Hey gang, So, you know that I’ve been referring to a big announcement a lot lately. A few days ago in my entry written from the departure terminal at Vancouver International airport, I alluded to sitting with an important package by my side.

Yesterday in the wee hours of the morning, I posted a picture of Chris Martin and Guy Berryman facing a poster of sorts with writing that appears to match the graphics on this page. Well, In the immortal words of one Jim Morrison, “The time to hesitate is through.”

In fact, the “package” I carried was one of our Oxfam banners that had been signed by all four members of Coldplay. They signed it just after I had met with them to announce the good news of reaching the milestone of 100 thousand people who have taken action with Oxfam since the start of the Viva tour last July. We commemorated the occasion with a few pictures that were sent to me a few days ago with the words “Sent via carrier pigeon” at the bottom of the email.

So, in the spirit of strength in numbers, I’m pleased to announce on behalf of Oxfam and Coldplay that we will be awarding the banner to the 150 thousandth person to take action with Oxfam on the Viva la Vida tour! How cool is that? The banner has been all over the world with Oxfam and Coldplay, and when we reach 150,000 it could be one of yours as well. It’s a cool thing not just because it is signed and doodled on by Coldplay, however. Its a symbol of the important work Oxfam has been able to accomplish through the Oxfam-Coldplay alliance, the power of music to change the world, and a snap-shot in the history of music activism that was initiated with 1985’s Live Aid concert by Bob Geldoff. I can’t count how many Oxfam volunteers, interns, club founders, CHANGE leaders and Action Corps members I’ve met who learned about Oxfam for the first time at a Coldplay concert. And I thought my vintage Live Aid t-shirt was cool.

Read the full blog entry with pictures at the Oxfam Blog website here onwards.

Lovers and friends, How’s everyone doing while the Viva tour is on break? For some of my crew mates and I, it’s already beginning to feel like that point in summer break where you admit to yourself that you’re bored with all the time off and want school to start again so you can see all your friends.

This is evidenced by the text messages and Facebook posts that immediately began being exchanged that say, “I miss everyone already!” or, “I’m already listening to Howling Bells to me get myself back to NORMAL.” Ironic, though not unexpected because we are constants for one another on the road when everything else is changing. I feel so lame talking about all this like I’ve been out for three years or something, but I’m new to this whole roadie thing.

Read the full blog entry with pictures at the Oxfam Blog website here onwards.

Hello all! I wrote this from the Vancouver International Airport with a view of the mountains in front of me, and a supremely important package by my side…

Today is the first day of almost three weeks off while the tour is on hiatus and the band hits some major festivals in Europe. This means my crew pass and 2-way radio are unclipped from my belt-band, and that I’ll be carrying car keys in the place of a hotel key-card in no time. I wish I could say the same for those weary crewmates who do sound or instruments, merchandising or security, for the fellas. I honestly thought that 23 shows into the summer tour I’d be exhausted and ready to go home. Although I have begun noticing the dark and puffy circles around my eyes in recent photos, I think my new touring wings have a long ways until they’re worn to a frazzle.

Read the full blog entry with pictures at the Oxfam Blog website here onwards.

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the last day of term

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

Our Vancouver hotel is opposite a construction site. In the interests of noise avoidance I eventually end up moving between three different rooms before settling on a place to stay on the other side of the building up on the 26th floor. It's a smaller room, but it's well away from the noise and when you've spent a year in clanging arenas most days, peace and quiet is a luxury - even if it does mean sitting and listening to your ears ring.

I later learn that Dave Holmes, the band's manager once worked as a bellman at the hotel where the noisy hole in the ground opposite us now is. I sit waiting for the van on our first day watching the bellmen in our hotel and wondering where they'll end up...

Actually, talking of Dave, the band were doing some photos on the way to the stage and they grabbed him for a shot together. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, George and the Zorins....

The first day in Vancouver sees the return of the soundcheck. The Vancouver shows are being filmed, so there's a lot of working on cameras, checking shots and making sure that the recording folks are happy. The final city of a tour leg normally feels like the last day of school. The addition of a bank of cameras postpones the relief somewhat.

Thankfully, the first gig goes very well, leaving the band with one good show in the bag and one in hand the next night. There is a little party upstairs afterwards. It's not a crazy all-nighter by any means - there's not only a show to do the next day, but it's being filmed, so nobody wants to be derelict when it matters.

I leave reasonably early and learn the next day that keyboard tech Neill Lambert had attempted to walk back to the hotel, before getting completely lost and finding himself right back where he started. He arrived just as Chris was leaving, so he decided to stand behind a gang of fans who were waiting to meet him as he left. It's unsure who was more surprised: Neill that he was back at the gig; Chris that one of the crew appeared to be waiting drunk with fans asking for an autograph; or the fans who had no idea who Neill was and just saw a scruffy-looking drunk bloke ask Chris for a lift home - and get one!

The second filmed show is a stormer. Word has obviously got around that the shows are being filmed and the crowd are keen to put on a great performance. They sing like angels, they wave their cellphones like gurning ravers and it's a solidly great gig, much to the relief of us all.

Inevitably, emotions afterwards run between excitement that school's out and general collapsing in a heap. It's getting to that strange point in the tour for me, where it feels like it's never going to end and I can't quite remember what it's like doing anything else. We're leaving North America, but we're back in a couple of weeks. It just feels like we're having a few days off. Doubtless I'll just get accustomed to being at home again and it'll be time to head off to do some festivals...

Anyway, I'd better pack. I shall leave you with this youtube clip from Edmonton. Did the guy on the left really propose in front of the B-Stage during The Hardest Part? If so, it certainly looks as though she said yes....

Best of luck folks!

R#42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the Edmonton favour

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

We arrive in Edmonton and the van that has come to pick us up has a windscreen adorned by several huge cracks. Franksy voices his concern to the driver who cheerfully claims that this is par for the course here in Edmonton. Apparently, the roads throw up stones at a rate of knots, which means that an unspoiled windscreen is a very rare beast indeed round these parts. We're not convinced. A windscreen with so much as a tiny crack is illegal to drive with in the UK. Our driver jokes that around here, they stop you just to make sure your windows are smashed up enough. We shrug and buckle up.

We're far enough into the tour that soundchecks have pretty much become superfluous. This gives us more time in the hotel, but does inevitably mean that we're heading to work just as the rest of the world is going home. We sit in rush hour traffic and slowly grind towards the venue.

The show comes around and Chris announces from the B-stage, that he has been in trouble with Will for referring to The Hardest Part as "the solo section of the gig", when he is in fact accompanied by Mr. C on harmony vocals. Chris explains to the assembled crowd that he needs to make ammends and would greatly appreciate their help. He asks that they give Will a monumental cheer when his backing vocal chimes in during the chorus.

They do just that....

An hour later, the show is over and we're back in the van. We're ten minutes down the highway, when there's an almighty crash and the entire window beside Franksy (who's up front riding shotgun) shatters into a thousand safety-glass pieces and becomes less of a window and more of a hole in the side of the van (and rather a lot of little lumps of glass all over the tour manager).

We're all completely stunned. The driver however, seems positively excited. He responds in a tone like someone who has just been shown a particularly impressive skateboard trick. "Wooooah, I ain't never seen that before". The bizarreness-o-meter then does a complete loop as he decides to head into the fast lane rather than the hard shoulder to pull over and check if Franksy is OK. This would be odd enough, except the fast lane appears to have three girls standing in it attempting to cross a six lane highway.

At this point, we're all pretty speechless. The best we can do is offer up some incredulous swearing and confusion. I would close this blog by recommending that if you visit Edmonton you avoid window seats at all costs. We get on the plane for Vancouver, though, and a look at the view forces me to reconsider.

R#42

Hi world! When I received the tour travel itinerary early in May, I became aware of the fact that I’d be with the tour in Calgary on June 17th, which happens to be the day that I’d be turning what I call “the adult side of 25.”

I’m sooooo not the person to broadcast my birthday, especially not to an entire blog readership! How many of you do you think are out there? Sometimes I feel like it could be 5 people, other days it feels like it could be 5 million people… who knows? The point is that I’m resisting the impulse to delete this entire entry and ignore the fact that yesterday was my birthday for the sake of honesty. For me this blog is about Oxfam’s work on the Coldplay tour, and about the awesome volunteers that I get to meet who exhibit incredible commitment to “thinking globally and acting locally.”

Read the full blog entry with pictures at the Oxfam Blog website here onwards.

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the birthdays bonanza

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

Rather hilariously, we recently hit a million Twitter followers - shortly after I posted a photo of a toilet door. I shall leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide what that says about the Twitter-verse... In all seriousness though folks, thanks for joining us - and obviously, I'm aware that it's Mr. Berryman's presence that has catapaulted us over the seven figure mark. It's fun to be part of things that are changing so fast. Not knowing how it'll all develop is all part of the fun....

It's been a little while since I've posted and as always happens when I leave it a week or so, the intervening days have all blurred into the rear view mirror somewhat. What I do remember, is that we seem to have been averaging a birthday every other day on this tour leg.

Geoffrey who handles band security, kicked things off just before we arrived in Austin. We then moved on to celebrating the birth of Ms. Vicki Taylor, one of the band's lovely personal assistants. Now, it's no surprise that everyone on the tour would wish Vicki a happy birthday, but this took us completely aback:

I mean, the fact that these people know her name is pretty amazing - but the fact that they know it's her birthday and have come out celebrating tonight? Just bonkers! (In the most lovely way, of course...)

Soundman Dan Green celebrated two days after Vicki. His birthday also coincided almost perfectly with his ten year anniversary working for the band. He's been with the band since almost their very first show and has seen more Coldplay gigs than any other person on the planet. For his thirtieth the other night, he got his very own spotlight and a rather lovely cheer.

In order to mark the birthday season, Franksy organised a party on one of the days off recently. It was a top day out by a lake, with swimming, jet-skis and a constant supply of barbeque goodness. We were joined not only by Jim from Sleepercar, who opened up for the band a few months back, but also by current opening act Snow Patrol. Great chance to get to know folks - they drive a mean jet-ski those fellas - at least while it's still got fuel in it they do...

Someone's iPod was hooked in to the stereo and it shuffled into one of the tracks that the band play through the PA just before going onstage. For a moment everyone froze, before falling about laughing. Guy did the decent thing and ejected it, assuming his rightful place as groove controller. He slipped his iPod into the deck and delivered top tunes for the remainder of the day.

Talking of Snow Patrol, I have to say that not only are they absolutely top fellas to a man (band and crew), but they're going down an absolute storm. They're getting the crowd on their feet each and every night and getting sing-a-longs worthy of headliners. Rightly so an' all! They comfortably fill places this size in their own right and have tunes to match.

In a rather heart-warming tale, the video department have started shooting Snow Patrol for the big screens that relay the show to the folks up the very back. Now in normal cases, this is subject to a fee payable to each of the cameramen and so on, as they'd normally be relaxing on the bus at this point in the day.

Video Director Andy Bramley, though, has decided that being as the whole video department are watching Snow Patrol's show each night anyway, they might as well get in there and get on with it. The fee has reportedly been shrunk to a hundred bucks and a bottle of vodka. The hundred bucks is to go to the charity of the band's choosing. The vodka, you will be unsurprised to learn, does not...

Quite what it is about being an early summer baby that makes folks pre-disposed to life of tour-buses and hotels I have no idea, but the June birthdays continue apace. Omaha marks the turn of Marguerite, our lovely Production Assistant who sits at a desk akin to a small florists today.

She points out that her birthday last year fell on the same day as the Wembley Arena "Friends and Family" show. This was, in many ways, the starting line for the tour. They weren't paying punters and it wasn't a "real gig", but it was the first time the intro rolled and everyone was hoping to whatever god they did or didn't believe in that it would all go ok.

So that makes the Viva Tour officially one year old. We're all walking upright now and can pretty much feed and dress ourselves. I still wake up screaming in the night from time to time, but overall, it's turning into a fine young tour...

R#42

Hello all! Today is the last of two days off in New Orleans. I’ve been here before, but this city and its people never cease to amaze me with their vibrance. Check out the picture below; it is part of a tape graffiti mural just outside the famous french Quarter.

Saturday night’s show in the Sommet Center in Nashville was a bit of a shift for the tour as it was the start of the arena portion of this leg. I love arenas because their enclosed nature causes the audience’s cheers to reverberate and capture the amazing energy of Coldplay fans that much more. I told my pal Glenn from Howling Bells that they sounded exceptionally good and he laughed and shared that he thought they sounded awful given they didn’t have a sound check.

Read the full blog entry at the Oxfam Blog website here

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

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

Sometimes, completely out the blue, you get a blindingly bright view of your life from another perspective. We're approaching the Indianapolis show when, beside us on the freeway, we see a converted old school bus, with guitar cases, amps, drum carpet and so on piled up in the window. It's a band on their way to a gig. We too, are in a van, we are also on our way to a gig. The similarities don't end there though. In our van is Franksy, Dan Green, show designer Paul Normandale and I. Every one of us started our touring careers crammed into a bashed up van full of gear with the band, driving to some smelly, sticky dive in the middle of nowhere wondering whether anyone would show up.

I remember coming home from a gig in Plymouth, aged 17, with a band very dear to my heart, (who sadly got passed over by the industry at the time). The van was so heavily packed and so wheezingly broken, that anything more than a slight incline meant everyone but the driver had to get out and walk. On particularly steep hills, we would have to push.

Quite frankly, that all added to the fun. Being "part of it", being that close to the music, "living it" - it was all I could have wished for at the time. The band in the van next to ours (I am so utterly gutted that I didn't write down their MySpace page from the back of the van, otherwise I'd have linked 'em up here) wave back as we all smile out of the window giving them the thumbs up.

Somehow, the inhabitants of the "our-previous-selves" van realise just who our convoy of vehicles may contain. Presumably, they can't find a piece of paper, because instead they scrawl in black marker pen on a white drum head. They hold up the make-shift sign that says "Coldplay?" and we point to the vans ahead and nod, smiling.

They're laughing and high-fiving each other - enjoying the story they've just bagged that nobody will believe. I wonder what they imagine life is like for us. I try to remember what I would have imagined when I was pushing that brown Ford Transit up a hill coming out of Plymouth. In many ways it's what I expected, but in many ways, little has changed since the van. Massive amounts of world travel, aeroplanes, huge venues, loads of trucks and the many other tokens of "Big Touring" are all present and correct.

The things that stay the same though, are the fact that you're in a gang. You're out there taking on the world yet at the same time, the most crucial thing is making the perfect joke at the expense of your mate. That side of things begins in the van days and never goes away.

I'm stood in the corridor where the band grab a drink and a towel before the encores and I realise that despite all else that surrounds the hugeness of the Coldplay circus, they're still the same four mates who started it all those years ago. As the Viva remix pounds through the walls, they dry the sweat and talk of who came into which chorus too early or who hit the wrong note when.

Admittedly, when the show is over they leave by police escort in a screeching cavalcade of flashing lights, rather than pushing a transit van. Inside the van though, not that much has changed.

R#42

You know, world, when I’m done writing a new entry, I click on the little square to the left of the text that says “publish” and I wonder to myself, “Self, do you think anyone is actually reading this?” However, today I was pleased to find evidence that people are actually reading and liking these entries in the form of a concert goer today. She was waiting for doors to open to the show and as I walked by the gates she said “Are you Soha? I read your blog!” Wow. Thank you everyone! Thanks especially to my peeps at Coldplaying.com for linking Oxfam’s entries and always being all around awesome to us. [Ed. - pleasure is all ours!] Please do comment so I don’t always feel like I’m talking to myself.

Yesterday’s show day in Cincinnati was another one of those days where rain loomed and I had to be ready to pack up in an instant. Lest another Hershey, PA fiasco be repeated where all of Oxfam’s gear was soaked in rain!

Read the full blog entry at the Oxfam Blog website here

Hello all! Just checking in from Cinncinati, Ohio. Today has been quite the eventful day despite my thinking that a day off in Cinncinati was going to be one of those marathon-movie-watching-in-bed days that are often accompanied by massive amounts of hotel room coffee and some form of chinese take out.

We awoke around 11:30 in the morning by the declaration that we’d arrived to our hotel and that we had to wake up and get off the bus so that it could be parked off-site. Often times on days off, we get to wake up at our own leisure and check in our hotels when we’re ready to; but today our buses were too big to park in front of the hotel so we had to be rushed off upon arrival. So I climbed out of my bunk in the most undignified of manners and got my bags in order. Our bunks are three high and three deep in the center of the bus. They are sandwiched in a corridor between front and back “lounges.” I use the term “lounge” lightly here because there isn’t much lounging happening on a bus of 12 people. Anyway, my bunk is on the very top, so one could imagine how difficult it is to climb down half asleep...

Read the full blog entry at the Oxfam Blog website here

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the mighty roar of Detroit

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

America gets a lot of stick for being overly homogenised and lacking in diversity. I don't really see it, though. Maybe I'm lucky in that the whole place is blurring past us at such speed, but it's such a buffet of flavours and mini-cultures, you can't help but love it. Plus, if you don't love it, a couple hundred miles up the road, you probably will.

We begin the morning in Manhattan. There's fewer places on the planet that can match it for sheer density of population. Folks are packed tightly in - above, below, beside and between each other. Then, as though the DVD has skipped, the next moment, the view from the van window here in Buffalo is of vast expanses of open space. Houses sit proud at the end of long driveways, with so much space surrounding them that many don't even bother with fences. You can just make out where properties end by the fact that mown lawns give way to wild grassland.

We wind our way into the gig and hear Howling Bells soundchecking. (We've reached the point in the tour now where Coldplay soundchecks are a pretty rare event). Their drummer sounds like he's giving In My Place a go (and a pretty good go at that). Before he stops, the whole band have chimed in and it sounds great. I like these folks a lot - but then, they are Ozzies and this serves only to re-enforce the truism that I've never met an Australian I didn't like.

I bury myself in my roadie world, fiddling with bits of my rig with sound-man Dan Green. One of the joys of a tour lasting this long is that you can dig into every aspect of what you do and find absolutely the best way to go about it. We are approaching the 12 months mark now and we're still finding ways to improve the show by a percent or two as we go. It's obviously a fine line between not fixing what ain't broke and taking advantage of the opportunity to learn every bit of kit inside out.

Arrival at Detroit finds Howling Bells in a covers mood once again. Today they give God Put A Smile a go. If they keep this up they'll have spanned the whole setlist before the end of the tour. Having an opening act that are not only great in their own right, but are fully capable understudies is sheer genius. I can't believe it's never been suggested before...

The C-stage section seems now to be regularly featuring a quick lyrical improvisation from Chris each night. For the whole time I've worked for the band, he's made up comedy songs on the spot during soundchecks (usually at the expense of various members of the crew). I've no idea whether this improv spot will become a permanent addition to the show, or whether it'll go as quickly as it came. What I do know though, is that when he fished for a reaction in Detroit, he got a pretty huge one!

WATCH VIDEO/AUDIO

They can indeed make a very loud noise. For reasons I won't go into, I was in the spotlight tower about thirty feet above the crowd as they were making this noise and it sounded utterly immense. I might wander out to the C-stage more often.

I'm now on my last day off in NYC for a while. I figure I should make the effort and get over to B&H. This is a huge department store entirely full of cameras, lenses, video gear and more gadgets than you can shake a USB cable at. Visiting New York without dropping a bit of cash there is like going to Egypt and not bothering with the pyramids. New toys for #42....

R#42

Hello all! Tonight we’re leaving what has begun to feel like a home away from home, Pittsburgh, after three days off and a phenomenal show. I really enjoyed our time off here visiting the Andy Warhol Museum, shopping on Carson Street, and attending a Pirates game. Rolling into the venue at the early hour of 7:30am this morning I had a good feeling about the show. I knew the crowd would be a good one and that the Oxfam team would do well.

Pittsburgh did not disappoint; it was an awesome audience with amazing energy filling the amphitheatre with the resounding shouts of “Go Pens!” Chris Martin even responded at one point when Coldplay was performing on the lawn with “What the hell are you guys talking about?” Needless to say I’ll miss Pittsburgh. This academic-turned Oxfam intern-turned roadie ought to learn not to get too comfortable in one place…

And oh are there balloons! 838 new members of Oxfam America recruited tonight, 75 of them alone ended up being the result of Stevey’s effort! We’re off to Buffallo, NY for another day off tomorrow. I think Niagra Falls is a short drive away; any other suggestions for how to spend my day off tomorrow?

Read the full blog entry at the Oxfam Blog website here

Hey Folks! I’m hollering at you from the beautiful Pittsburgh, PA. The rain curse that was brought upon us has been lifted during our glorious three days off (!!!) and its been nothing but sunshine and butterflies (naturally). It seems that everywhere this crew goes-Atlanta, Hartford, Hershey, Camden- rain ensues! In every city however, rain or shine, our volunteers make me so proud to be part of an organization that has inspired the type of commitment and dedication that they exhibit.

Its been about two weeks since the tour started, and more than a week since my last entry. You may be wondering why I haven’t written. World, its not because I don’t love you, nor is it for lack of inspiration. Rather, at the end of my 13 hour work days when I sit in front of my computer to write to you all, I find myself writing about how much energy life on the road requires. Then I think to myself: “This entry is lame, I’ll try again tomorrow.”

Read the full blog entry at the Oxfam Blog website here

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 blogs on the way to Hartford

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

Without getting all "life on the road" on you, I had forgotten just how fast things move out here. It feels as though I've barely had time to exhale and we're already a week into the new tour leg. It's not so much that time passes fast, as that lots gets packed into short spaces of time. I've already had two major equipment panics - quite possibly a hangover from our desert storm experience in Abu Dhabi.

Touch wood, we made a rather neat, swift and full recovery, without any effect on the show whatsoever. Of course, roadie superstition states that making that kind of statement is tantamount to smashing a mirror whilst walking under a ladder to pass someone the salt, so don't be surprised if I make the next post from hospital (explaining about how I ruined the gig....)

I'm writing on the way to Hartford, CT. Yesterday's day off saw a rather wonderful barbeque on the Berryman balcony. When I say balcony, I'm talking about a rather spiffing roof terrace high above the Manhattan streets. There was plentiful food, drink and good cheer. It was christened "Guystock" and apparently is going to become a yearly affair to rival Glastonbury. Quite how the hotel will feel about us trying to erect a pyramid stage up there in twelve months' time, I'm not sure. Given the way they've looked after us so far though, I can't see them batting an eyelid, to be honest.

Inevitably, following a knees-up, there are a few achy-breaky heads today. Myself, I appear to have fallen on the wagon again. I do this from time to time and I have no idea why. For the moment though, I have no desire whatsoever for booze. This means I had a lovely evening yesterday, chatted to a few folks, watched the sun go down over NYC and then wandered back to my laptop to put together some video that I'm hoping to be slinging your way in a day or two.

These first few gigs back have been excellent. Touring "Sheds" (outdoor amphitheatres) is always a joy, as is the American summertime. The B and C stages have taken on a whole new life in the different environment. The C-stage, particularly, is perhaps even more effective - especially when it's raining and the band are showing solidarity with the folks in the "cheap seats".

Other notables recently have included getting a police escort IN to the Washington show. Definitely a first. I had thought we were being pulled over at first when I saw the flashing blues out the window beside me. Virginia Beach was accompanied by jet fighter fly-bys at very regular intervals. This wasn't too bad in the noisy numbers, but for the more quiet, intimate moments it was occasionally hard to ignore. Postcards From Far Away collapsed in a fit of giggles as the moment was truly lost.

Atlanta brought us a visit from some of our oldest and dearest road friends. Always a joy to see folks on the way around, but never enough time.... Anyways, Brian and Debbie, we all love ya's very much....

I'm pretty much used to gigs in the outdoors again now. Always having a jacket to hand is obviously rule number one - not only does it get pretty cold by the end of the gig, but rain often drops in to say hello. I also seem to attract more than my share of local airborne wildlife stage left, mainly due to the proliferation of computer screens at my station. I spent seconds panicking at the last show working out why the pointer on my laptop screen was going berserk before realising that it was in fact a mosquito banging its head against the screen trying to fly into the sun.

So there we have it. Life continues apace, but things are good. Almost at the gig now and it looks like it may be a wet one....

R#42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 is back at his desk...

Chris greets all the crew at the top of the soundcheck in West Palm Beach with a schoolmasterly, "Welcome back everyone, hope you all had a nice summer holidays". A six week tour break has been a real treat indeed. Everyone is looking rested, relaxed and rejuvenated. We've also flown west, which means that although there is a little jetlag to contend with, we've gained five hours. After the timezone table-tennis that this year began with, it's a pleasant boost. Not unlike pulling on an old pair of jeans and finding some cash in the pocket.

Inevitably, after a long break, everyone feels a wee bit rusty. The soundcheck is a long-ish affair as everyone slips slowly back into the well worn groove. It's not like we're doing anything wildly different, but a long break can mean it takes a little while to feel comfortable in your environment again. The afternoon then, is spent spraying our scent about the place and marking territory.

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

This tour-leg is almost all "shed" venues. These seem unique to the States. They also seem to represent the American summertime like little else. The stage and the first portion of seating is under cover, but there is a huge "lawn" section up at the back where folks sit on the grass having a drink and a damn good time. Many people start early, "tailgating" in the car park. This involves hanging out in the parking lot before the gates open with music blaring from the car stereo to get the party started. I didn't manage to venture out into there for a look, but I wonder how many had already downloaded the live album and were giving that a blast?

The live album has been a great success, it seems - not without its teething troubles, but then, this is something that is pretty much brand new territory. It's truly an exciting time to be involved in music - lots of different artists are starting to try new things and nobody knows what's going to happen next. I read a comment from Mike Skinner of The Streets the other day on Twitter saying that we were living in the midst of a revolution in popular culture equal to the sixties. What do you reckon?

Ah yes, Twitter. It's just about the most perfect way to combine iPhone ownership and spare time that exists. As many of you have doubtless noticed, Mr. Berryman has dived in with typical unbridled enthusiasm. Being another new phenomena, we're still finding the best approach. Some, it would seem, can't get enough. Some want it minimal and all business. I think it's great. The real time aspect is astonishing. The fact that we can open up a little window into our world so easily and instantly is really exciting.

Right then, it's gig two and Howling Bells have just finished. Pete Yorn's crew are giving it the "one two" and I should really be buzzing about making ready. It's nice to be back folks and I have a feeling that this is going to be another extremely pleasant few weeks.

R#42

Hello all! Soha here, your Oxfam representative on the North American leg of the Viva La Vida 2009 world tour. From West Palm Beach to East Troy- Montreal to Mansfield, I’ll be your on the ground source of news for all things related to Oxfam volunteers, campaigns, and more!

The tour kicked off with bang yesterday at the Cruzan Amphitheater in West Palm Beach, FL. Team West Palm Beach consisted of 20 of the most energetic, and enthusiastic volunteers I’ve met. How many sign-ups do you think they got Friday night? Go ahead, make a guess! Last year, Oxfam volunteers at Coldplay concerts all over the world recruited 80,000 strong against poverty, hunger, and social injustice. This summer, Oxfam America has challenged its teams to recruit 30,000 new Coldplay fans to support Oxfam.

Read the full blog entry at the Oxfam Blog website here

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 blogs while the band work on new tunes

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

After three glorious weeks of real life, families, home and becoming human again we're back to a quick stint of recording. There has been some listening back to things recorded earlier in the year and some exploring of new ideas. Will has a new toy for drum programming which has sent him on a beat-making odyssey. He rolls up today with a new idea and announces cheerfully to all that, "It's in seven four time and it's 168 bpm". For those of you less versed in music theory, "Seven four time" means that when he kicks off the drum machine, everyone spends a lot of time asking, "Where's the one?". Meanwhile, "168 bpm" means that everyone is getting confused very quickly.

Slowly, from the chaos comes great beauty. The concentration of feeling the beat has forced everyone to play in an open and simple manner. Before long, a gentle and chilled piece builds up with an utterly joyous feel. It's a great kick-start to the week. Layers of vocals are added until it becomes a rich, complex weave.

Two hours ago all that existed was a loop in Will's laptop. Now there is solid piece that is joyous, beautiful and filling all present with enthusiasm.

It's a sure sign that things are going well, when everyone is back from lunch early. The afternoon continues with the most filthy funk I've heard from these guys. Jonny, in particular, has coaxed a sound from the Moog synth that borders on the obscene. 



We're back now into odd time signatures with a piece from last week in five four time. They're all standing together around one mic about five feet to my right. I remember back at the start of the X&Y tour when the idea of anyone but Will doing backing vocals was very strange indeed (not least to Guy and Jonny!). Now they're a very tight and rich vocal group. Doubtless Brian is very proud...



I seem to be spinning as many plates as ever right now, so rather than wait until I have time to write an epic, I'll sign off now. I will say though, that although the material here is in its most embryonic form it's not just promising, it's astonishing.

R#42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 reports on the Abu Dhabi deluge

Discuss this blog entry in the Coldplay forum here onwards.

So, we've been home a week now. I managed on day four to move the suitcase from blocking the front door - I still haven't got round, though, to the rather dull looking pile of bills, final demands and other junk mail that's accrued during my absence.

Going from constant motion to utter stillness is obviously a treat. It also begins like many other blocks of "free time" with great intentions. Inevitably, the opportunity to rest and recover overtakes everything. I've heard the very end of a tour being described as being like "getting fired out of a cannon at a brick wall". Perhaps a little over-dramatic, but not entirely inaccurate.

Tour breaks, then, are a little less extreme, but still involve some adjustment. A better analogy for me in this case, would perhaps be that I'm on a tug of war team and the other side has just let go of the rope. A general falling in a heap and wondering what's next is unavoidable. Time to let go of the line, dust yourself off and maybe get a drink...

Some have booked holidays. Although the idea of getting on another plane and checking into another hotel doesn't immediately appeal, it is a great way to force the mind and body into relaxation quickly.

I actually find the tying up of loose ends under zero pressure quite relaxing. I guess it comes from actually enjoying what I do. Being as I carry out several roles on the tour, there's always more to do than time available, so a lot falls through the cracks. It's nice to pick up the interesting bits and play with them just for the hell of it.

To that end, I've dug out the few lines I wrote in the airport lounge in Abu Dhabi about the last show. It was certainly one that none of us there are likely to forget, documenting it therefore seems important. OK then, when I count backwards from three, you will wake up in the United Arab Emirates seven days ago. Three, two.....

It rained a little at soundcheck. Nothing torrential, just enough to let us know that it was worth being cautious in covering everything with plastic sheeting. We're hopeful that it'll be enough to keep the dust down and by showtime, we'll be back to balmy desert heat.

The hotel is just up the beach, so I head back up to my room in order to get my luggage ready. We're bailing for the airport as soon as the gear is packed. As I wander back down the marble corridor to the beach path, there is a huge burst of light outside the window. I first think lightning, but tell myself it was far too intense and too close - it must have been a camera flash.

I'm halfway down the beach path, when the sky explodes like god's own strobe light. The entire sky is bright neon white. The arc that shoots across my vision is so bright that when I close my eyes, it's still burnt into my retinae. I ponder the wisdom of going to climb inside the huge steel cage of the stage for the next few hours. Is it safer or less safe to be standing in a huge steel box in the middle of a desert storm?

Mercury Rev go on in the midst of the first downpour. There's a lot of anxious talk over the radios. Word is that if it's still raining like this when Coldplay being their set, the B stage and the C-stage will be cancelled and done under cover on the main-stage instead. Marguerite is reading weather forecasts direct from the laptop to the whole crew at regular intervals on channel 1.

When a tour is this far in (we passed our hundredth show recently, remember) it can be easy to fall into a routine and some nights find yourself almost too relaxed and needing to slap yourself into concentrating properly. No such trouble tonight, obviously. Today, everyone is fully alert, very deliberate in all of their actions and aware of the plethora of possibility for things to go very wrong.

At the back of everybody's minds, is the fact that we have some very big outdoor shows to do this summer. If this goes badly, the storm clouds that hang over us tonight will remain in our minds over the outdoor shows to come. We'd plainly spend three months expecting every one of those shows to be a horrible nightmare. It's important that all goes well tonight.

We're a frazzled crew that's been bounced in a game of timezone table tennis over the last six weeks. Today we're all counting down the hours until we're home. Everyone had this pegged as a nice day in the sun to break up the journey home. Not quite.

Mercury Rev suit the drama of the night perfectly. They play a blinding show, as if this is what they've always wanted for a light show. They finish up their final show with us and a grinning Bash comes over and shouts into my ear, "Fuck I'm gonna miss them". I'd say that goes for us all...

Time then, to make the show happen. It's raining steadily and Marguerite's weather reports inform us that they're confident it'll get heavier. The main questions are obviously whether the B and C stages will happen. Back here on the A stage however, things aren't exactly watertight. We're in a desert location that rarely sees heavy rain. Consequently, the roof is just basic shelter. There's a lot leaking in already. The video department are having a hell of a time. One of the leaks is directly above one of the stage "globes" which means the internal projector is being doused and worse, the ball itself is could become a huge water balloon.

Poor old (he's not old, he's just from the middle ages...) Chris Wood, he's near the open front of the stage and directly below a sizeable gap in the roof. He mixes the sound that the band hear in their "in-ear" headphones. He does it through a completely digital desk that will doubtless not take kindly to a soaking. He does most of the pre-show linecheck completely under his plastic sheeting.

The lightning remains in full effect throughout the first few songs. Clocks, I remember being particularly amazing visually. Lasers hacked through the downpour, whilst the lightning drew across the sky like a huge neon fireworks display all of its own. I'm aware that Paul Normandale (the show designer who has given Coldplay such a wonderful unique and distinctive look this time out) is out in the mix tower. I expect he's wondering how you could get the lightning to work a bit more in time with the music and grinning to himself.

When Yellow kicks in and all the lights fire out into the crowd, two things become obvious. Firstly, the rain is punishingly heavy. As the beams push out from the stage into the night, they show up exactly how hard and unremitting the rain is. It's so dense that it's difficult to see the back seats.

More interesting, though, is the second revelation. The crowd are still going absolutely nuts. Fair play to this lot, they're here for a good time and absolutely nothing is going to stop them. There are folks on each other's shoulders, people are cheering, singing and having a great night. Absolutely amazing response. Nobody could blame these folks for giving it a miss, or just turning up and cowering miserably under their coats wondering whether they should have really bothered.

They're amazing. We've had many great crowds on this tour, and even on a dry and regular day, this lot would be amongst the top ones. The fact that they're going for it in such grand style on such a miserable night wins them full marks all round.

The band clearly appreciate the energy they're being fed. Chris spends a good portion of his time out on the ramps getting completely soaked, showing solidarity with the drenched punters. With the rain so insanely heavy, the decision has been made that the B and C stage are coming onto the main stage. Folks are rushing round making the necessary logistical and technical changes to make this happen.

Bash relays the word to Will so the band know what's going on. For a song or so, things continue. Will then shouts down his mic that comes only to the crew's ears. "We have to do the B and C out there". He's made the decision and there's no questioning it. Off scurry a bunch of folks to reset things before Strawberry Swing comes to a close.

Now, this point illustrates Coldplay very well. They get a lot of stick for being "soft". The fact is though, that they have balls. I've never seen them take the easy option. Nobody would blame them for playing it safe here. They know, though, that the gig will be better if they're out there giving the punters the whole show, rather than bottling out and keeping dry. Note that Will said "we have to". Not "we probably should" or "can we try". This is as good an indicator as I can give of how things are done round here.

The B-stage is greeted with such massive applause that it's immediately obvious this decision is going to lift this show right through the roof (that is, if there were one...). For The Hardest Part, Chris spots someone in the crowd who's birthday it is tonight. Just for the sheer hell of it, she's brought up onstage and given a seat to his right.

I do remember Chris playing a rather excellent rendition of Singing In The Rain at one point. I'd have loved to have included an mp3 here, but the computer I record the gigs on made it about three songs into the deluge before losing its nerve completely and collapsing in a heap.

The C-Stage comes as an undoubted highlight. There's no bigger show of unity with the crowd than when the band are a little dot of light in amongst it all - floating just above the sea of voices. It's not without technical imperfections, but for emotional impact? Flawless.

I'm crossing the stage with my camera, as Stage Manager Kurt takes the opportunity to mop up the onstage puddles whilst the band are out in the crowd. As I pass Guy's mic, I bump into none other than Phil Harvey on his hands and knees mopping away with a fistful of towels. Trooper... ;-)

Adversity often bonds and brings out the best in folks. The show ends and the overwhelming feeling that it's been a huge victory all round is unmistakable. I bet we have some extremely unpleasant outdoor conditions this summer, but quite frankly, you can bring it on....

R#42

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 reports from Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi

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

Quite often, by this point in a tour, soundchecks become unnecessary. I guess it's the re-appearance of the "soundcheck party" that's kept us coming back in. Rather than trot through a few set pieces, the fellas have been trying out a few new (old) things to sprinkle into the set for the rest of the year.

In Hong Kong, they had a run through Rush Of Blood. Now there's a tune I haven't heard for a while. I remember JB's solo on that being a nightly highlight of the show for me way back when. I can see it floating across the summer air rather nicely on the outdoor shows later in the year. They've also recently given Swallowed In The Sea, Warning Sign and several others a go - not to mention a few brand new songs they've been kicking about.

Last time we were in Hong Kong, it was unbearably humid, but this time it's simply pissing down with rain. Also, it's a rather compact backstage area. Pretty much every flightcase outside the production office has been commandeered as a temporary office. It's like a cross between a rainy school playtime and an internet cafe. Before long, someone's surely going to find the chalk and start writing rude words on the blackboard...

Come 8pm, we're all assembled in catering. It would seem we've gone ton-up...

I should point out that the arm holding the glass in the bottom left of the picture belongs to Ben Miles, the man who performs the video magic that brings the balls to life every night (now that doesn't sound right....). He, and Andy Bramley (the man who cuts together the live cameras into the glorious nightly show it is - also glass aloft, at Chris's elbow) are the fellas responsible for the "Coldwave" mobile phone audience-generated lightshow that's become a highlight of the shows.

Obviously, the wisdom of champagne toasting a gig that hasn't happened yet goes against every roadie superstition there is. Thankfully, though, we get a top night and a very noisy crowd. As in Singapore the other night, they take to the Viva chant with huge enthusiasm. It's a pure melody, completely unhindered by language - no wonder it's been embraced and celebrated the world over....

We head into Dubai after a nine hour flight. After a couple of hours in a van, we arrive at easily the most insane hotel I have ever stayed in. The Emirates Palace. I remark that my first touring days were spent staying in Travelodges, three to a room (and the guitarist drove the van...). How things have changed...

We have a day off before our show here. I think at first that this is to allow us to recover from the travel and adjust to the time difference. It would appear though, that it's simply to allow us the time required to walk from our rooms to the breakfast table. In the envelope with the room key is a map of the hotel, which rather than a gimmick is a complete necessity. This place is utterly bonkers. It's all impossibly long marble corridors, fountains, gold leaf detail and chandeliers the size of small villages.

It will sound perhaps a little ungracious of me, but places like this never really work for me. The inner grimy-transit-van roadie always comes to the surface and sneers. Such explicit wealth always turns me off and makes me feel out of place. I can't work out whether this is the most incredible place I've ever been, or just a huge Arabian Hard-Rock-Cafe.

As ever, it's all about the gig. In nine hours we'll know. It'd be nice to be proven a grumpy old man and end this leg on a blinder of a show in a stunning setting. Let's see.

In the meantime, Lobby Call is in two hours. Given that the lobby is the size of a bleeding football stadium (complete with art gallery, photography exhibition, endless bars and restaurants and its own shopping mall...) I'd probably best set off now....

R#42

Coldplay's Will Champion explains via the official site the formative influence Mercury Rev had on Coldplay. Here's what he had to say about them...

If I could go back to 1998 and tell a 20-year-old me that we would be playing some shows with Mercury Rev in 2009, I think my younger self would laugh me all the way back to the present. Such was the importance of Deserter's Songs to me and to our band. When we started out making music, trying to soak up as much information about songwriting, recording and generally what a band should be like, the blueprint was that band and that album. We met the producer of that album, Dave Fridmann, early in 1999 with a view to asking him to produce our first record. He told us stories of the band recording on 16mm video film and other mythical recording techniques that totally changed the way we assumed a band was supposed to make a record. Above all they managed to achieve with that record the thing that we have always striven towards (successfully or not), which is to create an album which is so evocative and complete in its atmosphere. Everything on it perfectly contributes to the whole. I would like to thank Mercury Rev so much for playing these shows with us and also, unbeknownst to them at the time, for helping a young band understand a little better the possibilities of music. Wx

More discussion on the short blog at the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks mimixxx]

Check out coldplay.com for a new blog entry: #42 and the monster Oz catch-up

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

Howdy folks. Apologies for the week and a bit of dead-air. I'm contributing photos to the new, updated tourbook and ploughing through all the pics I have has been nothing short of an insane task. It would appear that since the tour began, the mirror on my camera has clicked up and down just short of ten thousand times. I have no idea how this has happened. I deliberately haven't enabled the annoying "chickkit-chikkit-chikkit" motor drive mode, even...

As you can imagine, ploughing through this lot and getting it into some kind of order has been an all-consuming task. No excuse for dereliction of duty, I know, but there you go. Leaving Australia was bloody hard. I love it more every time we go. Everything that annoys me about where I live seems right over there. In terms of personal space, it's glorious - a land-mass comparable to North America with a population of seemingly fewer people than I've shared a tourbus with back in my cheaper touring days.

I could expound greatly on my utter love for this place, but I've been told by a couple of the locals to keep it quiet. They don't want everyone turning up and spoiling it, apparently... Suffice to say that come the lobby call for the airport on our last day, I have never been more tempted to simply disappear into the city and refuse to leave. If going on tour is like running away and joining the circus, surely going AWOL at this point would be the right way to bow out?

There is a bit of housekeeping to do in terms of reporting of events though, before I wave Australia off into the bloggy rear view mirror. I think beyond anything else, Australia has marked the point at which the tour truly passed from being something to be laboured on to being something to be enjoyed.

By this I don't mean that the show has slipped into auto-pilot and that nobody is really bothered any more. What I mean is that all the immense effort, all the refinements, all the hard-won little improvements have all consolidated into the knockout show that the guys have been aiming for all along. For want of a less cliched analogy, it really has been a bike-riding exercise.

If the free show at Madison Square Garden was an example of the euphoric (if slightly grazed-of-knee) first runs on our fab new ride, we're now well past the point where keeping balance has become second nature. It's now all about enjoying the ride and maybe pulling a few tricks along the way. I can think of no better example of a "just for the sheer hell of it" wheelie than the Sound Relief concert. Originally booked as an acoustic performance, the band threw the whole show in there. Teaming up with John Farnham could easily have been sneered at, but was utterly killer on the day. Highlight of that particular section for me was the news coming back that his first words on walking off stage were, "Well that was bloody good, let's get a beer". If the song they'd just finished wasn't as CM claimed, "the national anthem", then I can think of no finer national alternative...

And then, there was that run. The insane aeroplane-armed dive across the open field that surfed the knife-edge between thrilling excitement and crowd-control disaster perhaps just a little more closely than intended. He seemed gone from the stage for an awfully long time. From where I was, it looked pretty certain that he wouldn't make it back to finish the song. Perhaps this was more than a wheelie, perhaps he'd taken his hands of the handlebars just a little too long and the front wheel had flipped out underneath him?

On a side note - Kelly moves fast when he needs to, doesn't he? ;-)

I was immediately reminded of seeing Fishbone at Reading Festival many years ago, when Angelo Moore when out for a "swim" over the crowd and disappeared completely, eventually prompting one of the band members to take to the mic and politely ask the crowd, "Could we have our singer back please?".

Eventually though, the little mobile knot of chaos moved its way down the barrier until Chris emerged into the security lane at the edge of the field. Only then, was it really clear how intense it had been. Like a cat who'd been missing from home so long its owners had given up all hope, he weakly trotted towards the stage looking as though he'd been dragged through the dirt for a week solid. Upon hitting the stage, he genuinely collapsed for a moment, before dragging himself to the piano stool to deliver the final lines of the song.

Sixteen words and he brings it home and seals it as a perfectly-formed moment.

With that, he was off to the dressing room to spend the afternoon throwing up into a bucket and wondering how the hell he was going to do another show in a few hours.

Unsurprisingly, the gig that night was an absolute stormer. It benefited from the double whammy of being a Saturday, which gave all the punters time to get well warmed up in whatever way they saw fit and also having the excitement of the morning's show fresh in their minds from the TV broadcast. This third Sydney show was an undoubted highlight. Powerful and celebratory, it's a huge lap of honour.

These weren't the only signs of starting to enjoy the ride, though. All manner of things are being deemed a good idea that wouldn't even have been discussed during the super-stressful days of production rehearsal way-back-when at Wembley Arena.

For example, if they had been prepping the C-stage and someone suggested getting a sporting legend in to slap Chris's arse with a pair of maracas throughout, I doubt that the idea would have been greeted with as much enthusiasm as it was here in Sydney.

Another example of the "skewed sense of the sensible" comes in the completely logical evolution of the stage-right Dancing Roadie. This has evolved in a wonderfully natural way over the tour to what it has now become. Wayne, one of our lovely lampies it would seem actually studied dance in a full-on Performing Arts manner. He started demonstrating his hip hop moves during the intro tape, early on in the tour. This mutated into all the folks who work on that side of the stage giving him his own lightshow with their trusty roadie torches. Eventually, the band got wind and demanded that he do it onstage.

Now, each night, he emerges onto the stage-right crowd ramp with a broom. Completely unassuming at first, he sweeps, he whistles a little to himself and goes about his business. As the Jay-Z track slowly takes hold, this mutates into some serious move-busting, before the Blue Danube kicks in and it all goes wonderfully ballet. The band watch nightly, doubled up in laughter and amazement backstage in Andy Bramley's video control world. It's glorious silliness. The fact that it's all grown purely by itself as the tour madness has slowly crept aboard makes it all the better....

Another rather pleasant feature of these Sydney shows is the daily commute into work by water taxi. As far as I'm concerned, every gig should involve a short boat trip with stunning views....

Mention must be made of Popey and Andy Mackrill (and all the fellas working with them). They're our Australian promoters reps who had a huge, huge hand in making it such an enjoyable run. They excellently walk the line between super-solid organisation and making the whole thing feel like a bunch of naughty boys on a school trip. Good on ya fellas!

Finally, Sydney brought the creativity forth in a caption competition in the Production Office. Our beloved Production Manager Craig Finley had been snapped in a rather unfortunate mid-sleep pose on the flight here. I have to say that following the recent kerfuffle-over-nothing following some comments about the boss on a radio show, my vote went to Bash (Will's drum-tech)'s entry (Number 8):

Favourite memory for me of Sydney has to have been sitting out on my balcony overlooking the Opera House and noting that my neighbour was none other than guitar legend Pete Townshend of The Who. I quietly ponder that I'm pleased with my choice to settle for a nice sensible job in Rock and Roll, as opposed to allowing myself to be lured by the glamour of something as precarious and unpredictable as working for a bank.

Then, we were off to New Zealand for another little glimpse of Eden. It's a new arena - not without its problems in terms of sound, but with a roaring all-standing crowd on both nights that more than makes up for it. I have dear friends at the first show. All this travel offers a great chance to (albeit very briefly) catch up with those who have been flung far and wide. I bid them goodnight at 2am and head off to make an early start in photo-organising. They disappear off looking for the bar that the after-show party is in and end up staying out 'til half six in the morning with the rest of the crew. Stories of Chris being behind the bar serving cocktails abound...

This brings us pretty much up to today. We've been in Singapore for a couple of days in a tropical paradise resort that Franksy has sniffed out. Two glorious days off and we're about ready to head back into it. I make it through about four thousand photos and reward myself with an hour sitting on an outcrop of rock that claims to be the southernmost point on the Asian continent. The sun goes down and the shipping slips slowly past.

I wonder to myself how on earth I ended up here. I decide not to think too hard about it in case someone realises there's been a mistake....

R#42

No I don’t mean the early March storms that blew across Aotearoa, I mean the Coldplay drought! It’s been 6 long years since the band plucked a single note on these shores and tonight’s sold out crowd at Vector Arena in Auckland didn’t let them forget it for a minute. The evening started off with our posse of Oxfam campaigners, 20 strong, heading downtown on busses, trains, bikes and feet to tell people about our work…and to rock. I’m happy to report we did both.

Big ups to the band for providing some great autographed gear. That was the inspiration for our text-to-win contest. And while we were giving people a chance to score a signed Asian umbrella that Chris used on stage, a drum skin or a tour book, we had a great opportunity to talk to thousands of them about Oxfam’s work to deliver clean, safe water to communities in the developing world.

Read the full blog entry at the Oxfam Blog website here

...in Australia who have supported our work. It was a bittersweet moment in Sydney on Sunday night as we bid farewell to the Coldplay lads at their last concert in Australia on their Viva La Vida world tour.

Oxfam volunteers were again out and about at Acer Arena taking full advantage of the chance to talk to Coldplay fans about our Make Trade Fair and Close the Gap campaigns. Many Coldplay fans were eager to hear about Oxfam’s work, and the efforts of our volunteers in Sydney resulted in over 2500 sign-ups over the four Sydney shows. Wow, what an effort!

As we recover from the excitement of the shows we can now look back on the Australian tour. We have had a total of 220 volunteers across 4 states mixing amongst the crowds of 11 huge shows. Coldplay fans received thousands of stickers, postcards, leaflets and tattoos as the word about Fair Trade and Indigenous Health spread across the country. Overall in support of the Make Trade Fair and Close the Gap campaigns we managed to get over 10 000 sign ups. That is as epic in proportions as a Coldplay world tour!

Read the full blog entry at the Oxfam Blog website here

As we set up the Oxfam campaigns table for the first Sydney Coldplay show, we could see hundreds of fans eagerly waiting to be let in the huge glass doors of the Acer Arena, and we could almost touch the excitement in the air! On the dot of 6pm, the doors flung open, and Coldplay fans streamed through ready to see their favourite band rock out Sydney.

3 hours later our team of 20 Oxfam campaigns volunteers had handed out thousands of stickers, tattoos and flyers about our work on Fair Trade and Indigenous health equality and 912 people had signed up to support our work. What a fantastic effort! Thankyou to each and every person who took the time to find out more about Oxfam’s work, and who have now used one of the most powerful things you have, your voice, to support our vision of a just world without poverty.

Read the full blog entry at the Oxfam Blog website here