R#42 blog

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42's latest missive comes from a land down under   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks Cris_Santos]   I hope you've packed your Sudoku, folks. After the somewhat demanding past couple of weeks, we find ourselves staring down the barrel of a pretty extensive bit of travel to get down under. We're leaving London on Tuesday at 10pm and not arriving in Perth until 2am on Thursday. Now, even with a half hour to change planes

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: The weather's sunny, and so is #42   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks Lore]   Sunshine. God's own medicine... Suddenly the whole world feels like a different place. Hardly surprising, I suppose, given the distance we've travelled. I'm sure we must have been somewhere sunny in our summer last year, but I absolutely cannot remember it. I expect we were rushing around working out how to make the gig work. Getting a secon

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and mini-bar masquerade   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks squareone13 & LittleMissMessy]   Despite blowing my new year's resolution almost immediately, I'm still looking for ways to avoid giving hotels all my money this year. To this end, I visit reception in Melbourne and lie through my teeth. "Hello, I'm a recovering alcoholic and I'd like my mini-bar emptying please - all of it". Then it's off to 7-11 to s

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 enjoys a spot of Coldplay cricket   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks mimixxx]   Well, it seems we're bringing the weather with us. Brisbane has been broodingly humid since we got here, threatening to release a cloudburst. Come the second show day, that's exactly what it did. Sydney is our last chance to catch some sun before we're out of Oz for another couple of years. Here's hoping.   The disappointing dampness i

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the pap shots of the paps   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks Loud Meditation]   I have a new hobby folks. I've been pap papping. Here's a likely-looking fella who was hiding in the bushes as we left the hotel this morning. I had a lovely chat with him about what cameras he uses and how big his lens was (a whopping 600mm in case you're interested). He seemed distracted though and eventually a little huffy - alm

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the monster Oz catch-up   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks melanieau]   Howdy folks. Apologies for the week and a bit of dead-air. I'm contributing photos to the new, updated tourbook and ploughing through all the pics I have has been nothing short of an insane task. It would appear that since the tour began, the mirror on my camera has clicked up and down just short of ten thousand times. I have no idea how t

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 reports from Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks crazyduckette]   Quite often, by this point in a tour, soundchecks become unnecessary. I guess it's the re-appearance of the "soundcheck party" that's kept us coming back in. Rather than trot through a few set pieces, the fellas have been trying out a few new (old) things to sprinkle into the set for the rest of the year.   In Hong Kong, they

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 reports on the Abu Dhabi deluge   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards.   So, we've been home a week now. I managed on day four to move the suitcase from blocking the front door - I still haven't got round, though, to the rather dull looking pile of bills, final demands and other junk mail that's accrued during my absence.   Going from constant motion to utter stillness is obviously a treat. It also begins like many other bl

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 blogs while the band work on new tunes   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks LittleMissMessy]   After three glorious weeks of real life, families, home and becoming human again we're back to a quick stint of recording. There has been some listening back to things recorded earlier in the year and some exploring of new ideas. Will has a new toy for drum programming which has sent him on a beat-making odyssey. He rolls

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 is back at his desk...   Chris greets all the crew at the top of the soundcheck in West Palm Beach with a schoolmasterly, "Welcome back everyone, hope you all had a nice summer holidays". A six week tour break has been a real treat indeed. Everyone is looking rested, relaxed and rejuvenated. We've also flown west, which means that although there is a little jetlag to contend with, we've gained five hours. After the timezone table-tennis that this

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 blogs on the way to Hartford   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks Lore]   Without getting all "life on the road" on you, I had forgotten just how fast things move out here. It feels as though I've barely had time to exhale and we're already a week into the new tour leg. It's not so much that time passes fast, as that lots gets packed into short spaces of time. I've already had two major equipment panics - quite poss

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the mighty roar of Detroit   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks mimixxx]   America gets a lot of stick for being overly homogenised and lacking in diversity. I don't really see it, though. Maybe I'm lucky in that the whole place is blurring past us at such speed, but it's such a buffet of flavours and mini-cultures, you can't help but love it. Plus, if you don't love it, a couple hundred miles up the road, you p

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the gangs in the vans...   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks Jizo]   Sometimes, completely out the blue, you get a blindingly bright view of your life from another perspective. We're approaching the Indianapolis show when, beside us on the freeway, we see a converted old school bus, with guitar cases, amps, drum carpet and so on piled up in the window. It's a band on their way to a gig. We too, are in a van, we

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the birthdays bonanza   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks CookyMnstr]   Rather hilariously, we recently hit a million Twitter followers - shortly after I posted a photo of a toilet door. I shall leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide what that says about the Twitter-verse... In all seriousness though folks, thanks for joining us - and obviously, I'm aware that it's Mr. Berryman's presence that has cat

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the Edmonton favour   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks SueDeNimes]   We arrive in Edmonton and the van that has come to pick us up has a windscreen adorned by several huge cracks. Franksy voices his concern to the driver who cheerfully claims that this is par for the course here in Edmonton. Apparently, the roads throw up stones at a rate of knots, which means that an unspoiled windscreen is a very rare beast

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the last day of term   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks SueDeNimes]   Our Vancouver hotel is opposite a construction site. In the interests of noise avoidance I eventually end up moving between three different rooms before settling on a place to stay on the other side of the building up on the 26th floor. It's a smaller room, but it's well away from the noise and when you've spent a year in clanging arenas mos

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 is a Big Apple man   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks Zeya]   It's another warm night in Maryland Heights, MO. I had figured that moving north from Texas would mean a bit of respite from the heat, but there is nothing of the sort. If anything, the stage here is even more humid than the past couple of shows. Things heat up on the B-Stage too, when Chris fluffs The Hardest Part and falls into laughter, admitting tha

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42, the Elbow shiver and the loud crowd   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards and meet the owner of the Viva-Car™ too [thanks Lore & kspillers2]   We start the Alpine Valley show with a rather novel quad-bike escort into the gig. The venue is called Alpine Valley Music Theatre, presumably in reference to the mountains and ski resort behind the stage. The quad bikes escort us past a lodge that's more than a little reminisce

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the troublesome balcony   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks Zeya]   We arrive into the Saratoga Springs venue a little late. Well OK, we're a couple months late. This is the show that had to be re-scheduled from our last US leg. The route in seems to lead us through a wood, which is all rather pleasant for a summer's afternoon. The venue itself is a little unusual. It's a shed, like most of the others we've don

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the creeping exhaustion   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards and spot the teeny mistake by an eagle-eyed Coldplayer [thanks lfdianne & Pris]   Big. A word whose purpose is to describe vastness, enormity and sheer-all-round-bloody-hugeness. You'd have thought they could have shelled out a few more than three letters on it. It certainly doesn't really do justice to the experience of walking into the back of the arena

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the stadium show excitement   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks marie/pims]   It would be too easy a gag to start off by saying that it's only 16 months into the tour and we've finally made it to production rehearsals. In reality, we're knocking it up a gear for this final run of shows. Yes folks, it's stadium time.   I talked a little about scale when the band played in Toronto in what was in essence an indoor

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the fearsome fireworks   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks mimixxx]   This quick little six week run around Europe to close the tour has collectively been referred to amongst the camp as "The Stadiums". Today in Norway, we're in quite a small outdoor space which is essentially a green field at the foot of great mountains and an old military fort. Quite frankly, I'd take this over a big concrete and steel shell

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the awkward delivery   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks SueDeNimes]   I spent the days off before the Stockholm show putting together some video from the first two big outdoor shows - here it is. For the majority of the European stadium shows, the band are spending the days off at home with their families. Being as I live outside of London, I'm booked into the same London hotel room for the whole month. It's a

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the new song soundchecks...   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks Zeya]   You get the distinct impression that the Stockholm crowd are going to be a belter when the soundcheck finishes and from outside the stadium walls you can hear the thousands of early arrivers chanting the "woah-oh-woah-oh-oh...." from the Viva chorus.   In fact, there's so many folks outside that word comes around that they're going to open

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the superstar rapper   Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks Noémie]   It's funny. We're within sight of the finish line, which means we should be coasting to a nice comfortable finish. Things seem to be more hectic than ever though. Today in Glasgow, we have Radio 1 recording the show for a Live Lounge transmission. This means getting in early and soundchecking almost the whole set (albeit only half of every other