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If they don't tour as extensively though (which seems to be indicated at the moment.), it's more likely they'd release new material sooner. The main reason it usually takes them so long is that it takes about 2 years post album release for them to even get around to going back in the studio. Once they do that, it only takes them around a year to deliver something. (and from everything that's been written about their process, it seems like there's only about 6 months or so of actual work in that span of time.)

A lot of bands do, but a lot of them don't. Even the ones that do, rarely go there every tour. Saying that the industry doesn't consider South America as important as the North American and European markets isn't intended as an insult, just a statement of fact. Right now though, we don't have any indications there will even be any additional dates. Heck, we don't even have the usual rumors of dates. Unless something leaks out soon, it doesn't look like the band have all that much planned for next year, and I'm sorry but I just can't see them playing South America if they don't also hit some of the bigger North American markets left off this year's itinerary. It could happen, but it would be unusual.

Again, I don't really see what the big deal is (and I'm in no way looking forward to the comic, and generally I love comics.) It's not like that project is actually keeping the band from doing other things. If you don't like it, just ignore it, it's completely created by outside artists, Chris' involvement is limited to the seed of the idea.:)

They do claim to like it, so that's a plus, but that's not enough on it's own to justify routing the tour through there. Coldplay's touring schedule (like most bands) is set by people other than them, (this is why the band are often caught unaware about certain aspects of tours when asked.;)) I just really can't see the band (or more accurately their handlers) taking the tour to SA when all the conventional touring wisdom says if they are going to add dates, to do so in other places. I will note for the record though that I really do hope the band does get around to all the places people want them to play. I just don't see that as likely to happen this time though, especially since they seem to not want to tour so extensively this time.

As a word of warning, none of the announcements so far have been clear on which date the February one is. If it's the cover date, than we're talking earlier release, but I can't tell if it is or not.:\

IMHO one thing is independent of the other. Doing all the other stuff in no way effects their ability to make a new album (especially since the band is minimally actually involved in anything other than the actual music). I'm not particularly interested in anything other than new music, but I don't see any of the other stuff posing a particularly big impediment to that.:)

As much as some people really want them to, I'd say it's not particularly likely at this point. South America is still considered an emerging market for live concerts, and a lot of tours skip it. Coldplay have actually toured there more than a lot of bands, but still, I'd say it's far from a given that there will be a SA leg on every tour. Same with Asia really. I really think they'd play more North American or Asian dates before they'd tour SA this time though. They've more or less tapped out a lot of Europe with the massive stadium shows, so I'm not sure they'd go back there this go around either. My personal opinion is still that the most likely scenario would be a small handful of Asian dates added on to the end of the Australia leg, and that's it.

A lot depends on how heavy handed a particular security guard wants to be as well. When I used to work concerts, a lot of times extra local security was hired on for bigger shows with little in the way of training, so they'd often do dumb things.:\

Publication date of February often means actual street date of Nov./Dec. though. The cover date is often months ahead.:)

Yeah, it's usually an on/off switch type of proposition. Local venue security generally won't take the time to learn/enforce a complicated policy that requires staff to make detailed judgements about what type of camera is what. I've known of a lot of gigs where point and shoots were allowed (as they typically are at coldplay shows) and yet even those were confiscated because to some bored security guy "a camera is a camera":rolleyes:

Coldplay have always allowed "non professional" cameras at their gigs. (In practice, this generally means no cameras with a detachable lens.) However, some venues do have venue policies about cameras which may not allow any (this is rare, but I do know of a couple such venues.)

According to the little amount of info available on their studio gear, a lot of the synths and samples are either one off products, or things that have been heavily kit-bashed and customized out of existing stuff. http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid31183220001?bclid=31196924001&bctid=31268882001 This interview is the most in depth stuff I've ever seen regarding their keyboard rig, but it's primarily live (and it's from the last tour.)

No, he didn't say that, he mentioned that that's the direction they're considering right now. People read way to much into every little comment the band makes, which only leads to disappointment when things that are "confirmed" don't come to pass.

It's also one of Will's only chances to play a Tom fill.

I kind of get the feeling that if MTM represented where the band thought it wanted to go, they would've put it on the album as opposed to tucked away as a b-side. :\

It was at a time where people were desperate to hear any material off of MX that they could. Any new song would've probably got the same reaction. Heck, I still want a clear live recording of that first performance as it was a completely different arrangement. (it was not a duet, and Jonny was on an accoustic guitar)

Honestly, I think that was more a function of knowing it had been played, but no clear recording existed of it.

I doubt those songs are even that well known these days. B-sides have a short shelf life.

I think it primarily tends to be a combination of three factors: 1. Even bands with huge fanbases tend to tap out their live draw potential relatively fast when they're playing to 50,000-90,000 strong crowds each night. Put simply a 3 night stand in the local arena is roughly equivilent of 1 night at the local stadium. 2. The bigger logistical demands of a stadium tour tend to tax the stamina of the band and crew to a point that things tend to get shortened. 3. The extra time required to set up/tear down/transport stadium staging/gear tends to mean that bands end up playing less shows over an equivilent amount of time. These things are the rule, and there absolutely are exceptions. In fact maybe u2 was a bad example as their one of the few bands that have done a few very lengthy stadium tours.

IDK, I kinda thought it was interesting, just not really a Coldplay song.

The other part of it which I forgot to mention in my first post, is that the dates everywhere but North America are Stadium dates, which tends to shorten the tour, as several gigs are essentially condensed into one with Stadium gigs. Even massive bands like U2 rarely go above 100 shows when they're playing stadiums.

I'll agree with that.:laugh3:

I can totally understand why the might not want to tour quite so much these days, they all have small children and families, so I can see why not being on the road so much would be appealing.

The most shows they've ever done for a single tour was Viva, which did have 170, but it was significantly larger than any they'd done prior. They do have 85 dates on this tour, and if you include all the shows from 2011 (which pretty much were part of the tour) the total comes to 102, so they're not really that far out of line with what they've done before. I guess all this is my way of saying I kind of doubt they'll do many additional shows this tour. The dates they already have cover most of the major European and North American markets, and based on things that were said back when they started the tour, I get the sense that they don't really want to do as intense a schedule as they did for Viva.

That's an interesting perspective, care to elaborate?