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It's really weird.:confused: At least it sounds like his voice was ok later in the gig, so whatever it was it's probably not too serious.

They actually have been asked that before, and they have a standard response. They've said many times that they prefer to establish a set they think is strong and stick to it. If someone asks, that's all the satisfaction they're going to get.;)

Judging by the ongoing things people post on twitter etc. so far this tour, I now think even less people in their audience are aware of what the set is going to be ahead of time than I previously thought. Witness the girl who asked oracle if they were going to play Yellow or Clocks;) (and that also applies to the people who think it wouldn't be a big deal if they dropped those songs)

She's on tour with him?

If you're talking about the numbers from Billboard, they're notoriously inaccurate. They often publish numbers which don't take into account venue configuration or comp tickets.

They may have had a full production rehearsal at the stadium the previous day. That's usually the case at the start of the indoor tours, I don't see why it wouldn't be for the outdoor legs, especially since they have tons of extra stuff for the stadium gigs. Anyway, I might have missed it, but in all the photos I saw, only Jonny and Will were seen at the hotel, so that doesn't mean all of them were there.

I've never gotten all the stuff about them sounding the same. Each of their 5 albums has a wholly distinct sound IMHO.

I still have a hard time wrapping my head around how relatively nice Pitchfork has been to them recently.

Exactly you can't objectively prove or disproves either of those statements. The first (and biggest) hurdle is to attempt to qualify what terms like innovative and overated even mean in this context, which is almost impossible to do objectively in and of itself.

Yeah, their first three albums were a more, guitar oriented sound.

To use the Beatles example, the music they're most known for by most of the general public is their early stuff, which is pure, simple pop. The mainstream view of their later work is that it's "weird" despite being considered by musicians and critics as being almost uniformly superior to their early work (and probably rightfully so, at least in a technical sense.)

I think it depends on how you measure. Radiohead will go down in history as one of the most innovative bands of this era, but it's Coldplay that will be on the Time Life Compilation CD of "best hits of the 00's." Chris Martin may well end up being the host on their late night infomercial. Both will almost certainly be fondly remembered, but by different people for different reasons.

I think the piece is well written, mostly fair, and does have a few valid points. However, I still say most of the stick they get is generated by that fact that people continue to assume Coldplay is trying to do something other than what they're actually doing. Coldplay pretty much admits they just like to write and play pop music people enjoy. Judged soley by that standard, they are an unqualified success. Why do people assume they're trying to be "revolutionary" or break musical bounderies. Not every band is going after that, and I don't think that's Coldplay's goal. They just want to play yellow and make crowds of people smile by doing so.:) Coldplay is a rock band that makes pop music, that's what they should be judged as IMHO.

But my point is that realistically, "leaving a mark on music history" is really not that big of a deal at all. The only people who care about such things are a relative handful of music critics and audiophiles. Anyway, isn't making music with the express goal of garnering that type of reputation (which IMHO is what Radiohead is doing) just as cynical in it's own way as attempting to create chart hits and make a mark that way? I'll freely admit that when someone publishes a list of the 100 most influential bands of our era 50 years hence, Radiohead are a heck of a lot more likely to appear their than Coldplay, I just don't see that as that big of an accomplishment. I would add that I also don't see that fact that a band achieves commercial success as something that is relevant one way or the other either. Bottom line, both bands have managed to make a living from their music, which is hard enough, and (presumably) are making the music they want to make. At the end of the day that's all that really matters.

I never said it wasn't a valid gripe. Look at it this way: The two main gripes with Coldplay's live sets since at least as far back as 2005 are that they're short and repetative. Considering these issues have been ongoing for that length of time, it seems pretty clear to me that the band has no intention of changing those things. Therefore, I'm not sure why they have to be brought up here (and spark heated arguements), every single time the band embarks on a new tour. If anyone who could do anything about it was inclined to based on complaints, they would have done so long ago most likely.

I've heard of several artists that do similar things, but is is certainly the exception as opposed to the rule.

I think he does that a lot, regardless of what the other guys do. I seem to remember reading something to that effect during the twisted logic era.

I'm sure that's possible. I just meant that whoever they've got doing the spotting seems to be instructed to focus on people in the really bad seats.

All the people I've heard off getting upgraded at Coldplay shows had upper, upper nosebleed seats, so I think they concentrate on those people anyway.

I didn't know about Chris. I do know that Jonny and Will were photographed at their hotel. So I guess maybe some of them stay over, and some of them don't.:confused:

Maybe so, but I gotta say, IMHO rehashing the same complaints over and over (particularly when no one here can do a d#$n thing to change them), is no more constructive (or less annoying) than blind idolization.

My guess would be they need a bigger crew to accomodate the increased number of bands for the stadium gigs. After all, these shows are about 3 or 4 times larger than the indoor gigs.

They did in Portugal.

Every stadium show I've been to has a segmented floor. I think it's to prevent crushing. Is it not like that in the UK?

At this point, that looks to be the case.