said, showing the gentleman frontman has no ill-feelings towards Australia after his tussle with paparazzi in Byron Bay during their 2003 visit.

The band have released some last-minute tickets to tonight's final concert at the Entertainment Centre.

Source: http://entertainment.news.com.au/