Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 reports back from Chris and Jonny's Little Noise Session for Mencap

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It strikes me as I arrive at The Church Of St John in Hackney that there is quite a lot going on in the world of Coldplay today. We’re in East London getting set up for this acoustic show tonight, whilst on the South Bank, all the gear is going into a TV studio to record an appearance on the Graham Norton show. Meanwhile, somewhere in a vast hangar-like warehouse in West London, production rehearsals for the upcoming arena shows are already in full swing, with truckloads of lights, sound, staging and video getting up and running ready for the band’s arrival after the weekend. Given that the Bakery and the Beehive will be grinding away up in North London, I’d say Coldplay pretty much have London covered today...

The venue for the charity acoustic session is an old church. Huge stained glass windows, wooden floors, hymn books and wooden benches. Outside, the queue is already forming when I arrive. I learn that they’ve been out there since 7am. These are the same folks that were in the front row at Norwich UEA and that were queuing all day for the iTunes session in Camden, so you could call them dedicated. You could call them a lot of things, but you can’t help but take your hats off to their dedication…

Chris and Jonny have decided not to soundcheck. As we give things a quick once over, it turns out to be a pretty good thing, really. The huge, curved high ceiling makes for a pretty good echo chamber and there’s little you can do, but raise your eyebrows and say “it’ll sound completely different when the punters are in” - and perhaps pray that it’s true.

We whizz over to the TV studio, which is the same place we did the Jonathon Ross show last month. We've done so much TV in the past few months that it’s long since become a blur.

Soundcheck passes very quickly and the musical segment has been moved to the start of the show to let us get out and move the piano and guitars back over to Hackney. I’m the first to arrive and am immediately bombarded with questions from the Hackney crew. I explain that there isn’t really a plan. It’s Chris an Jonny only and they’re pretty much just going to turn up and busk.

Showtime comes around and they’re up in the dressing room, which fittingly, has that musty church smell and rather wonderfully a wall of photos of all the vicars who have served here. At the Fillmore, you get photos of the Grateful Dead…

In the corner of the room, Kevin McCabe, who navigates the band through all of their UK TV and radio is frantically scribbling in Sharpie on a sheet of copier paper. It turns out that it’s the setlist. This sets the tone for the whole night pretty much. It’s not the vast juggernaut of the regular touring shows. No radios crackling the setlist through to the production office who print dozens of copies to be circulated to all departments.

On stage too, the guys are completely stripped of all the machinery. No lasers, no video screen, no pyro - hell there’s only half the band here. Perhaps in reverence to the acoustic nature of the performance, the guys are dressed in outfits that wouldn’t have been out of place in the Christmas Lights video. Indeed, Chris has a watch on a chain that makes an appearance late on in the show when he’s trying to work out how much time they have left.

I don’t catch what Jo Whiley says in her intro. Perhaps it’s something to do with that, perhaps it’s a private joke, or perhaps it’s because they’re genuinely shitting themselves, but Jonny and Chris walk up the steps to the stage holding hands.

Things get underway and it’s clear that they’re enjoying themselves immensely. Some songs work better than others, some are a complete train-wreck, but when there’s a weakness in what a piano, a guitar and one voice can produce, the crowd’s enthusiasm bridges the gap. It’s a hugely warm audience and it feels a bit like the backroom of a pub. I’m half expecting someone to walk up to the front edge of the stage with a couple of plastic glasses full of beer. It’s that kind of an evening.

I’ve long maintained that gigs at their most fundamental, are a communal celebration of the songs. All these people gather together to share their excitement for this music that means so much to them. When Chris and Jonny kick off Viva, the chant takes off and the noise of all these voices in the room together is completely overwhelming. The fellas stop for a good few seconds and just take in the immensity of the noise - their contribution now no longer even necessary.

They smile, they laugh and then they join back in. For me, it’s the highlight of the night and a total moment to file away for when I look back on all of this one day.

Of course, down in the front row, the 7am posse are giving it loads and having a great time. It’s over in a flash, but it’s been a great blowout to end the promo frenzy before the arena shows kick in. I guess stripping it down to the tiniest of tiny is about the best thing you could do before it all gets very, very big again….

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: In which Coldplay perform on an Italian film set and their plane home is diverted

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It’s not uncommon for me to have little idea of where we’re going or what we’re doing. It’s actually quite easy to fall into this state and once you spot it starting, it can be fun to nurture it as a way of keeping things interesting. Conversations in the airport departure lounge this morning clue me in that we’re heading off to Italy. Well that’ll be nice.

Upon landing, soundman Dan Green asks me if I know what songs we’re doing. “Um, just the regular set, I think or something like?”

In my mind it’s another album launch show, so I’m expecting a small venue, perhaps something like the hall we did in Cologne a while back. “It’s a TV show isn’t it?” Dan replies, confirming that I do indeed have no idea what’s going on. We head off in the van towards the gig and I’m now thinking “TV studio, blacked out warehouse, lots of lights hung from the roof”, pleased that I’m now on the right track. Or, as it turns out when we arrive - not.

We’re in quite the oddest television studio I’ve ever seen.

It looks like Live At Pompeii - and indeed the driver tells us that Pink Floyd did once play here. It’s a huge film lot - Italy’s Hollywood, we’re told. Apparently many of Fellini’s films were made here. The surroundings are utterly magnificent, but turn out to be completely plastic and held up by rusty scaffolding. There’s a joke in there somewhere about working in the music industry, but I shall leave that as an exercise for the reader…

Following soundcheck, Hoppy (still living up to his name with the help of a foot-cast and crutches) quite reasonably points out that the environment feels more suited to Viva than the new album. He suggests calling Paris, the band’s graffiti artist in residence and having him Mylo the place up a little.

I take a photo of the scene on my iPhone so I can email it to Paris with a wind-up message of “This all needs doing by stage-time which is 9.30 - can you get on a plane asap?”.

I remember though, that he got a call with genuine brief not dissimilar to this just before Saturday Night Live a week or so ago (and came through in grand style!) - so I think better of it.

There’s a scramble in the run-up to showtime as the fellas have decided to throw in a few off-air numbers to warm up themselves and the crowd. Yellow gets a belting as do Clocks and Every Teardop. There’s some confusion over time limits and they sneak in Fix You before things have to stop to make sure that the broadcast timing works out.

Come time for the live segment of the show and nobody quite knows what’s going on. The host of the show is going to “throw” to the band from in the studio and they’ll start playing. I’m not sure if he’s off behind the ruins somewhere, or if he’s even in the same city as us - he’s just a disembodied voice yabbering manically in Italian down all of our earpieces.

The allotted time comes and goes and he shows no signs of introducing the band. The crowd have started the Viva chant and the band are distractedly playing along with them while the stage manager runs around frantically trying to keep everything from slipping further into chaos.

Suddenly, the yabbering in my ear starts to contain words I recognise. One of those words is “Coldplay”. The crowd erupt, the stage manager is waving his arms around like he’s just stubbed his toe in the night and Paradise comes to life on the stage.

As the song finishes, it transpires that the crazy presenter is in a building a hundred yards from the stage and they’re to be interviewed down there.

I follow them in the back door for a look. All I can make out from the TV monitor is that Chris has a somewhat insanely snazzy jacket on, which it seems once adorned the crazed presenter.

Finally, it’s vans and airport. We sit in a small room whilst the passports are dealt with. The makeup artist was in something of a rush it seems, getting the band ready in the moments between the stage and the TV studio. Will is sporting a quite hilarious two tone face where she finished halfway across his neck.

“Does anybody have some makeup remover or perhaps a garden implement?” he enquires gesturing towards the thick layering of foundation.

Besides make-up removal, there’s a more serious issue afoot. I’ve somehow ended up on an email cc list for the flight information between the travel agents and Franksy. There’s no real reason for me to be on this list and it feels a little like eavesdropping for much of the day.

What I have picked up though, is that fog is a huge problem back in England. The London airport we took off from is completely pea-souped and we will definitely not be landing there. This is a shame, as that’s where my car is. It seems that we’re heading for Gatwick instead, which could make for a late night.

As we get ready to take off, more emails come in and it sounds like Gatwick might be similarly out of the question. Plan C is being bubbled up. We’re a good way into the flight when Franksy is summoned by the captain for a chat up front. This can’t be good news.

I raise an eyebrow as Franksy heads back down the plane. “Manchester” he says rolling his eyes. At this rate, we’ll be in Scotland when we get wheels down.

We eventually descend and while we taxi across the tarmac, I’m trying to work out exactly how we’re going to get home from Manchester to London. It’s a four hour drive and it’s knocking on 1am already. As we cross the tarmac, I look up to read the sign on the tower which reads “Welcome to Birmingham”. Now I really am confused.

Still Birmingham is a good chunk closer to home than Manchester, so that’s good news. We bundle into some hastily assembled cars here waiting to take us home via a very foggy Motorway.

Never a dull moment…

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: In which #42 gets his head stapled and Coldplay perform some wonderful webcast shows

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I first realise that I’ve done slightly more than just bumped my head when I hold my skull with both hands and they’re immediately soaking wet. Walking through the dusty bullring towards catering for napkins to mop up the blood, the wide eyed stares from the locals reinforces the impression that there was something really very sharp sticking down from the beam I’ve just not quite managed to duck under.

I arrive in catering and grab a fistful of napkins and press them against my skull with one hand whilst mopping up my face and neck with the other. Graham Feast, our lovely Lighting Designer immediately takes me by the arm and steers me to the production office whilst radioing Phil Sharp his crew chief that he has someone “with a head injury here” - and could he please attend with his First Aid kit.

The local promoter has a first aider, who takes over and begins to clean me up. She tries to use some sticky stitches, but informs me that I have too much hair for them to work. Having been follically challenged for some years, I ask for this in writing.

Mr. Paul Normandale, the wonderful fella who designs the set, stage and lighting that the band perform within sits with me as I’m patched up. Paul trained for seven years to be a doctor, so perhaps he’s trying to keep his hand in. He points out quite reasonably, that we’re in the bowels of a bullring, so I’m clearly not the first person who’s been down here bleeding.

The spot I’m in makes for a rather surreal doctors surgery, it has to be said. I’m sat on a plastic chair in an ancient stone corridor. A fork lift chugs up and down at regular intervals belching diesel and churning up the dust. Local crew wander past smoking cigarettes and shouting loudly in a language I don’t understand.

The local doctor arrives and pronounces stitches necessary, recommending an immediate trip to the hospital. The band are due in ten minutes. “Can we just get soundcheck out of the way?” I reason. He’s not keen. Eventually, he relents and I get the full comedy bandage around the head to try to hold me together for an hour or so. I pull my hood up and head off back to the stage.

(Photo courtesy Mr. P. Normandale)

With soundcheck finished, I head off to the Madrid emergency room. The runner from the promoter's office reckons we could be some time, so heads off to move the van. My name is called almost immediately and I begin to suspect that perhaps the band’s name has been used to hurry things along. This suspicion is reinforced when I make it into the consultation room and what must be every single pretty young nurse in the building appears to have crammed inside.

They all smile their widest smiles as the door opens before looking terribly disappointed to see me amble in with a bandage falling off my head. The runner follows me in, a jolly bearded fellow who surveys the scene and looks wide eyed, before proclaiming to me, “Wow, I think I damage my head too huh?”. He slaps me on the shoulder laughing. I cough and the rest of the bandage unfurls.

I’m informed that they aren’t going to give me stitches. They seem to be having some trouble finding the English translation for what they are actually going to do. Eventually, one of the nurses has a eureka moment and reaches into a drawer, pulling out a stapler and smiling.

I smile slightly less - and then less again when they inform me that they won’t be using anaesthetic.

Eight bent pieces of metal later, I’m heading off back to the venue wondering what’s for dinner.

The show itself, of course, was a pretty big deal. Webcasting live to the world is quite the thing these days and I’m sure many of you saw for yourselves what a night it was.

Well, you’ll have seen most of it, anyway. I’m led to believe that demand for the show was such that the YouTube site actually crashed a few times along the way.

This is always a good sign. It’s the internet equivalent of your gig closing the street down. In some ways, doing things online can feel like shouting into the darkness, wondering if anyone is actually out there at all. A good crash from immense demand lets you know that the world really is interested after all.

More encouragement comes in the fact that a lot of the loudest and most enthusiastic responses in the venue greet the new songs. They’re singing along loud to Paradise and they're jumping like loons to Charlie Brown. Being as the show is to launch the album, this is a very good sign.

The good signs keep coming. The week rolls on with a Radio 1 show from Norwich. This is being webcast and again, demand apparently crashed the server. The Norwich show is an unexpected belter. Everyone is exhausted and there’s not a little feeling that now the big Madrid launch show is done, maybe we should be backing off the gas a little.

The show reinforces my belief that the best nights are never the ones you expect, they just pop up out of nowhere and surprise you.

We carry on around Europe for another couple of webcast-ed shows and some TV. I’ll be honest here and say that I’m pretty much done in for all of it. Exhaustion before the tour has even “properly started” is a new one on me, but it’s pretty clear that it’s universal.

People are quite literally dropping like flies. I do Europe with staples holding my head together, Hoppy, Chris’s guitar-tech and Coldplay’s longest serving roadie, was injured during the Norwich show and is on crutches. (A man with a messed-up ankle being called Hoppy - the gags write themselves…). “The tour cold” starts doing the rounds and we’re thoroughly into the endurance phase of the album launch.

The Cologne show passes in a blur. The setlist gets juggled and we find ourselves into the encore without the band even having left the stage. When they do leave the stage, it’s unclear whether they’re coming back. I’m by the back door ready for the runner to the airport and Hoppy is joining us to get home for medical attention.

Suddenly, they decide to go back on. They’re going to do Us Against The World and Every Teardrop, apparently. I leg it around the back of the stage and into position to see Chris standing in Hoppy’s guitar world, waiting for a guitar. Given that Hoppy is still struggling to hobble from the back door, it clearly isn’t going to come.

Chris drops down into the piano stool and goes into a completely acoustic version of Speed Of Sound. Where that came from I’ve no idea, but as a true spontaneous encore, it works rather wonderfully.

As has been widely reported, whilst recording the album, Brian Eno presented the band with a set of “commandments” in order that his influence could be felt even on the days when he had something more interesting to do.

One of them which sticks with me, read: “When something is good, it should be tortured mercilessly until it either becomes brilliant or dies”. It’s difficult to avoid the feeling that the current schedule might just have designed with this in mind.

I’m hoping that we’re becoming brilliant. I’m really not too keen on the alternative.

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 catches up on the whirlwind that has been the last seven days

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So there we are - the record is finally out there. For me, it mainly means I can stop worrying about having the files on my laptop. For others hopefully, it means being overjoyed that they finally have them on theirs. It also means that (praise the lord) the pre-release-promo phase is coming to a close. It’s been a white knuckle ride for all concerned and not a little exhausting. I’m constantly amazed by the way that the band can not only function throughout this schedule, but actually be cheery and engaging with the relentless round of interviews that they get on top of what we’re dealing with.

The schedule was shuffled crazily at the last moment last week to accommodate the Steve Jobs memorial ceremony at Apple Headquarters. We of course, were very much on the periphery of it. The event and those that were gathered were literally at the very heart of the Apple organisation. The love, respect and sense of loss clearly palpable in the stillness and quiet.

The speeches were both moving and at times very very funny. (Jony Ives: “we worked together for fifteen years and he still laughed at the way I said Aluminium”). In the midst of a corporate campus so dedicated to the cutting edge of technology, it was a deeply emotional human experience.

By the time we reached New York for the Colbert Report and the Today show, the fatigue was running full tilt. Good performances from what I recall, but I have to admit to recalling little else…

Coldplay have played the Jools Holland show at BBC TV centre several times now. It always feels very comfortable and familiar. There’s the inevitable nerve-jangle of live telly, but it’s more than made up for by the chance to stand twenty foot from The Waterboys as they do their thing.

There’s a performance of another kind going on in Madrid. The album-launch show is to be webcast live, so there is a complete run through being undertaken to a tape of the stadium show in Johannesburg. The web-stream is being tested, so the band stand huddled around a laptop in the TV studio in London, as hundreds of miles away, four bored looking crew stand on the stage pretending to be them for the cameras - completely unaware that their doppelgang-ees are looking in, grinning.

I’ve a feeling that tonight’s version may be somewhat more dynamic. Well, you can see for yourselves, I guess...

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the tiny show in the tiny venue with the tiny doors

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Neill Lambert (my keyboard-world partner in crime) has just been on stage to check the piano before the KROQ webcast begins. Before he’s even got back to our rig at stage left, Anchorman (my website co-conspirator) has emailed me a screen-grab...

I point at the image on the laptop when Neill returns, telling him he’s just been live on the internet. His reply neatly sums up the timezone roulette we’re all living right now.

“Well at least I’m live somewhere…”

I’ve always tried to steer away from discussing jetlag in these musings, on the grounds that it could be construed as trying to make myself sound windswept and interesting by just complaining that I’m a bit tired.

Realistically, though, it’s pretty much unavoidable, given that I’m documenting the touring experience. But it’s working in a somewhat interesting manner at the moment. We’re in LA, which is 8 hours behind our beds at home. Usefully, though, a lot of the TV shows we have here mean early starts.

Initially, looking at the schedule and seeing 5.30am lobby calls was a little shocking. However, jetlag here means that we’re all waking up at four anyway - so maybe two wrongs really do make a right?

(Guy with Coldplay manager Dave Holmes - early risers, both)

Today’s show is a radio thing for KROQ, who have been behind Coldplay here in the states since the very word go. The band are playing in a tiny black box room with a crowd that Chris points out is smaller than at their first ever show.

The building is so small in fact, that production manager Wob Roberts informs me that the only way to get most of the gear into the building was to take the single back door of its hinges. As for the Viva Tympani - forget it…

Yellow blasts the tiny space rather wonderfully and they’re off. It’s six songs over the course of two hours, but even so we’re done by 10am.

It’s difficult to know what the best strategy for the jetlag is. If we adjust to west coast time, that’ll wreck us when we leave for the east coast in a day or two - and by the weekend, we’re back in the UK and need to be alert and on the ball during daylight hours.

I’ve decided to follow my standard policy of simply feeling knackered, dazed and confused all the time regardless of what time of day it is.

It’s got me this far…

R42

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A few days after the Cape Town stadium, which was literally at sea level (any closer to the coastline and it would have been a wet load-in), we pull into the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg and are reminded by stage manager Gary Currier that we’re 1,700 metres above sea level. This means thin air, which in turn means it’s very easy to get out of breath. Still - at least we’re moving up in the world…

As is often the case, today we’re launched catapault-like straight from the airport into soundcheck. There’s the customary mad scramble to work out how to get the B-stage right, followed by further chaos on the main stage which I can’t say too much about at this point. The frenzy is suddenly multiplied by the fact that around the stadium, someone has mistakenly decided that it’s ok to open gates to the punters.

Little streams of punters start to gleefully race across the field towards the barriers in front of the stage. People have watched the soundcheck before, it’s no big deal. In fact back in the club days, I remember folks getting invited inside one day in Detroit, cos it was so damn cold outside.

Today though, is very different. What’s going on onstage is definitely not for public viewing.

There’s comical chaos as the band scurry off and Production Manager Wob Roberts strides about on the ramp to the B stage yelling “everybody out! NOW!”. Onstage, the crew are falling about laughing. The jetlag, the general promo-schedule exhaustion, the altitude and the hangovers fuse with the utter bizarre-ness of the situation at hand - and finally everyone is in bits.

Impressively though, the punters heed the booming voice and quickly the field clears.

I have to wonder for a moment how it looked to them coming down the field. Imagine that for years, you’d wondered if your favourite band would ever come to your country. Finally the day arrives. You’ve scored a ticket. You’ve lined up since the early hours. You hear the band soundchecking inside. The gates are opened and there’s that rush of excitement as you all surge inwards….

…Only to see your favourite band standing onstage in comedy foam elephant heads and gloves. Just as you try to process this unexpected sight, the elephant-band leg it offstage looking like a frightened Banana Splits and you get shouted at by a nasty man in black shorts, who makes it clear that you are NOT supposed to be seeing this.

I can only wonder whether these folks went back outside thinking that maybe this is what’s always going on behind closed doors in the world of Coldplay. I do hope so.

The gig itself goes superbly well. It’s another top audience. The altitude makes everything a little harder and indeed, Mr Champion requires oxygen once Politik finishes.

The elephant-heads make another brief appearance - doubtless prompting the hundred or so punters from earlier to exclaim “See! I told you!” - leaving just the remaining sixty thousand or so suitably confused.

All may be revealed in time - watch this space.

I manage not to miss the runner tonight and we head off to the hotel for an end-of-leg drink. The hotel it turns out, is a complex of cottages laid out on a mountainside. The convoy of people-carriers winds its way up the spiralling path into the clouds. We seem to be about a mile above the main entrance when we finally spill out onto the pavement and unload.

We still have the unicycle with us (don’t ask) and there’s much talk of holding races to see who can get the best time to the bottom of the winding track to the lobby. A better idea comes in the form of dumping bags and getting into the bar before they close. We raise a glass to an exhausting few weeks and the impending luxury of four days at home.

No rest for the wicked…

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the amazing African adventure

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As you get ever more road(ie) miles under your belt, two things start to happen. Firstly, less phases you. Most things that the crew encounter on a daily basis are a repetition of what’s gone before. I remember on the Rush Of Blood tour, the enormous growth spurt that the band went through meant every few weeks, we seemed to be doing the biggest show that any of us had ever been involved in. It was a steep learning curve and there was always the question nagging at you as to whether you could really cope when the next step up came.

Nowadays, we’re seeing a lot of familiar situations, so we have the lay of the land a little better. That’s not to say that things don’t crop up that throw a spanner in the works, just that we’re more comfortable that whatever it is, we’ll be able to deal with it somehow. This brings about the second phenomena. Once you’ve a couple dozen laps of the planet and several hundred shows, the excitement level can drop a little. Getting off the plane in Chicago and doing my first shows in the USA with Coldplay felt like walking into a cinema screen. “Look - real yellow cabs..!” Ten years later, though and that feeling can’t help but be dulled a little.

So going to what is (for most of us, at least) completely uncharted territory, is nothing short of a shot in the arm. We land in Cape Town and suddenly everything seems fresh and exciting once again. The air smells different, nobody knows what the currency is called or what it’s worth. People are discussing what sightseeing opportunities there are on the days off. Finally - we’re exploring again!

Come gig day, the band get straight into soundchecking the B-stage. Here, the B-stage is out in the middle of the stadium again. This is a challenge that’s been faced before, but requires some time spent re-adjusting. Being a hundred feet or so in front of the PA system means that there is a distinct time delay between hitting the guitar strings and actually hearing it from the speaker. The effect for the band is a little like when you try to talk on the phone, but can hear your own voice coming back at you with a slight delay. It takes a while, but the old tricks come back and things start to slip back into place.

There is promo to do following soundcheck and the “new ground” vibe continues. The band are discussing with the local journalist what kind of reception they’ll get. They’re thinking at first that maybe a lot of people will have bought tickets just because it’s a big event in town. Chris turns and asks the reporter “Do you think anyone will be - you know - INTO IT?”

This raises a point that I hadn’t considered. They could indeed be something of a curiosity here, rather than a huge band. Perhaps any band that comes sells out stadiums? Perhaps there’s a hardcore of fans, but the majority of the fifty or sixty thousand will have no real idea who Coldplay are, much less know any of the songs. This could make for quite a struggle of a gig.

The answer comes (quite literally) loud and clear once the show is underway.

I’ve always maintained that the best nights out are the ones where you only plan to “show your face” then get to bed - only to find in the wee hours that you’re still up and grinning like a loon. I’m pretty sure that the best gigs are like this too. The ones that have the hugest build up tend to pass in a blur, but the ones you approach with no expectations can really knock you sideways when they turn out to be absolute belters.

And so it is tonight. The crowd are truly astonishing. This fires the band up and the cycle continues. During a brief breather to chat to the audience, Chris thanks them all for turning up and apologises for taking twelve years to make it to South Africa.

“It’s taken us that long to get our Visas…” he explains, possibly not entirely truthfully.

It’s very difficult to quantify “best shows”. The band have done so many that have been special - not to mention the fact that one person can be having the night of their lives and another person will remember things completely differently, having had a struggle with something you weren’t even aware of. Each night is tens of thousands of different voyages - every person having their own experience. The band gather to bow at the end of the show and when Chris kneels to kiss the stage, it’s fairly obvious that it’s not just me that thinks it’s been a truly great night.

It’s been so good that there is word coming over the comms system that they might well come back on for an unscheduled encore. I scramble to set my gear up ready for several things that I think they might do. Unbeknownst to me though, it’s decided that the fireworks and ecstatic exuberance of ETIAW is the right way to close things. The band dive into the vans and the police escort whisks them away.

Regular readers will know that I would normally be in one of those vans. By the time it’s obvious that there is to be no extra tune, I’ve long missed the runner. Oh well. If we were heading straight to the airfield, this would have been a problem, but the hotel isn’t far and we’ve got a day off here tomorrow. I decide to hang around and watch the audience slowly drain from the bowl.

I muse to myself that in terms of exploring new territory, we can definitely call this a very successful mission.

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: In which #42 sits by the pool and tells tales of Brazil

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Touring is a strange activity. People generally believe that it’s all exotic travel and flash hotels. Like a long luxury holiday with a few gigs thrown in. The reality is somewhat more grubby and demanding, which makes the days where it actually *is* like that all the more surprising.

Today, we’re laying by the pool in Buenos Aires having what can only be described as a right result of a day. We have a 12 hour stopover between Rio De Janeiro and Cape Town. The DJ is spinning a mix of trad jazz and uber-hip sixties funk. The wine is flowing and the sun appears to be doing its best to inflict actual physical harm upon us...

Originally, today was also to have been a pretty brutal day. The previous show finished late in the morning and our flight here left early - meaning little to no sleep. We were going to be spending the twelve hours in the airport with only the plastic seats and duty free for entertainment. Today is an inspired micro-holiday, partly in honour of band assistant EJ’s birthday. She’s 5 feet to our right, celebrating amidst juggling of a pair of iPhones that steadily purr with an onslaught of requests and enquiries from multiple continents.

Sometimes it’s best not to try to fathom how we ended up here. Just to enjoy it before it disappears.

To wind back a day or two, we’ve been to Brazil.

The Rock in Rio festival is a pretty huge deal. I remember seeing footage of it on the TV many moons ago when going on tour for a living was just a silly dream. (As opposed to now, where it’s just a very silly reality) I remember thinking then, that the folks at the back of the crowd must surely have trouble seeing the stage for the curvature of the earth.

I’m told it was about a hundred thousand in attendance last night. Looking out from the stage, the brain stops being able to comprehend it, beyond “there’s quite a lot of people out there”. Perhaps it’s a survival mechanism when you have a job to do? Either way, my eyes know, but my brain refuses to believe.

It’s vaguely apocalyptic out there. There’s huge towers with searchlights scanning the masses. For reasons that must make sense to someone somewhere, there is a zip-line ride that sends crazy waving and screaming folks over the heads of the audience. It starts high above the far right side of the crowd, flying through the air fifty feet in front of the stage, eventually landing over at the other side of the field. Something tells me that health and safety in the UK might make this tricky to get away with at Glastonbury.

The audience itself, is utterly bonkers. Latin America is well known for having loud and enthusiastic crowds. Indeed, we didn’t even have to get to the gig to be reminded of this. Below our hotel balconies is a crowd of folks who’ve assembled the day before the gig to spend the entire day cheering and singing Coldplay tunes at the top of their lungs.

Encouragingly, the new tunes get top billing on their setlist.

The gig was streamed live, so there’s little I can tell you about it that’s news. As the fireworks subside and the cheering still rings, the vans taking us back to the hotel pull out under police escort. There’s four vans and a half dozen police bikes. We tear down the freeway at an alarming rate commenting on how the majority of motorbike riders here seem to find crash helmets a bit passé and unnecessary.

Suddenly a bike pulls alongside us. Not only is the rider without a helmet, but they have a passenger casually waving at us as they match our speed. They decide to jump inside the police escort, despite the fact that all four SUVs have their hazard lights on and we’re mere feet from each other.

Our driver, who I’ve been beginning to suspect is actually slightly more unhinged than the average driver here, accelerates, forcing the bike up to the bumper of the vehicle in front.

“Whoah, easy there fella.”

As the van ahead speeds up, our guy pulls forwards and edges up behind the back wheel of the motorbike, giving them about an inch of clearance. I stare at him in disbelief, convinced that by the time we get back to the hotel he’ll have killed at least a couple folks, if not all of us. The bike pulls into the inside lane and both rider and passenger gesticulate passionately.

Despite the considerable language barrier, I find myself having no difficulty in understanding the message. Some things it seems, are universal…

As an encore, our intrepid charioteer zips along the seafront and completely fails to brake as the vehicle ahead stops at a light. I instinctively close my eyes as the impact arrives with a heavy crunch. The van ahead containing tour manager Franksy and assorted guests limps away with a dented bumper. Our van is just myself and soundman Dan Green. We’re within fifty feet of the hotel, so at this point we decide a little walk will do us good.

This brings us to 3.30 am. Lobby call for the flight to Buenos Aires is 6.45am. After packing bags and a couple hours sleep we’re off to Argentina. That brings us back to the pool where we started off this missive. If the timeline feels a little mobius, I apologise, but that’s just how it feels from this end.

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 is watched in his hotel room and sees Queen Elizabeth moshing...

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We’ve finished the most exhausting six day sprint in recent memory - and, somewhat predictably, I can’t sleep.

The final two days of this leg of promo-mayhem first take us over the desert and into Vegas. The venue is a huge arena with an even huger hotel / casino complex on top of it. We have “day rooms” upstairs to give us somewhere to rest up until we’re required. An absolute godsend given how knackered everyone is. It would appear that the event has produced promotional materials extending to the DND signs...

If anyone can think of anything quite so disturbing as closing the door to your hotel room thinking of crashing out for an hour and finding your employers glaring down at you from the back of the door, I’d like to know what it is…

The Vegas show is a big radio festival affair on a revolving stage. It’s a full-sized arena with a huge stage and video screens and Coldplay share the bill with Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Jane’s Addiction, The Black Eyed Peas and several more.

With this many large bands all arriving with all their complete touring kit, these events always have the feel (from the crew end), of catching a massively oversold economy flight on a public holiday. We’re squashed cheek by jowl alongside all the other folks trying to do their job in difficult circumstances.

Each act has a short set of around 30 minutes. For the first time I can ever remember, the setlist kicks off with Viva today. It’s not Coldplay’s audience. It’s a Vegas crowd in amongst a bill of pop and hip-hop heavyweights. Today is about hitting them very hard and then getting out.

Everyone sticks around to watch Jay. His band are absolutely on fire and he’s a total master at his work. Always a joy to witness.

The whole crew is travelling on the band plane tonight, so we wait until load-out is finished and we’re in the air by not long after 1am. Given that we left the hotel at 7 this morning, it’s turning into something of a long day. By the time we arrive in Atlanta, the clocks say 8am. The entire touring party look more wrinkled and dishevelled than a pile of wet laundry.

Everyone staggers around the tarmac saucer-eyed. It’s like an out-take from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. The inmates in that particular asylum, though, didn’t have to go and load in a festival show in just four hours. These folks are beyond hardcore.

The Atlanta crowd, by contrast to last night, are clearly very, very excited from the word go and are not “too cool” to be enjoying it. The Viva chant starts up a whole hour before the band are due onstage. Once the intro rolls, the cheers are positively thunderous. What a superb way to end an exhausting leg.

It’s a high point of recent shows, for sure. Coldplay and Atlanta have a long history. They played here on the Parachutes tour and had one of their first truly great American shows. On Rush of Blood, Elton John joined them for a show here, to play Trouble to the most deafening applause I have ever heard. A few years later, Michael Stipe turned up and duetted on a wonderful version of Night Swimming.

And tonight, well Michael might not be here in person, but REM are very much in everyone’s minds. Us Against The World takes a break from the acoustic section tonight and instead there’s a rather wonderful version of Everybody Hurts in its place.

The guitar Chris plays in God Put A Smile has been the subject of much discussion of late. Its one of his nicest sounding telecasters, which Dan Green loves recording. The song has seen the guitar launched high into the air rather a lot on this tour - each time landing rather dramatically on the stage. It’s only a matter of time Dan says, before something unthinkable happens to one of Chris’s best guitars. Tonight it refuses to co-operate after the first chords of the song. As a result, Chris heaves it over his head and it gets perhaps its last flight skyward for this tour. Chris then starts the next verse guitar-less and grins goofily and mimes playing guitar in a slightly “when I’m cleaning windows” fashion. Clearly the exhaustion and delirium is universal.

My other standout memory of the show was the fact that someone down the front (presumably a Brit) had a huge sign with a Union Jack flag on one side and a photo of Queen Elizabeth on the other. At regular intervals, I look out over the crowd and see what appears to be the Queen of England pogo-ing along to the new tracks. It’s definitely time for a few days off…

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 stares down the barrel while being fired from a cannon. And Coldplay do too

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So we’re officially slap bang inside the pre-release promo phase. The clearest indicator of this is the proliferation of thousand yard stares and slightly tattered nerve endings visible all around. Every album’s launch phase is its own pinball machine of utter chaos. If the recording process was a year or two of pulling the sprung launcher back, everyone involved is now packed tight in the shiny silver ball bouncing around the schedule at an alarming rate.

Besides the travel and the sleep deprivation, the toughest thing about all this is the lack of consistency. Every day is a completely unique assault course. By the time we’re into the relative calm of “just being on tour”, we’ll have done shows in tiny theatres, a bunch of massive festivals, umpteen tiny TV studios, a few stadiums, a tennis court, an arena or two, a bucket factory and a parking lot. This is just the performance side of it. For the band, there’s an additional layer of interviews. Radio, TV, magazines, newspapers, blogs and websites.

The point we’re at is illustrated beautifully by a conversation overheard in customs after landing in Toronto. Phil Harvey turns to tour manager Franksy and muses, “These few weeks feel a lot like staring down the barrel”. He’s doubtless feeling the weight of expectation, how the press will respond, how the album will be received by fans. The trigger is about to be pulled, but for the moment, all there is to do is look cross eyed at the shotgun and sweat.

Franksy’s reply is lighthearted, but similarly revealing: “I feel more like I’m being fired out of a different cannon every few hours and I still haven’t caught sight of a net”. Whilst it’s chaotic for all of us aboard, Franksy is right at the sharp end - we just go where we’re told, get in the van or climb on the plane. Making sure there’s always a van to get into, a plane on the tarmac, a hotel room to collapse in - that’s Franksy’s responsibility.

Details and plans are changing by the minute and if he overlooks something while he’s attending to another detail, the wheels pretty quickly come off the whole thing. I’m reminded of a scene in an old cartoon where someone is sat on the front of an out of control steam train frantically laying track right ahead of it.

We arrive at MuchMusic where today’s parking lot show is to be held and the chaos is in full swing. The crew left the hotel at 4.30am this morning to fly in from New York after loading out of Letterman late the previous night. Understandably, they’re all a wee bit pooped. The show is outside, so of course it’s pissing down with rain. The stage has little in the way of a roof, so the gear is being wrapped in plastic sheets. Side stage, all the mixing desks, computers, guitars and gear racks are under temporary tents. These naturally, are peppered with holes and pour in at the edges where one tent joins another.

I’m re-programming a bunch of stuff in the keyboard rig in the middle of a torrential storm, while all around me everyone is busily constructing elaborate waterproof homes for the gear out of giant tarpaulins. It looks like one of those survival shows on TV where the first job is to build a shelter. I’m half expecting folks to start foraging for food in a minute - but I suspect they’re all too knackered.

There’s a rumour doing the rounds that one sight of lightning and the whole event will be pulled on safety grounds. I’m half tempted to get a flashgun out of my camera kit and start letting it off under the production office window just to put everyone out of their misery, but I hardly think it’d be fair to the crowd who have already gathered and are getting wetter than any of us.

I finish up and head inside in search of caffeine. Franksy and Production Manager Wob Roberts are on the phone to unknown persons trying to get a sensible answer about the latest flare-up “What’s the story with this juggler?” I watch bemusedly as the conversations unfold. “We weren’t told about any juggler and I just don’t see why it’s necessary before the band go on”.

I’m convinced it’s a wind-up at first. We are after all, on George Zorin’s home turf in Canada. Not even he would be so heartless as to throw a spanner into the works for his own amusement when everyone is already frazzled to a crisp.

Thankfully, this resolves itself fairly quickly as it turns out it’s just the standard TV warm-up guy. Pretty soon, he’s out there doing his stuff and before we know it, the band are up there and the show is underway.

The rain has miraculously shifted and holds off for the whole show. The band are firing on all four cylinders and it turns into a solidly great gig. Reports from all quarters are that it looked great on TV. I’d almost forgotten that there were people watching - my criteria for a successful show was simply getting through the setlist without my gear being submerged by a downpour. It’s being hailed, though, as a huge success. Result.

It’s a microcosm of the whole promo phase really. When you’re in amongst it, you forget that there’s folks at home getting excited by the whole thing. And that’s the name of the game. The fellas have spent a long time pushing themselves insanely hard to make the best record they possibly can. Maybe an album that will become a defining point in their career.

There’s no point doing that and then not telling the whole world about it. Trying to get everyone as excited as you are about this new bunch of tunes. There would also be no point in going through all of this hoopla if you had a mediocre record.

I’ve heard it, though, and can confirm that it’s a monster - and it’s coming your way very soon.

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 reports from two Coldplay's two Austin shows

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The customs officer at Houston airport greets us with a cheery “howdy”. One of his colleagues shouts over, pointing at the entire entourage, informing him that non-specifically and collectively “this is Coldplay”. It turns out that our guy knows of Coldplay. He’s even got one of the records: “The one with all the old soldiers on the front”.

For reasons that are never made quite clear, he’s bought it five times now. It’s certainly not the coldest welcome any of us have ever received from the TSA, so we thank him and move along. We’re on a layover at Houston airport before a short flight to Austin. It’s been a long flight from London and the time difference is just enough to make things feel spacey. It’s mid evening here, but deep into the night where our bodies think they are...

We’ve been allotted a conference room in the airport lounge. A huge heavy oak table with massive, overstuffed swivel chairs. The over-tired state helps this to be far more hilarious than it really should be.

Mr Berryman takes the head of the table and fiddles with the speakerphone. “Get [Coldplay manager] Dave Holmes on the line, lets do a conference call.” Will suggests doing some mediation and Jonny asks for a phoner interview to do. (Surely the first time - and doubtless the last, that Arlene from management will ever hear Jonny *ask* for promo - her job being to drag the band into doing press like a parent pleading for vegetables to be eaten.)

We’re in Texas, of course, for Austin City Limits. A cab driver in town informs me, that Austin is the “live music capital of the world”. Well that explains the quality of the crowds at least…

The band have two shows here, each very different. The first is a taping for the Austin City Limits TV show. This takes the form of a TV show in a smallish theatre. A small stage, with the crowd right up close and personal.

The ACL TV show is a wonderful thing to experience. Being a “public access” show, this is less of a high budget corporate affair than many TV shows and hence staffed entirely by folks that are here because they genuinely love it and have a passion for music. This isn’t to say that we don’t do TV shows elsewhere that have great people involved - it’s just that the spirit of the thing here is very tangible. Very warm and very much geared towards great music and great performances.

It’s a huge shift from the vast outdoor shows they’ve been doing lately. It’s “whites of the eyes” stuff, for sure. The theatre has a couple of balconies, but they’re not really visible once the lights go down for the show. This increases the feeling of intimacy greatly. The vibe is almost like a club gig, now.

For this reason (from my corner at least) the rockier, more straight-ahead band tunes like Yellow and God Put A Smile seem to resonate really powerfully here. From the new stuff, Hurts Like Heaven really sits well in this context, exploding into life and bouncing off the walls with all the urgency and excitement of a band hungry to prove themselves in a grimy little dive.

Come the quieter acoustic moment, it almost feels as though they could have done “Us Against The World” without any amplification at all - just sing up a bit and hit the guitars harder and even the back row would have heard them.

Up In Flames gets its first ever public outing. Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait until the show airs on New Year’s Eve to see how it went - but I reckon it was a winner.

The NYE moment is announced and the special stage set that they’ve created for the band is lowered in from the roof. It looks splendid in the UV lights - like multiple layers of luminous space junk.

The second show here in Texas, is the Austin City Limits festival - huge stage, full production and a massive crowd. The front row here almost as far from Chris’ mic-stand as the back of the room was the previous day.

Perhaps it’s for this reason that during Fix You, Chris makes the insane jump nearly ten feet to the ground and up the barricades towards the mix tower. It’s chaos all around. The radio mic is lost in the throng and Kelly, Chris’ ever vigilant security chief is next off the front of the stage. Meanwhile the band are wondering whether he’ll make it back for the final line (remember Sydney?).

It’s a chaotic show too, in lampy-world, stage-right. There’s all manner of problems up in the truss and in one of the quieter songs, the entire overhead lighting rig is disconnected from the power in an attempt to reset things. (“Turn it off and turn it on again” isn’t just the realm of IT folks…)

It’s touch and go whether the system will be alive again in time for the onslaught of Politik. I look around at the crowd of black-clad roadies gazing heavenward. It looks like some ancient tribe waiting for the gods to appear above them. Time to neck some peyote and start chanting...

Will clicks his sticks together to count the tune in and there’s a collective crew-gulp. I didn’t see anyone crossing themselves, but that may have been because it was too dark…

The band crash in and the rig dutifully blazes forth the lightning storm required for this tune. The relieved exhaling all around shifts the dry ice offstage a good few feet. Beleaguered Production Manager Wob Roberts shakes his head at yet another disaster averted and heads back to the production office - presumably to wonder what normal people do for a living.

Never a dull moment…

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 reports back from the live debut of Paradise

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Paris. Add a few more letters and you get “Paradise”. Quite fitting then, that it’s the first city in the world to get a public airing of the tune. Admittedly, it’s in a closed TV studio, for broadcast at a later date, but the point is that there’s a crowd of people here that are going to hear the song for the first time. If there’s an uncomfortable silence when the track ends and tumbleweed rolling across the floor, it would surely bode rather badly for the imminent release on Monday. No surprise then, that folks are keen for today to go well.

TV shows are always a “hurry up and wait” affair. Long days with long stretches where other parts of the show are being attended to, so all you can do is sit and nurse a coffee, or bury your head in the laptop. Keeping busy is the best way to take your mind off the fact that in a few hours, you’ve got to get it right, but right now, there’s not actually anything you can do about it...

The band of course, are in promo mode, so they spend the afternoon at a hotel in the heart of the city fielding a barrage of questions from a horde of European press.

When they arrive for soundcheck, the weight of the day is beginning to show. Not only has the promo schedule been heavy, but the album has been declared officially “done”. This means no more fiddling, no more comfortable hiding in the studio saying “it’s not quite ready yet”. No more trying things out in one more different way.

Now begins the wait. Waiting to see what the world makes of it. Famously, the band have referred to this period between album completion and release as like the gap between finishing your exams and getting your results.

Understandably, then, the mood is a little tense.

Soundcheck takes far too long, everything gets fiddled with and changed, but finally, everyone is satisfied and we’re deemed ready to go.

With the audience in place and the cameras ready to roll, it’s explained that they shoot the last song of the show first. This means that Paradise is first up.

It dawns on me that this could easily be a mistake. It’s not even a Coldplay audience. It’s a TV show audience. Some of them will be here especially for Coldplay without a doubt, but many won't. There will be some who might even not like the band at all. Here they are launching into an unfamiliar tune to an audience they haven’t already won over.

Dav Rossi’s strings fill the air and it’s too late to contemplate all of this. Chris’s piano floats above and then the bass line drops like a wrecking ball. The crowd are on their feet and clapping in time. Jonny’s guitar gathers pace like he’s just discovered his brake line’s been cut. Will’s hip hop swagger pile-drives the tune into life and the whole thing is quite simply majestic.

The crowd greet it like an old favourite and the response is unmistakeable. They’ve hit it out the park and the relief is immense.

They’re still a ways off getting their exam results yet, but I reckon we can put this one down as checking the textbook and realising that they’ve nailed the first paper.

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the rehearsals of the new songs

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The four weeks off it seems, haven’t just breathed new life into the crew - the band roll up for the first day of rehearsals positively beaming. It’s all hugs, smiles and “So, what’ve you been up to?”. Everyone looks fresh, relaxed and ready to take on the world. Pretty good thing too, as that’s what’s on the agenda for the next year or so. If any more evidence were needed that summer is finally in the rear view mirror, the weather on the first morning is absolutely miserable. Perfect weather, then, for spending the day in a dark windowless room...

Order of the day, is the three new tunes to be added to the setlist. First up is Paradise. They’ve played it enough times during recording to be on top of it from the word go - almost. It sounds confident, assured and classy right from the off. Also, with me being set up directly opposite Jonny’s amps here, it sounds even more exhilarating than the recorded version...

The first run through ends and Chris pronounces, “That slide at the start of the guitar solo was amazing - why isn’t that on the record?”

Jonny looks a little sheepish and grins, “I couldn’t remember which note I start on, so I was looking around for it…” I believe one of Brian Eno’s “oblique strategies” is to “Honour thy mistake as an intention” - the boy Buckland plainly far too honest to go along with this one.

DLIBYH comes next. Will points out that they’ve never actually played it all together at the same time. It’s not uncommon for bands to record songs part by part these days in the studio, carefully overdubbing each instrument to a metronomic "click track". But this is very unusual for Coldplay. Songs are hammered down through an extensive rehearsal process and the overdubs generally only come much later after a great band take has been captured.

DLIBYH though, arrived almost at the end of recording - and by all accounts came together very quickly indeed. This means that the days (or in some cases, months) of rehearsal and playing together just didn’t happen. Yet it explodes into life pretty convincingly. Rough edges abound, but that’s why we’re in a rehearsal room, after all…

Up In Flames, being the simplest of the three, is ready to go pretty much right away. As well as its simplicity, it’s also the most emotionally raw of the three songs we’ve heard today. Perhaps this is why Chris comes out with a slightly apologetic comment about making us listen to these songs over and over today.

As a tension-breaker, the band launch into a gag-tune about the crew called It’s A Paycheque. Soundman / co-producer Dan Green doesn’t escape either. He enters from his room across the hall and a tune called He’s Got White Gloves is born, in celebration of Dan’s somewhat reluctant approach to the heavier end of roadie duties.

With the first day returned to the way it began - laughter and smiles all around - the band head off.

They’re in for a second day, but blink and you coulda missed them. Heads down and all business, they run through each tune once and then Paradise again, before disappearing as fast as they’d arrived, leaving a whole day free for all that tidying and organising I talked about.

We get halfway through some editing work when the skies open and there is rain the like of which I’ve never seen outside the door. Then, out of nowhere, it’s raining *inside*. There is a flat roof above us and the drains can’t take it. It’s literally pouring in above my rack full of gear. It all gets a bit Laurel and Hardy for a while as plastic sheets are scrambled over things and then finally everything gets wheeled out from under the leak. I’m only glad that it didn’t happen in the middle of the night when we weren’t there to rescue the gear…

So, we’re back in the saddle. Some busy weeks ahead, judging by the iCal, but despite missing the lazy days of summer, I have to say that it does feel good to be back.

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the rehearsals of the new songs

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The fact that I’m sitting amongst a pile of road cases looking over at Chris’s piano must mean that the summer holidays really are over. I had intended to go away somewhere nice for a week or two. To be honest though, getting on a plane wasn’t top of my list of things to do once we got home from our “round the world in 13 days” mission. By my reckoning, a complete lap of the planet in under two weeks gave us an average speed of over 80 miles an hour for the entire trip. No wonder I quite fancied sitting still for a bit…

Being back in the rehearsal room after a four week break though, definitely makes this feel like the first proper day back. In reality, I’ve been slowly easing back in over the last week or so. I’ve been prepping some new songs that’ll be getting a run through during these rehearsals. Paradise is mere days from breaking free from the studio into the big wide world, so learning how to play it live seems like a sensible plan for the band at this stage.

I have a love hate relationship with rehearsals. I adore the idea of sitting around with all the gear out and no pressure of a gig at 9pm. It’s a chance to tidy up loose ends, go through your work box and generally get your house properly in order before the chaos of touring kicks in. That’s the theory at least. The reality is that it’s always about either getting new songs happening, or making major changes to existing tunes. Given that my corner of things is getting the keyboard rig programming in order, it tends to work out being the most hectic period of all for me.

Trying to sit at a computer getting Dav Rossi’s string section and Will’s programmed beats all lined up and ready to go can be murder when the rest of crew giving it “One Two One Two”, or turning the amps up to stun. For this reason, I tend to stay late. An hour’s work in silence without interruption usually yields more results than half a day of not being able to hear yourself think. It never makes you popular with the fella that works here who’s sitting waiting to lock up, mind.

I remember that this phase of things on X&Y is when I first heard Fix You. Dan Green and I had been up at a studio in west London pulling the multi-tracks apart and I was driving back to the rehearsal room to get to work. It only took a couple of listens for that song to burn itself forever into the brain. Even on a first listen, the degree to which people would take it to their hearts was completely obvious.

Up In Flames feels the same to me right now. It’s immense. I first heard it when the guys were sound-checking at the iTunes show. Apparently, Chris had started the song the previous night, so it was less than 24 hours old at that point. It was hypnotic in its simplicity, but devastatingly, achingly gorgeous. The final version has lost none of this and is a masterwork of restraint. It hasn’t been crammed with a million ideas and embellishments. Every part is there simply to enhance the emotional impact. I can only predict floods of tears in every quarter.

DLIBYH couldn’t possibly be heading in any more different a direction emotionally. It’s almost violently life affirming. I remember texting Phil during the Glastonbury rehearsals when they first played Charlie Brown in its live incarnation. I was amazed at how vast and invigorating it sounded. They’re going to blow the sodding walls out when they kick into this one tomorrow…

Ah yes, tomorrow - the band arrive at lunchtime for a full day of rehearsals. I guess I’d better make sure I’m ready…

So from a very quiet and empty rehearsal room, I shall bid you goodnight.

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the great karaoke caper

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We’re sitting in the reception of the Brisbane hotel, which I guess must mean that we finished our days in Tokyo. I have to say, I was utterly delighted last night when the immigration fella greeted me with a cheery “G’Day”. That’s not in any way to say that I’m glad to have left Tokyo you understand, more that it’s actually a joy to remember that people really do say that here.

Japan passed in the predictable blur of jet lag and disorientation. There was a great deal of promo involved, I seem to remember. First up, a small gig in a TV studio - of which I remember only the fact that a maximum of five people at a time were allowed on the wi-fi network. As I’m sure you can imagine, amongst a party of about thirty folks far from home, this required some careful choreography...

This was followed by an entire day of interviews, some of which I sat in on. I watched as Guy was asked if he enjoyed Karaoke. I was a little confused when he replied enthusiastically in the affirmative.

“Funny” I thought, “He’s the one that’s never there when it’s a karaoke night”. My suspicions of deception were confirmed when he was asked if he did karaoke at home in London. “Almost every night” came the dubious reply. Finally, he was asked what kind of songs he likes to sing. “Oh, just our stuff” - the band duly collapse into giggles and the game is up.

There’s some photos to do for a paper back home, so the fellas troop outside the hotel for a street scene. There’s a small crowd of fans who’ve assembled, having learned that the band are here. As the band all cram onto the tiny back seat of a Tokyo cab, they excitedly jump into the cab behind, presumably issuing the “follow that car” equivalent in Japanese, only to find that “that car” is going absolutely nowhere. After the requisite few frames, the band pile out and wander off, leaving their would-be tail somewhat confused.

The next day brought Fuji Rock festival. A quick nip up on the bullet train saw us arriving just as it began to get dark. It’s a bit of a shame really, to travel all this way to a show that has an astounding view of such a natural spectacle - only to arrive when it’s too dark to see it. It’s definitely a show where those bands on earlier in the day get a better deal…

The show finishes and it’s time to leg it to waiting vans for a police escort off site and a long drive home. I look confusedly around as I get to the bottom of the offstage steps and I see no cars. Once the punters are in it seems, no vehicles can come as far as the stage. The nearest point of access is a car park across a bridge behind the stage, prompting me to remark to Co-producer Rik Simpson halfway over “this is the first runner that’s ever involved a river crossing”.

As we slowly wind our way through the hills, I text home. The cat has been missing since I arrived. Curiously, he’s only ever gone AWOL on two occasions in his life - both of which have been times when I’ve been to Japan. Whether he’s looking for me, or keen to remind me to get some Hello Kitty merchandise, I’m not sure.

Either way, it comes as a relief when the phone vibrates and lights up with the words “He’s just walked in the back door”. Only then does it strike me how amazing the technology is. I’m deep in the mountains on a small island the other side of the planet and I’m getting updates in real time on the whereabouts of the cat. Touring when I started didn’t even involve mobile phones, let alone all the stuff we have now. Going away meant being completely and utterly absent for huge chunks of time. All of this stuff makes it so much more bearable.

That’s not to say I’m not dreading the phone bill when I get back, mind you…

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the global time travel

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Australia, as regular readers might remember, is one of my very favourite places on the face of the Earth. Imagine then, my level of dis-chuff to find that we’d be spending a grand total of 36 hours there - much of which was spent asleep. Good thing then, that the gig went a long way to making up for it.

Firstly we arrive, as we have at several festivals this year, to the sound of Elbow wafting through the air. We then discover that Pulp are playing - total result. I stand and watch them at stage left and find that whilst I’m happy to see them, band assistant Vicki Taylor is positively thrilled. They appear to have lost absolutely nothing of what made them so superbly wonderful in the first place and they’re a totally unexpected highlight of the trip so far. I really hope their reunion lasts longer than just the festies…

It’s also a special day for Mr. Champion, as he turns 33 in front of the assembled crowd of Aussies this evening.

In a rather cruel twist of fate, he’s received rather unwelcome gift of food poisoning this year. He gives it a full on performance though and the drums see no mercy whatsoever. Maybe sweating it out really is the best way…

Later, Fix You brought us from the celebration of birth to the acknowledgement of a tragic death. There’s little that can be said about Amy Winehouse’s passing that hasn’t already been said. It’s just such a sad waste. We’ll leave aside the awful irony and just let the Aussie choir sing.

The ride back from Splendour In The Grass is long enough that we’ve got around 5 hours before we leave for the flight down to Sydney to hook up with our LA flight. I figure that the most sensible way forward is staying awake to guarantee a long sleep on the long haul. This leaves me somewhat dazed and confused as we arrive at the airport. Myself and trainer Dan are on a different flight from the rest of the party and we seemed to have drawn the short straw - somehow arriving with six suitcases between us to check onto the short domestic flight - only three of which belong to us.

Not only are we asking to check in way over our allowance of baggage, but we’re asking to check it straight onwards through the connecting flight to LA. The fella behind the desk frowns and then recoils from the screen looking somewhat as though he’s simultaneously been punched in the privates and subjected to a particularly noxious odour. Evidently this is not going to be straightforward. He tries again, he wanders off and gets help, someone comes to “reprogram the computer”, still no joy. Finally we give up and agree to pick up the bags in Sydney and re-check them. Just as he slaps the tags on the first bag, another man comes running from an office in the back looking exceptionally pleased with himself. He has, it would appear, switched it off and switched it on again and all is well with the world.

We come into Sydney over the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Like many landmarks, they are smaller than you might imagine them to be, but their significance huge. For a Brit, Sydney Opera House represents “being a very long way from home”. In fact, it’s pretty much as far as you can go without starting to get closer again.

And getting closer to home is exactly what’s next on the agenda, via another major (though completely invisible) landmark. We’re crossing the international dateline. Given the “timezone-pinball” nature of this trip, it’s the ultimate extra ball.

We’re leaving Sydney for LA - where they are 17 hours behind us. The flight lasts 13 hours. So that means - yes - we arrive 4 hours before we set off.

I’m so gloriously overtired, that I can’t begin to comprehend it. I’m half expecting to look out the window somewhere over the Pacific and see a parallel flight with a parallel me going in the other direction. This may well have happened, but unfortunately, both of us were deeply deeply asleep…

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the globe-trotting adventure

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Greetings to you all from Tokyo. We just flew in from London yesterday and boy are our arms tired… And so begins a trip that sees us do an entire lap of the planet in just fourteen days. London-Tokyo-Brisbane-Sydney-LA-Chicago-London. Two weeks of insane travel, monstrous jetlag, huge shows and days packed with promo. There’s just no getting around the fact that we’re going to need taking home in a basket. As ever, when faced with such a brutal schedule, Coldplay’s response is completely predictable: “Can we fit a bit more in?”.

To that end, studios have been booked at every step along the way for some final (yeah right) fiddling with the record and Mat Whitecross has joined us to see if they can get a video made while they’re at it. I do sometimes wonder whether the fellas are going to get to 40 years of age and just collapse onto their respective sofas and refuse to move for the rest of their lives. I have to say, it’d be hard to blame them…

The next fortnight then, is going to be an interesting experiment in human endurance and the effects of timezone-disorientation. Everyone arrived at the departure lounge bright and fresh after a couple of weeks at home or on holiday. I expect that the versions of ourselves that will walk through the arrivals hall in a couple of weeks time to be looking a tad less bouncy. We’ll see.

Without getting all “world traveller” on you, I’m finding Tokyo feeling a little less alien every time we come here. I’ve heard people say that for a westerner, it’s the most like visiting another planet you can get. I was in agreement the first couple of times I was here, but it doesn’t feel that way at all now.

Obviously, the alphabet is impenetrable to someone who hasn’t studied it and the food too, (at least for someone so used to western over-processed crap) is a long long way from what you’re used to. On top of this, is the fact that the jet lag from GMT to here is pretty shocking, so everything is usually viewed through the lens of exhaustion and confusion that makes even the everyday seem heavily surreal.

I’m starting to feel a bit more familiar with it now though. Having said that, I’m not sure if it’s perhaps a sign that I’ve been doing this a little too long when after travelling six thousand miles, the first thing I think on arriving is “Ooh, this is exactly the same room I had last time - right, I might nip round the corner for coffee…”.

The one thing I still haven’t totally got my head around is the bowing. Now don’t get me wrong, I adore the Japanese and always immediately feel rude not to be as respectful and cheerful as they seem to be by default. The problem is, that having been brought up as an ignorant westerner, I never quite know what the protocol is. This means that I start off by feeling that I’ve been impolite by not bowing appropriately, then inevitably, I massively overcompensate by walking around bowing at every person I pass.

This time, I’ve decided to go with bowing in every instance where I would say either “hello”, “thank you” or “goodbye”. So with that, I shall place my hands at my sides, keep my back straight and bring my shoulders forwards 45 degrees…

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the continuing European festival adventure

Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks doritji]

There’s an urban myth that a frog can’t discern tiny changes in temperature - meaning that you can plop it in a pan of cold water and if you turn the heat up slowly enough it won’t realise it’s being boiled alive. Now, this is apparently untrue and obviously I don’t condone any kind of animal cruelty, but as an analogy, it’s quite apt. For most of the touring party, it feels like the final applause of the Glastonbury show marked the point at which the pan came off the hob and we were returned to our natural habitat. It’s not like we didn’t know there was stress in the air, just that most of us hadn’t realised quite how far from comfortable we’d travelled, as everything just kept ratcheting up a tiny bit at a time...

I can’t even begin to imagine how it’s been for the band. On top of all that we’ve been dealing with, they’ve been finishing a record, mixing, sorting out track-listing, photos, videos, promo, last minute extra songs - all of this on top, plus the ever present knowledge that they’re big enough now that there’s plenty of cynical snipers who’d love to see them fail just - well, just *because*.

Standing around nursing a beer after the Glastonbury show, someone asks me “so, do you get some time off now?”. “Oh yes” I reply. “Nothing now for at least…..” (Swig) “two days”. A month of total collapse would have been nice, but that’s not really how things work. Despite the schedule though, the relief of a major milestone passed is enough to see everyone in very good form as we head off for Gothenburg.

The Gothenburg show itself is hugely relaxed. It's a compact festival in a lovely wooded spot. The smaller crowd after Glastonbury makes it feel a little like doing a show in someone’s back garden (although, in some ways, that’s exactly how Glastonbury could be described).

The one standout memory of the Gothenberg show for me was the look of joy on Guy’s face throughout. I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen him look so much like he’s enjoying himself so much on stage for a long time. Funny, he never looks stressed….

Then, on to Poland. Somehow, Coldplay have never made a visit here before. Whether it’s that, or just the general up-for-it nature of the crowd I’m not sure, but it was a very raucous show out front. There were some pretty unpleasant looking crowd surges before the show proper started. It’s never nice seeing people looking uncomfortable, or even frightened when you look out from the stage. I’ve definitely never seen as many people passed over the barrier in one Coldplay set as that night.

Having said all of that, once the show settled in, they were a gloriously bonkers bunch. Completely unexpected, as well. Generally, you know that when you get to Scotland, Italy or South America, they’re going to blow you away, but I genuinely don’t think anyone had any expectations at all here. Turning up and find such a massively enthusiastic audience is a real bonus. They’re noisy for every song, greeting even the new stuff like old favourites. Chris himself asks partway through the show “Why did we wait so long to come here?”. I have to agree.

The Werchter festival is one we’ve done more than once before. Belgium, it must be said, is a pretty tiny country. This makes the size of the festival crowd here all the more striking.

The lineup too, is mighty impressive. Not only are Elbow gracefully floating through the air as arrive, but there is also PJ Harvey and Portishead on the main stage today. Now PJ Harvey, I worked for very briefly just before Coldplay, but Portishead I’ve never seen live before at all.

I wander up to the side of the stage to watch some of Polly’s set and I’m flanked by half of Elbow and a good showing from Portishead. It’s a total Brit invasion and it seems, a complete mutual fanclub.

My only memory of the show itself was feeling rather uncomfortable feeling at hearing onstage soundman Chris Wood explaining that he was having to constantly reset his digital mixing desk. Amongst words you don’t really want to hear in your in-ear monitors just as the intro tape rolls, I’d rate quite highly Chris Wood saying “Get the screwdrivers out Connor”.

We make it through with only minimal disruption, but I can’t help thinking how fortunate we are that this wasn’t going on amidst the tightly-wound Glastonbury changeover.

I hitch a ride from Werchter to Arras on one of the crew buses. The shows are back to back, so it gives me a chance to be on site early the next day to do a bunch of tidying up in my rig that’s been somewhat overdue since first rehearsals.

It starts to dawn on me though, that the crew are still hammering a pretty fierce schedule. Back to back festivals means finishing load out at 2 or 3 in the morning, then getting all the toys back out again a few hours later at 6 or 7am to be set up and fully checked before the festival opens to the punters.

This means that most of the crew are pretty much frazzled to a crisp by now. Sleep has to be grabbed more than once a day in short bursts whenever the opportunity arises. I note that following Arras there’s a bus journey of 25 hours to get to Portugal. I predict some pretty broken folks staggering off the crew bus in London at the end of this leg…

The Arras gig is set in a square, amongst some gorgeous, slightly worn old French architecture - very French revolution and VIVA… You also know you’re in France when you overhear someone in catering enthuse “check out the fresh fruit bar - it’s behind the baguette stand”.

The gig itself comes with its own share of gremlins. In My Place gets derailed when Will throws himself so enthusiastically into it that his in-ear monitors become completely unplugged. The orchestra parts go off in one direction, as he bravely struggles to get things back on track, unknowingly taking a slightly different route…

There’s all manner of other little brain-farts and fuck-ups along the way, making it an unexpected struggle to get through the set. As ever, the crowd carry them through and the band’s complete unwillingness to let things go south prevails. I was expecting a somewhat subdued and emotionally dark flight home, but the band are in high spirits, having wrestled the show into submission and come out resolutely on top

Maybe we’re not quite off the stove just yet…

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: Roadie #42 and the solitary candle

Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks doritji]

So that’s the last two big, big festies out the way before what’s becoming known as G-Day (or Glastonbury to the rest of the world). These shows have been a great way to shake off the rust from the touring machine and get into gear for the big one. In so many ways, Glasto is just another gig - and given the fact that we’ve been doing huge festivals for the past couple weeks, that really is exactly what it is.

Except that it just isn’t. It’s a gig that perhaps more than any other, is way way bigger than any artist, any crowd or any amount of dry ice and laser beams. In many ways, headlining the Glastonbury Pyramid is a bit like owning a stately home. You can live there for a bit and maybe even feel like Lord of the manor if you’re that way inclined...

Really though, it’s your responsibility to uphold its history and protect its legend -pass it on to future generations every bit as grand and impressive as you found it. The fellas clearly feel the weight of expectation, but they’ve never been ones to shy away from a challenge.

The show though, has come together wonderfully well over this short little run of gigs and is in fine form to take its place under the pyramid in a week or two. The new tunes already feel very strong in the set - Charlie Brown getting the full-on bouncing-festival-crowd treatment every night now as it cruises in after Viva.

Talking of Viva, Venice marked the first show where the crowd were chanting the Viva melody a full half hour before the band even took to the stage. They were as warm, passionate and wonderful as you would expect any huge crowd of Italians to be, making for a solidly excellent show. I remember quite little about this gig apart from everyone telling me it was going to be terrible weather and a mud-fest. On the day, it was of course nothing of the sort. Still, at least I’ve got the emergency clothing back in the flightcase…

Pinkpop was also a wonderful day out. Especially so for being one of those excellent days where I get paid to watch Elbow perform. I first saw them at Leeds festival in the UK ten years or so ago and have seen them at regular intervals ever since. It’s an utter joy to watch them bloom and I can honestly say that if they ain't on your iPod, you’re a fool to yourself quite frankly.

Further proof of the above (if it were necessary) comes when I text Mr Champion a quick question about the setlist. I immediately hear a phone ping and realise that he’s standing just behind me grinning broadly as they go through their paces.

Chris meanwhile is off at one of the smaller stages checking out Ash, as they tear the place up. Festivals are nothing if not a great way to catch up with all your favourite acts…

The changeover between Elbow and Coldplay is one whole hour. Pinkpop is rather civilised in its organisation, allowing for a very relaxed and comfortable time getting the stage ready - without boring the pants off the waiting crowd.

Even after the hour of roadies running cables as the sun slowly dropped, it's still pretty much full-on daylight when the band takes to the stage. This brings about the rather wonderful comedy interlude where the pack of security folks, tour manager, stage manager and production manager who usually light the band’s way onto the stage are now waving super-powerful torches about in the broad daylight. Somehow the band managed to get to the stage using only their own eyes and the sound of 40,000 or so screaming punters to guide them.

Both these recent festivals saw Birthdays being marked on the journey home. Heading out of Venice, we celebrated the birth of lovely band assistant Vicki Taylor and coming home from Holland, saw Soundman / Co-Producer Dan Green getting the card and the sing-song. As is traditional, there were balloons, there were streamers, a banner and a cake. Both nights however, the cake held one single solitary candle. FAA rules apparently - not one more is permitted.

I expect that’s the war on terror won, then…

R#42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the days off that weren't days off

Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks mimixxx]

Doing festivals means a lot of days off. Or rather, it doesn't. Following Rock am Ring, the band party headed off in a convoy of vans through quite the most dramatic thunderstorm I can remember since the Dubai show a few years back. As the crew saunter down to Venice for a few days off, the fellas head back into the Beehive to give it some on a new track. I remember chatting to Rik Simpson at the end of the Viva recording about songs that came along late in the recording process - the last minute wonders...

Rik thought that it was probably something to do with the pressure being off a little, with the shape of the record being established and the urgency gone - but with the creative flow still very much in effect. Apparently some of the biggest tunes have come this way.

Maybe getting in front of a crowd and having a couple of great shows jolted something? Perhaps the relief of getting through the birthing of the show brought with it new inspiration?

Who indeed knows? But amidst the multitude of other jobs being done at the Beehive in the service of the new album, the walls in my office have been vibrated for the last three days by the sounds of the band thrashing through a new number.

Markus claims they've played this one straight and that it's all the better for it. I have to admit I've not been in the main room at all these last few days - I've been tinkering with cameras, so I've actually as little idea as you as to what exactly it sounds like.

What I do know, however, is that you can say what you like about these fellas, but they ain't shy of putting the hours in.

R42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the rocking in the rain

Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks jeremyy]

The human race, really, is pretty amazing. If a wildlife documentary showed you a species gathering together in tens of thousands to sing and dance together, it would be gripping, unmissable television. If it showed this happening in torrential storm conditions with all of the assembled creatures showing no signs whatsoever of losing enthusiasm, you would sit and shake your head incredulously at the utter wonder of nature.

I looked out from the side of the stage on Saturday and saw the Rock Am Ring crowd going pleasingly berserk to Charlie Brown and couldn’t help but be astonished. Now, I’m not generally one for gazing in wonderment at humanity. The fact is, I tend to prefer keeping the majority of it at arms length if at all possible. How could you see this though and not let your stony heart be just a little warmed?

I can’t work out whether Saturday was great because it was a superb crowd, because the band had really hit a stride, because the setlist changes had hit on the magical flow or just because I’d made it through the stress and finally felt like I could look up and take in my surroundings.

I suspect as ever, that it’s a combination of factors. Whichever way though, it was a bona fide blinder. I’m also not sure if the new stuff has made it around the internet after the first show, or whether folks were genuinely greeting it rapturously on very first listen.

Whatever is going on here though, feels pretty bloody good to me.

R#42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 reports back from the first show of the festival run

Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks Natascha]

We all meet up around noon to head over to the first festival show. Coincidentally, it's the exact time that the new single breaks cover and hits the radio waves for the first time. Everyone wanders into the lounge with different news: "They gave it a rewind - so good they played it again straight away"; "Twitter has gone absolutely berserk"; "I can't even get on the fan sites they're so busy - one of them is completely down".

It's a bit of a Team Coldplay gathering, with various management folks, some EMIs - even producer Markus Dravs is here to visit his homeland for a couple days. The band, of course - the eye of this very hurricane - float in looking oblivious to anything going on at all. They are focused on the job in hand, namely playing a blinder of a festival show to get us off the blocks.

It's kind of a strange thing going back to doing huge shows after such a long gap. You know that this once felt very comfortable and familiar, but you feel one step removed from it, as if perhaps you shouldn't really be here. It's a little like revisiting your old school classroom several years after you took off the tie for the last time. I imagine that the "slightly unfamiliar" vibe wasn't just limited to us folks. There was a fair chunk of new material tonight - a whole six songs of it - only one tune of which anyone in the audience stood any chance of having heard before.

The new stuff, though, is well received and people are clearly very excited to be hearing fresh work. It’s inevitable that brand new tunes receive an “attentive listen”, whereas the familiar chiming chords of the Viva intro ignite the place like a firework. It’s a brave and necessary move, though. Festivals particularly, could easily be a time to load the bomb bay with hit after crowd-pleasing hit to ensure rapturous applause throughout - putting yourself in the best light in front of the maximum number of people.

There would be an underlying weakness in that, though - like you’re admitting that all your best stuff is behind you and it’s those songs from years past that people are really here for. But this band is not a greatest-hits act yet. They are still striving to produce their finest and most potent work. Given the way Jonny lets rip in HLH, I’d say that’s just what they’re doing.

Another point of note comes during UATW. Chris begins alone on acoustic guitar. Will joins him at the tiny pump organ and chimes in on backing vocal - earning him quite the hugest cheer I’ve ever heard for a simple harmony. The fact that it’s a tune nobody in the field has ever heard before seems somehow to make the response more genuine. Definite moment...

Obviously, all the favourites are present, correct and kicking plenty of the proverbial. The most glorious production moment is a completely unplanned one in Fix You. As the mobile phones get held aloft, Chris asks for all of the stage lights to be killed. Suddenly it’s just the sea of little blue lights and the song. Nothing else - and really, what else do you need?

The set closes with Every Teardrop… and it’s completely evident that it’s a great festival tune. It’ll be interesting actually, to see how the audience response changes as this song drills its way into the public conscience. I’m expecting each show to see it greeted more and more rapturously until it gets the same treatment as the Clocks piano riff or the Viva strings.

Overall, you couldn’t ask for a more solid first night. There are a million tweaks to make, a whole load of things that’ll slip into place, but for now it feels a little less like we’re visiting an old haunt and a lot more like we’re back where we belong…

R#42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the family and friends rehearsal

Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks SueDeNimes]

Back in 2002, I did my first ever day’s work for a band called Coldplay. They were doing Production Rehearsals at The Forum in Kentish town. For those who have never been there, The Forum is a theatre sized rock venue, with a stage almost exactly the same size as the one in the Christmas Lights video. It also happens to be right next door to the Bull & Gate pub, where on their fourth ever show, Coldplay met up with a young sound-man called Dan Green who has been with them ever since. Dan has recently been co-producing their new album...

The Coldplay I met in 2002 were getting ready to do a run of festivals, including their first shot at headlining Glastonbury. They had a bunch of new songs, but nobody had heard them yet. They were nervous and excited. They were about to emerge from the studio and see whether the world shared their enthusiasm for this music they’d worked so hard on.

My role during those first days carried so little responsibility that I spent those four days of rehearsals almost entirely in the pub. Indeed the first time I met the band was when they were about to go onstage for their final run through before heading out on tour.

I nipped in the back door of the venue and into the tiny corridor that leads up onto the stage. I was hoping to sneak in unnoticed, as though I’d been there all day. When I opened the stage door, I bumped into the four friends in a team huddle before hitting that stage for one last run through before the festivals.

Today, almost ten years later and after weeks of rehearsal, we moved all the band’s gear once again into The Forum in Kentish Town, to do exactly the same again. One last run through before hitting the festivals. Today there was an invited audience of “Family and Friends” to give just enough pressure to make it real.

My role has changed greatly, to the point where the chances of getting a pint in amidst the chaos are now slim to none. The band have changed a great deal too - stronger, more experienced and confident, but still the same four (well, five) fellas.

But here they are again, standing in that very same little corridor, emerging from the studio and onto the live stage. About to start a new adventure. Nervous, excited and hoping that the world shares their enthusiasm for what they’ve created.

WATCH 22 SECOND VIDEO VIA VIMEO

I reckon they’ll be just fine…

R#42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 is busying himself for festival season

Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks Natascha]

We had an email go around recently from our fearless new production manager (you’d bloody have to be…), Wob Roberts. It had the subject line “More changes - No change there”. Now, that could come across as snidey moaning, but given Wob’s unflappable nature, it’s clearly just the knowing wink of someone who’s seen it all before. The process of getting a tour together, much like any creative endeavour, is something that starts with a blank sheet of paper (or in the festivals’ case, an empty field). The change from the empty field to the huge event doesn’t happen in one big lightswitch-like flick. It happens over the course of an incredible number of planning meetings, decisions, experiments, triumphs and trashings...

The entire journey is a procession of changes - some tiny, some huge, but all whizzing past you and altering the landscape at an alarming rate. When you first experience this, it can feel very uncomfortable. There is almost nothing solid to build from, because nothing stays the same for very long.

It never really gets any easier, you just get better at ignoring the voice in your head that is constantly screaming “run away”.

None of this is to say it’s any less unsettling. When one job is reliant on another being finished so that you can get started being ready for a third, things can soon get quite interesting. When the deadline for the thing you’re waiting on shifts a few weeks back and the thing you need to be ready for gets shifted forwards - you’re left needing to finish the job two weeks before being in a position to even start it.

Anyway, nobody likes a moaner and in reality, besides the workload, I’m looking forward to escaping from the studio for a bit.

The fellas themselves are on great form. Perhaps it’s the weather, perhaps it’s the idea of escaping from the studio and going outdoors to make a massive noise again, who knows? I’ve just come up the stairs past the ‘art room’. This often acts as a meeting room and a place to listen back to work in progress. The door was firmly closed. I always assume there are serious discussions and furrowed brows when the door is closed, but as I pass, I hear Jonny make a comment and Phil explode in genuine and joyous laughter. Sounds like the vibe is very up.

The greatest thing for me about the festivals, is that they’re a very solid framework for what’s coming up. Everyone knows where they’ll be and what they’ll be doing for a good deal of the summer - and in an environment where constant change whips you like the wind, having absolute certainty about something (or the closest you get to it in this game) is a very good thing.

Hope it stays sunny…

R#42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 on Christmas Lights, shivering and Shiver

Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks Kris W.]

Bloody HECK, but it's been busy. I'd forgotten what it's like when they release a record. I've experienced 3 album launch campaigns with this band and I swear that the mind blocks out the memories. It's only as your brain starts to feel as though it's doing the wall of death round the inside of your skull that the vague recollections become somewhat disturbing flashbacks. I could moan about mountains of email and exploding to-do lists, but frankly nobody likes a whiner. And besides, there are more interesting things going on...

So yes, there's a new Coldplay song out in the world. (Although this feels like an album launch in terms of the amount of stuff we've had to get done, it is just a one-off.) The video shoot already feels like a lifetime ago. Recollections of that night include (in no particular order): Rather a lot of shivering, realising that Simon Pegg is quite possibly even funnier in person than on the telly and getting a constant stream of amusing texts from my colleagues on the boat full of fans. ("We're doing Coldplay Karaoke! Frida is nailing Yellow...").

As I say - it was a certainly a cold one that night. Here's a few photos I got whilst I snuck into the trailer to see if I could get some feeling back in my fingers...

Today we are set up in a rehearsal room getting ready for the Christmas shows in Liverpool and Newcastle. We've been here a couple of days already without the band, scratching our heads and pondering exactly how everything used to fit together. It's been a very pleasant couple of days getting re-acquainted both with the equipment and more importantly the wonderful crew family. As ever, the arrival of the band steps the urgency level up several notches as it's time to give the setlist a good thrashing and prove that it is all going to work.

The band arrive bright and early, swinging into the set right away. Inevitably there are more smiles raised at getting things wrong than there are getting them right, but the first run through is gratifyingly reassuring.

As much as anything else, getting from the beginning of the set to the end is a stress reliever for everyone concerned. After most of a year off the road, the doubts as to whether you can actually hold your end of things up the way you used to are natural. Pretty soon though, it all falls back into place. One noisy and excitable run through is all that's required to decide that it'll be fine. After all, there is such a thing as being over-rehearsed...

Ever the multi-taskers, the band decide to head back to the studio - there's an album to finish, after all. Whilst they're waiting for a car though, Chris and Jonny did have time to blow the cobwebs off this one:

http://vimeo.com/17912881

R#42