Ostrich

Another argument for "Fly On" being the first part is that at the LA shows the setlist referred to the song as "O (Fly On)" and only the first part of the song was played there (the part that's been heard in the snippets). To me that would suggest they were specifying that only the "Fly On" part of "O' was meant to be played.

Just want to remind everyone that the people who are responsible for creating the early hype around this song are the ones who were at the LA shows, and they did so after hearing the album in its entirety. I don't remember reading a single bad thing about ASFOS from anyone who heard it in context, in its proper place among the rest of the Ghost Stories songs. The negativity has only cropped up after people a). heard a crappy bootleg from a concert or b). heard a 30 second snippet from the middle of the song. Imagine hearing DLIBYH for the first time without getting AHT before it. Think about how jarring it would sound without any knowledge of what precedes it. Now consider that the instrumental section that closes out Oceans is more than twice the length of AHT. Mark my words, many of the people who hate it now and can't possibly envision themselves ranking it higher than a 3 will eat their words once the album drops.

Yeah, I was at the first LA show where they played the whole album. They didn't play ASFOS straight into O, so I'm not sure how that transition works, but the build up to ASFOS from the previous songs sounds natural and the song sounds in no way out of place. Something else to keep in mind is how horrible the compression is on most of these videos. I haven't heard the leaked version of this song, nor do I care to, but from the sound of things the quality is probably misleading a lot of people who have not heard the song live (or the studio version). This might not be the best example, but listen to a bit of this recording of Charlie Brown and compare it to the studio version or professionally recorded live versions: [video=youtube_share;04dedu3kwWo] . If you listen closely, you can make out the intricacies and layers of sound that are evident in higher quality recordings, but it's so toned down compared to the guitars, bass and drums it doesn't really paint an accurate picture of the way the song is intended to sound. All that to say, even if you think you have a good sense of what the song sounds like, you'll probably be surprised once an official version, live or otherwise, becomes available.

Trust me guys, this song might sound out of place since you're hearing it out of context. There is a slow instrumental build before the song kicks in (the missing minute or so from Oceans that hasn't been heard yet), so it's not like this song barges in out of the blue. It fits with the rest of the album once you actually hear the rest of the album come before it.

Makes sense. The remaining time is more of an instrumental lead up to ASFOS (think a lower-key A Hopeful Transmission) than part of Oceans.

I'm having a hard time remembering, but to me the length of the song sounds about right compared to what they played in LA. I do distinctly remember an instrumental section, but it preceded ASFOS, so I figured the instrumental part was part of that song rather than Oceans. Seeing the track lengths though and then seeing this version, I'm willing to bet for this performance they cut out an instrumental section at the end of the song which would then lead into ASFOS.

It looks like the doors to the sound stage at Sony where the concert was filmed. As far as I could see they didn't have that artwork up on the doors though when the actual concert was filmed (at least not for the one on Friday).

Very intrigued by that as well. When they played it at the LA show it seemed closer to 4 or 5 minutes or so. Maybe we're getting another Everything's Not Lost/Life Is For Living situation?

I think O (Fly On) = O (Part 1). The other O's are 30-secondish instrumental pieces that opened/closed the show. They 100% said DVD on Friday. Absolutely positive about this. On Friday, they did Paradise a second time, but every other song was only once.

It's hard to remember the exact melodies from last night and sometimes piano covers can completely change the way a song sounds. That said, I can say with 99.9% confidence...fakeity fake fake fake.

Yesterday they made multiple announcements to us in line to leave the phones in the car and that we'd be turned away if we had them. Then right before they walked us through the metal detectors they said if we still had phones we could check them before we go in. Obviously no guarantees that it'll work the same today. If I were you I'd just go to one of the 1iota employees and let them know the situation. I'm sure they have some way of handling something like that.

I don't know that I'd call it central, but it certainly features prominently. I don't remember "missing piece," but that doesn't mean it's not there. The only specific thing I remember about the O lyrics is the comparison of a flock of birds overhead to love. Trust me, it sounds way better in the song than in the way I described it, which is why I'm trying to avoid being detailed about much of anything I'm posting. :D It's part of AIMH. I didn't get to see a set list when I wrote my initial post, so I didn't know the music they played at the very beginning/end was actually titled music. It certainly sounded very much like something that could've been off their record (very "ghostly"), but then again, I was thinking the music played before their iTunes show sounded like it could've been from their record, and that turned out to be from Tycho! O (Reprise) and O Part II sound very similar to each other, so much so that I thought they played the same thing at the beginning and end of the show, but I guess it's two separate pieces. Interesting that the opener was a "reprise;" it was perfect in terms building the mood and sounded like something meant to come at the very beginning. It sounded very much like one song to me. Not a two parter like Up With The Birds, at least. The guy at the door said "around 1,000" and my guess is that it's mostly correct. We were let in the sound stage in groups of 50, and based off of that I tried to guestimate how many people were there. Definitely more than a couple hundred like I initially thought it would be. My guess put it closer to 800 before door guy said 1,000. That said, I want to reiterate that this thing felt TINY. I know I said earlier I didn't want to give too many details with the setup, but it looks like other reviews did that already so might as well go for it. Not only is the stage circular and dead center of the room, but it's ridiculously small. they crammed everything they could possibly need on that thing. And with no barriers and no guards standing around, the audience was able to get a lot closer than normal. I was row 2 and was about 4 feet away from the stage. I was a bit worried that this would be the typical, non-participatory crowd common in LA, but everyone was on their feet the whole time. I think in that kind of setting it's impossible not to be. Probably closest to AROBTTH with some of the musical experimentation of VLV. Definitely got X&Y vibes a few times from the synths.

Card with pins, yes. Note with lyrics, no. Part of the décor involved paper stars hung from the ceiling. My guess is whoever got that managed to snag one of the stars. They looked like they had writing on them. Probably A Sky Full Of Stars, although Ink would probably do well there too. Nothing with just Chris on guitar. O would probably be as close to acoustic as GS gets.

It was certainly more of a traditional song in the sense that it didn't have the 2 part structure that UWTB had or any of the odd backing vocals. I'd still rank Amsterdam and DAAHF ahead of it, but in the context of the rest of the album I think it's pretty darn good. No idea. Everyone was screened/walked through a metal detector before entering. They did a very good job at searching everyone's bag too as far as I could tell.

Just got back! Just got back from the show and figured I might as well dust off this account. ;) Quick note for those going tomorrow: get there early. We had a priority ticket from 1iota, which said the garage opens at 5:30. 1iota are a bunch of liars. We pulled through the gates at 5:29 and there were already over 100 people in the priority line. Not a big deal as the show held close to 1,000 and we still managed to be about 4 feet from the stage, but it kinda sucked since we had been killing time in that area since about 3:00. I'm not sure how early they starting letting people in, but if you get there early I would suggest trying to park before 5:30. Not sure what's already been covered/gleaned from twitter, but setlist was as follows: 1. Paradise 2. Clocks -5 min break- Ghost Stories cover to cover -5 min break- Viva La Vida Fix You Paradise again (Chris mentioned them needing to film it again, so it sounds like they'll be releasing more than just Ghost Stories on film). Speaking of the film, the show producer mentioned it would be TV and DVD. Chris said at the beginning it would be dropping close to when the album was released. As far as the songs, I'm horrible at giving decent descriptions (especially for songs I've only heard once), so I'll give extremely scattered impressions and you guys can feel free to ask more about any specifics. Nothing about the songs we've already heard has changed. Always In My Head still feels a bit truncated to me, and I was hoping that for some reason they didn't play the whole thing at the iTunes festival, but apparently that's the full song. Still love it though. Magic stayed the same. Sounds great live. Ink was one of the songs that really stood out to me. Classic Coldplay, very upbeat. Chris was on acoustic guitar for this one. True Love I honestly don't remember that much about, other than it being slower than Ink. Midnight... I was not a fan of Midnight when it came out. That said, it's probably one of their best songs live. Something I think they added (at least I don't remember it from iTunes) is that Chris also plays the laser harp for this one. Another's Arms is still probably my least favorite off the album, but it's been smoothed out considerably since their iTunes performance. Still no fixing those lyrics though :P Oceans is another calmer one. Will uses his drum kit to make some sort of ship's horn sound for 3 or 4 notes that builds the base for the melody. The atmosphere definitely live's up to the song's name A Sky Full Of Stars is the other stand out for me. It starts pretty low key. Chris was muttering/whispering something unintelligible toward the beginning. Pretty sure it's part of the song, but I couldn't understand a word. :D Then it builds a little and stays mid-road for a bit before absolutely exploding (think the chorus of DLIBYH). This is also where the star confetti came in. Massive energy in the crowd for this one. Lastly, O closes out the album nicely. It follows the characteristics of some of the other GS tracks in that it doesn't build to that massive conclusion that Coldplay is fond of, but it's still very impactful. Chris on piano; Will plays a bit of electric guitar on this one (I don't remember him touching his drums for this song at all). Again, feel free to ask me any questions and I'll do my best to answer. The other super awesome thing was the way the set/stage was laid out and decorated. I don't want to spoil anything for those who get to go tomorrow, but let's just say there are no bad seats in the house, and even though there are close to 1000 people in the room, it feels way smaller... Oh, and regarding the wristbands, they were handed out after the tickets were scanned. Nothing special about them.

Just a heads up to anyone whose poster bundle was cancelled due to billing issues (apparently my bank decided if I try to order two items outside the USA in one month it must be fraudulent activity), there's still hope! Contact EMI at http://shop.emimusic.com/coldplay/help.html and let them know what happened. Provide the order number for your cancelled order, and they should be able to send you a special link for the purchase of the bundle, as they said they've reserved a stock of them for issues like this. How many bundles they actually reserved, I have no idea, but chances are good there are enough. Good luck!

The really stupid thing about this is that there was a GA pit, so it's not like they couldn't get permission or something for GA. To me, having the floor seating/GA pit combo is worse than having exclusively floor seating. Thankfully I was front row pit for that concert, but I doubt even mid pit could see half of what was going on, never mind the floor seats that were further back.

Great videos! If you get a chance (and have it recorded) would you mind posting Violet Hill? That one really stood out to me last night...they seemed to play it way more aggressively than normal.

I figured Speed Of Sound would be the video most people would want to see right away so it's the first one I uploaded. Sorry about the quality; YouTube is still processing it so it's gonna take a little while until it's full quality. More videos on the way... EDIT: Not much to add that hasn't already been said. Show was amazing, and the MX songs were much more polished than when I heard them back in August. LA crowds usually suck, so by LA standards especially this one was exceptional. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9cT6kfIZa4]Coldplay - Speed Of Sound Live At The Hollywood Bowl 02 May 2012 - YouTube[/ame]

I've been stalking eBay for the past few days, and after being unsuccessful in the actual auctions I got nervous and snagged a Buy It Now copy for $20.99, which I think is a pretty fair price all things considered. Anyway, you can remove me from the list!

Well, I had no luck today, although one of the stores I went to offered to put my name on a list and said they'd call if they could get another one. I was under the impression that there won't be any more coming in, but maybe (hopefully) this guy knows something I don't. Plus I could still have one coming from Strictly Discs; I'll know more on Monday when the rest of my order from them ships.

Add me to the want one/may have an extra list as well, please! I don't know if anyone else has had a similar experience, but I received a phone call today from Strictly Discs letting me know that one of the other records I had requested (Dudamel conducting Mendelssohn's Symphony No 3) had been fulfilled and would ship Monday. His exact words about the Coldplay release were that it "may squeak in here after the fact," and if so it would ship on Monday with my other record. Not sure how the allotments work, but the impression I got is that they have a set amount that they need to have available in the store, and the leftover ones would be used to fulfill any remaining online requests. I could be completely wrong with that assumption, but that's the feeling I got. In any event, I'm gonna hit up a few stores tomorrow as well and snatch up any that I can for distribution here. Good luck everyone!

Meh. 7. Kinda like the first CB vid better. I feel like they could have done more with the band and the rave and less with the two lovebirds. I mean, it's cool how it kinda fits into the whole story of MX, and I think I would've liked this particular video more if the Paradise, ETAIW, etc. videos followed the same structure of portraying the MX narrative, but...meh. Some cool stuff in this video to be sure; I just feel like they could have done more with it. EDIT This pretty much sums up my reaction: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tojt8QhKrrk]DISAPPOINTED - YouTube[/ame]

Right, but we heard UIF first when they played it for ACL, which meant that UIF got the majority of the scrutiny. After the DLIBYH acronym was cracked, that pretty much ended the discussion of that song until the release.

Good point about DLIBYH arriving late. I remembered UIF being a late addition; I guess DLIBYH just got overshadowed since UIF went live first.