DaveyJay

Hi.....one of my first posts here...I just have to comment on this. First of all, let me just say that I am a HUGE Coldplay fan...I think they are a great band and have such a gift for writing great melodies...and I'm not trying to bash them here. I've seen them more than once and have all their albums (listening to one right now) BUT There is one thing that bugs me....(as a musician). When I go to see a live concert I like to see 'live' music. I know that they are all playing live but there are lots of other instruments being played - either offstage or perhaps pre-recorded. I saw Coldplay on the Rush of Blood to the Head tour and was sitting to the side of the stage. During Yellow I could see the roadie playing the acoustic guitar part. This kind of bugged me because he was hidden in the shadows at the side of the stage. Most musicians would want the public to know that this was happening. I think it's safe to say that many other groups would either alter the musical arrangement or have a backup musician on stage with them. That acoustic guitar part is central to the whole song! Most bands I think would not want a whole acoustic rhythm section to be played by a 'phantom' player. There is a part at the end of the song where no one onstage is playing anything and you still hear the acoustic guitar. I mean...I would think that Coldplay as musicians and as a band would want to mention this - because otherwise you lose some credulity with your fans...particularly the ones who are musicians. It may appear to the majority of the audience that you are playing along to a recording. And we all know that Coldplay is much more talented than say...I don't know...who do we think of when we hear about pre-recorded music....Ashley Simpson! So when I saw Coldplay a couple of weeks ago in Vancouver, I was so so happy to see Chris playing the rhythm guitar part in Yellow(now electric, instead of acoustic). THAT'S WHAT I PAY MONEY TO SEE! LIVE MUSIC! So for that song, everyone was right there playing all the instruments. It was an awesome performance! But for quite a few other songs, for example Politik at the end - all the string sounds, or In My Place in the first verse...it's just drums and singing and violions and cellos...but nobody visible is playing the strings...if you took that away it would just be Chris singing and the drums. Why couldn't Guy Berryman play that part on his keyboard at the side while they did this or perhaps trigger a sample? There is no bass required at this point in the song. Anyways, I realize that a lot of bands use pre-recorded stuff but still...it would be nice to see the backup musicians acknowledged. So I think the backup musicians should get more credit.(provided all the strings and keyboard parts are performed by them...who knows...maybe they are prerecorded?) Another option that some bands use is to trigger sample loops of pre-recorded sounds live. Even that is a bit better because you can see them pressing the button to trigger the sound and they still have to play along in time. I think at least that way is a little more 'honest' to the fans and is more 'live'. Another interesting thing I noticed. If you watch Coldplay's performance on Live 8, when they are doing the duet with Richard Ashcroft for Bittersweet symphony, there are 2 times where the camera zooms in for a closeup of Chris' hands while he's playing and you can clearly see a couple piano keys moving up and down by themselves. His fingers are on different keys....now I'm not sure what to make of this. Perhaps because this is not one of their songs he has the keyboard programmed for some of the parts. But he was playing the chords over top (different notes mind you). You could hear it and see where his hands were that it was live. But as for the extra phantom keys - who knows? Very strange. Anyways, that's my one beef with this band. I was searching around on the net to find some explanation for how they pull off their music live, or for some explanation as to these extra sounds and this was the only post I could find. That being said I still love their music and have no doubt that the majority of parts are being played live. So as far as the first post in this thread. Tell your retarted (just preserving the original spelling :) ) friend that Coldplay definitely does play live! And if he's not a musician, don't bother mentioning all this other stuff. But if he asks, just tell him they use backup musicians behind the stage. Thanks for listening!