fakfak

Again though, most people in the audience will not "go see them on the next leg", and if they don't hear the songs they came for, they may well not go see them on the next tour either. People want to hear the songs they know, and they want to hear them at the show they go to. Sure, 15 people in the front row may be mad that they don't play blackout, but in reality, they're a small segment of the overall audience, as are people who go to a large number of shows on the same tour.

I think it was around 17-18 for the Euro leg, and has been between 19-21 (depending on how you count) for the just ended North American gigs. In the past, they did beef up their set for the stadium gigs, so fingers crossed they'll be playing longer now.

I'm not sure the club/festival/promo gigs should really be included in any evolution because those types of gigs are notorious for being prone to outside considerations that keep sets short. I guess my overall point is that while I do believe Coldplay's live sets could be improved, I also see the band making incrimental progress in doing so (they are making more changes to the sets on this tour compared to previous ones for example.)

I'm not sure what you mean regarding Coldplay, I've seen them 9 times since 2003 and I've never seen them go 2 hours. They don't play that much longer than Muse really. All those acts you mention at the end have 2 things going for them though: 1. They've all been around decades longer than modern bands like Muse or Coldplay. Further, they all started in an era when bands recorded/released music more frequently than the present standard, resulting in them amassing more material than most current bands do in a comprable amount of time. 2. They are all acts who have the exception of playing longer than average. It's a bit unreasonable IMHO to compare the average with the high end outliers. Even discounting those notable exceptions though, Muse are still a tad on the short side though, so your point stands anyway.

True, but to continue the U2 example, it's worth keeping in mind that while they do change up their sets these days, for most of their older tours (and most especially on their 90's stadium tours) there shows were exactly the same night after night. Even on 360, most of the major change-ups occured between legs as opposed to between shows. Honestly, I don't think radiohead's style of gigging is all it's cracked up to be either, as at this point, there's large sections of their catalog that they haven't played in years.

Yeah, it must really suck to be U2 these days.:rolleyes:

Got it, sorry if I wasn't very clear. I get your position better now. I really think Muse's arena production was the primary thing that led to short/repetative shows last tour.

If it was the Resistance tour, the reason was that the band's arena production took longer than typical to load out after the shows. That's what I heard from a guy who worked the local Muse arena gig back in 2009 anyway.

"fan favorites" is a whole different animal than "hits" IMHO. Your arguement makes a ton more sense when you use the first term (at least it does to me).

So that being the case, "where do you stand on the same set every night" Vs. "every show must be unique" debate eternal to concert audiences. Everything else you've written inclines me to believe you'd be the latter, but what you've written there seems to be more of a defense for the former. Just curious.

Probably yeah. Most of their venues have ungraded floors, so unless you're fairly tall, it is hard to get a good sightline from the middle of the floor.

In a lot of cases, it is the venue decision and/or local regulation that are the primary factors. Do bands and their promoters have a role in the process? Yes, but to claim there are no other factors at play is simply incorrect.:rolleyes:

Exactly. Assuming that the venue/promoter/production are well set up to process e-tickets, they do (for the most part) eliminate or cut down on some common ticketing issues, but they give rise to a whole new set of issues. Nothing's perfect unfortunately.:confused:

I can't speak for anyone else, but I wasn't talking about people who simply don't like the new songs/shows. That's a matter of opinion and I'm cool with that. What I can't stand are the people who act like the band somehow doesn't have the right to make the kind of music they want to make. There is a large difference between those two things.

To be fair, they're actual break in the U.S. market was probably ABC (or was it NBC-I can't remember), using Yellow in a series of high profile network promos, but your point is well taken. Incidently, Muse, the only other UK band to significantly break into the US market in the last ten years is also heavily beholden to KROQ.

Sadly the people who need to read that line probably still wouldn't get it.:rolleyes: That said, what I personally think gets most overlooked is that if you stripped away all the added "stuff", the band is much tighter these days, and all four are much stronger live musicians than they were then. In addition, while Chris has always been a showman, the other three have really made strides in that catagory over the last two tours as well. I've seen them live in every era barring Parachutes and regardless if one likes the new material or not, they're technically a much more profficient band of musicians than they used to be.

We'll have to agree to disagree there. I still say paperless ticketing as it's currently done has the potential to inconvience legitimate fans at least as much as scalping, albeit in different ways, and as Crokus said, only really slows down the scalpers for a little while until they devise ways to game the new system. The reason that scalping exists in the first place is that there are people out there who will pay way over face value for premium seats, and no amount of fancy ticketing procedures will do away with that mentality which is the root of the issue.

Thanks for the vote of confidence in my juvenile humor.:laugh3:

I think he probably does sleep in his cap these days.:laugh3: Back when Chloe had here twitter, there were pictures of Jonny keeping his cap on in almost every personal situation (at least the ones you can do with clothes on.:wink3::P)

From what you and Corkus have said, I think the CA rules must be more relaxed than here.

Logic says they'd do that before considering anything record wise, but legally speaking touring has nothing to do with their (or anyone else's) recording contract. The exception being an all inclusive deal which Coldplay do not have.

I really don't think they'll pull a Radiohead. I don't think they would want to go things quite that alone. They're also one of the very few acts left that has the commercial juice to start a serious bidding war, an I predict they'll get serious money thrown at them from all corners. Not sure if that will ultimately effect where they sign, but it very well could.

In a lot of places that do allow GA, you are still limited as to the total number of standing on the floor, so I'd bet that has something to do with it. I know where I live, it's extremely difficult to get permission to do GA standing at an arena show, and your numbers are limited to around half of what they would be with seating. I used to work with tours (from the local end), and I've seen how much hassle you can get trying to do standing admission, but that's mostly set by local law and can vary greatly from place to place. The only arena show I know of here that did standing was U2, and I heard they had to move heaven and earth to get that.

Heck, I'm 27 and still feel like that.

At least your situation worked out in the end.:D