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Fair enough I guess. (though I must confess, I just can't agree on the attitude thing, Coldplay have publicly had the ambition to be a world dominating band since at least the AROBTTH days.) As I said in my own review though, this song sounds musically to me more like their "classic" sound than anything they've released in the better part of a decade, so if anything was going to bring fans like you back into the fold, I would've bet it would've been this.

Any particular reason why?

Yeah, the more I looked at it, I did realize it was probably a powerscreamer. I originally thought it was either a Full Metal Jacket or a Psilocybe but the knobs aren't right for either of those. My bad. :\ Do you know what the brown/reddish pedal he's got on the far left end of the chain in his MX era board? It looks like it could be a Boss pedal of some sort, but I can't make it out from the photos and every written list I've seen seems to start right after it.

Jonny's not running the stock speakers in his though. I'm not sure what they're loaded with, but Matt has said a few times that Mike Hill completely rewired them and they have aftermarket speakers as well.

I think one of those HBE Powerscreamers is actually a different HBE pedal based on the finish and a few blurry photos I've seen where the knob configuration doesn't look right. Also, I've heard that the custom switchers that Mike Hill Audio services builds are indeed based around the Voodoo labs ground control, just custom mounted in a different chassis. Some of the photos from their website (notably the one he built for Kevin Sheilds with the GCP LCD display clearly visable) seem to bear this out as well.

I'm pretty sure Sunny is the favorite. It's the only one he didn't let Paris paint. Brownie is all graffitied up now with the rest.

Actually neither of them may be actually from 1972.(in fact I think he's two earliest ones, the sunburst and the brown are both actually from 1974) It's pretty common to use the term '72 Tele Thinline to refer to any Thinline with the Wide Range pickup configuration (since it was introduced in that year). In contrast a '69 Tele Thinline (made from 1969-71) has standard Tele Pickup configuration.

Indeed. Nothing will ever please anyone, but this song has gotten more positive reaction (both from the fanbase and critically) than anything the band has released in an exceptionally long period of time. That counts as universal acclaim in my book.

Except perhaps the band themselves. At this stage of their career, they don't really need hits, or even to shift records, so it's only natural their going to do what they like at the moment, even if it's less popular. It happens to a lot of bands once they no longer have the pressure of worrying about money or acclaim. Coldplay are making music for the fun of it at this point.

They're still pretty readily available on the secondary market, so I'm sure Coldplay can get new ones if they want/need to, especially since cost is no object to them.

Fair enough. Though I would contend that Charlie Brown and perhaps UWTB are as close to universally acclaimed by the fanbase as anything they've done in the last decade or so. Other then that, yeah I agree, mixed bag.

When they've done special one off performances before, they usually don't dress in their "album clothes". Even when those performances are in the middle of an album campaign (like their musicares gig). Now, when they performed at silver clef (or whatever it was earlier this year), they were dressed normal but their gear was still the graffiti covered gear from the MX tour. I imagine some of that will stick around indefinately, as they can't really un-grafitti anything, and some of the gear has been stuff they've used live for a very long time and presumably like. They used VLV themed stuff on the MX tour, so they'll most likely use MX themed gear on whatever they do going forward as well.

Whether you like the album or not, I don't see how you can class MX as stylistically inconsistent. All the songs have more unity of style and structure than any of their other albums.

It really reminds me of Edge's riff from U2's Unknown Caller.

It's hard to put my finger on exactly what it is that gives me that vibe, it just sounds like a track they could've done 10 years ago somehow. I think this is most especially in relation to Jonny's lead guitar part. He's playing those sparse slide swells throughout most of it and then at the end he's got that solo that's spare and lean in it's arrangement. He used to play like this a lot, but that's really something that's gone out of his more recent work.

I've got to say, while I've never been in the camp that thinks the band has had a sharp decline in quality over the last couple albums, the more I listen to this song, the more I find that my opinion of a lot of their more recent work may actually end up going down somewhat. This song brings back things I didn't even realize I missed in this band!

Personally, I think this song is their best work in years. :D Perhaps all the way back to the AROBTTH era. It's got a lot of the "old school" elements people always complain are lacking in their more recent work. Plus, it's just a damn beautiful song. The only (very minor) gripe I have is that the ending of the track does feel a bit abrupt.

Another great band, but they also (and especially Dave Grohl) get a fair amount of flak for being overly "commercial" and increasingly so. Both of those examples started with considerably more credibility (for lack of a better term) than Coldplay ever had, so the criticism isn't as pronounced but IMHO it's there nonetheless. People just like things better when they're new and fresh, and will always judge new releases against their old favorites.

Nope they get it too. They're still enormously respected (perhaps the most respected band on the planet), but their post OK Computer work has split opinion, with TKOL being especially divisive. Plus the live reviews for their last tour were very mixed. (Though I should say I hold Radiohead in the highest regard)

Find me one band that's been around awhile that doesn't get tagged with the "aren't as good as they used to be" line. I'm not saying that people aren't entitled to their opinion, or that bands never decline, but this line is so grossly over applied, it's lost all meaning IMHO.

I think the wires got crossed somewhere in this one. All three of the main amps in his current rig face outward from the backline. None are tilted or iso-cabbed. Matt must be talking about a spare or something.

Well I meant edited in a general sense, but I didn't see the post with the unedited photo when I made mine. :\ My track record here has not been so good lately. :embarrassed:

So WTF are you doing here of all places? :dozey:

Found it. Was mistaken, was from some time ago. :\ Sorry to get everyone excited.

Maybe, but I'm a graphic artist and that doesn't really look like a Photoshop element to me.