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Coldplay Joining 'Red Nose Day' to Perform Sketch Co-Written With Funny or Die Coldplay has joined the lineup for Red Nose Day, the inaugural U.S. edition of the popular U.K. TV event that has raised over $1 billion for British charity Comic Relief since 1985. The rock group will appear in a comedic skit they helped write with Funny Or Die as part of the live three-hour telecast, airing Thursday, May 21 from 8-11 p.m. ET on NBC. The benefit event will help raise funds for 12 charity organizations fighting youth poverty in the U.S., Africa, Asia and Latin America, including Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Children's Health Fund and United Way. Previously announced musicians appearing on the show include John Legend, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and Voice coaches Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, Christina Aguilera and Pharrell Williams, along with Will Ferrell, Jack Black, John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Michelle Rodriguez, Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Lauer, Carson Daly, Bill and Melinda Gates, Nick Offerman, Elizabeth Banks, Chris Pine, Jeff Goldblum, Billy Eichner, Martin Short, Laura Linney, Anna Kendrick, John Michael Higgins and Stephen Merchant. Coldplay’s involvement comes in part through frontman Chris Martin’s recent 15-year appointment as curator of the Global Citizen Festival, which is co-produced by Comic Relief co-founder Richard Curtis, who will also executive produce Red Nose Day for NBC. The band’s final (for now) album, A Head Full Of Dreams, is expected later this year via Parlophone/Atlantic, with a farewell stadium tour likely to follow in 2016. Previous musical collaborations with the U.K. Red Nose Day include One Direction, whose hit 2013 cover mash-up “One Way Or Another/Teenage Kicks” helped raise more than 2 million pounds for Comic Relief, and John Legend and Sam Smith, who teamed up earlier this year for a duet on Smith’s ballad “Lay Me Down." “Red Nose Day” is produced by Universal Television Production by Richard Curtis, Hamish Hamilton and Ian Stewart of Done + Dusted Productions. Henrietta Conrad and Lily Sobhani and Funny Or Die’s Mike Farah, Anna Wenger and Joe Farrell will serve as executive producers, with Hamilton acting as director. Walgreens and Duane Reade are the special’s exclusive retail partners, selling $1-donation red noses at all participating stores nationwide. More information is available at http://www.rednosedayusa.com. x

i believe they are. too many coincidences. also, probably they never broke up, just been private. now that chris' divorce is finalized, guess they wouldn't mind being slightly more open about it.

chris out with jennifer lawrence last night more

this is fantastic. love the glowing harry potter lightning bolt. wishful thinking for the next era hair?

chris martin: a summary x

it seems so. a lot of people who miss the band but talk to the crew were given a signed picture, etc.

hahaa! noel gallagher seem to have given chris a hard time over tidal :lol:

i know most of us long for a return to pre mylo styles. but think of it in terms of the band. it must be boring to be repetitive, they have said so multiple times themselves. also, as established a band as they are, they get a lot of scrutiny and one that has generally been throughout their career is that they sound samey. i know, we whole heartedly disagree with this and most of this thread is about that. but that is a general comment made about coldplay's music. i don't think we'll see the band embracing a previous era, at least for lp7. no matter how much we may want. when you look at parachutes to viva, you can see some maturity in themes. but recently, the comments we hear more and more seem to target the teenagers that embrace bubble gum pop. for me, new musical territories are exciting, but as long as coldplay make mature music that doesn't target the top40 crowd, i think i can be somewhat satisfied. and also, regarding x&y, the main reason some don't like it as well as the band to have been very critical of the album, is that it is not different enough from a rush of blood, which was fantastic album to try and redo. just think clocks vs. speed of sound.

will the real batman please stand up?

x

^ yes, looks like matt mcginn. anyway, glad you got the goodies and that the crew was nice.

Chris Martin wrote to Alex Lewis after he was moved by his battle to survive a flesh-eating bug HE is one of the world's biggest stars. Chris Martin has earned millions as the frontman of top band Coldplay and is almost as well known for his marriage to Hollywood star Gwyneth Paltrow. But despite his money and fame, he has found time to write to a Stockbridge dad who has melted his heart. In a heart-warming and humble email Chris has personally thanked quadruple amputee Alex Lewis for “renewing his faith in life” after the band donated £10,000 to help the young dad walk again. The singer had read Alex's battle to survive against the odds in the Daily Echo and told how he was moved by his determination to live life despite losing all four limbs and part of his face after a common cold turned into a flesh-eating bug saying he handled it with 'awesome force'. Dad-of-one Alex, who is just back from a prosthetics bootcamp in America, said the star's kindness has spurred him on in his battle to get back his independence back. “I am totally amazed. It all feels a bit surreal,” he said. “It was just absolutely lovely, very very cool. It is quite incredible to think they have read about the story in Los Angeles and chosen to help out. I feel very honoured. “Already I can't thank people enough for all their kindness and support they have showed me and now Chris Martin too. Wow.” Alex, pictured above with son Sam, four, described how his fiancée Lucy Townsend, who runs The Greyhound on the Test pub in Stockbridge, alerted him to a donation to the Alex Lewis Trust which has so far raised £225,000 for his recovery and rehabilitation. He said: “Lucy opened a bank statement and said: 'Have you seen this?' I said 'no' and she said: 'There's a credit here for £10,000.' I said bloody hell, who was that? She said: 'Coldplay' “I said whatever Luce, and then she said seriously it is written on the statement.” Overwhelmed, Alex phoned up the superstar's office to thank him for the donation, who told him the frontman wanted to contact him personally. Coldplay, whose drummer Will Champion is from Southampton, have recently appeared on The Sunday Times Giving List produced in association with the Charities Aid Foundation for giving £3.8million to charity in the past year including £1.45million to a children's charity. True to his word, within days a special email pinged up on Alex's iPad which he operates using his split hook artificial arm and a piece of rubber. Its title read: 'From Chris Martin (Coldplay)'. The 38-year-old dad to Moses, eight, and Apple, 10, wrote: “Dear Alex, I hope you don't mind me writing out of the blue. “I was very moved by your story having read about it recently and wanted to reach out and say how incredible your approach to life is and inspiring. “It seems like you have been on an amazing journey and handled it with awesome force. “I wonder if you have ever read 'Man's Search for Meaning' by Viktor Frankl. I think you would like it. Anyway please let me know if and how we might ever be of help to you. “I hope you are doing good and thank you for renewing my faith in life. “Yours, Chris.” For Alex, the surprise contact he received from the world famous band could not have come at a better time because for the first time in his recovery he is frustrated. Today he is just back from America where he attended a prosthetics bootcamp thanks to Hampshire charity Pilgrim Bandits and he believes the UK's NHS prosthetics are letting him and fellow amputees down. Now 16 months since he lay in a hospital bed fighting for his life when the normally harmless bacterial infection Group A Streptococcus developed into septicaemia and toxic shock syndrome leading to multiple organ failure, the former Peter Symonds College pupil said he feels upset he still relies on his wheelchair. Though he has taken his first steps unaided on shorter artificial limbs called rockers, Alex said the heavy design with clumpy wooden feet made it impossible to master how to walk again. He has now been fitted with shorter artificial legs he has nicknamed “elephant feet” but the NHS version requires a carer to help strap them on. The US version are much lighter and have suction pads which amputees would be able to take on and off themselves therefore requiring less care but they are not available on the NHS. Alex, who is undergoing further surgery to reconstruct his lips on May 13, said rather than return to the 6ft man he was before the infection, he simply wants his independence and to help other civilian amputees. “I can see what can be achieved now and it's amazing how far behind we are in comparison to the US market. The rockers I had, have been no part of American medicine for 50 years. “With no arms I can't physically put them on myself. I have to take them off to go to the loo and then can't get them back on myself so I rely on people being around. “It feels as if our system pushes people like me into full time care but I just want my life back. I don't understand whether inadvertent or not, they are making it much harder in the UK for people to learn to walk again.” Now home at Stockbridge with his four-year-old son Sam, Alex is desperate to get back to being a hands-on dad. “I'm not in a rush. I'm not shouting to be 6ft again. That whole idyllic situation just isn't realistic at the moment. “Of course when you have lost your legs and your arms you want to look like a normal person. But at the same time you want to be able to live - to go outside, pick your kids up from school and to achieve that, there needs to be greater patient choice. “I don't mind being the same height as my son. What I do want though is independence and now the sun is starting to shine all I think is if only I could walk outside with Sam.” x this is such a heart warming story!

i was thinking of how GS was received and to me, the songs that were best received were midnight and magic. to think midnight wasn't even an official single and still raked in 30+ million views in youtube shows its' impact. it showed that coldplay are better received when they go a bit weird/left-field. i hope the band would acknowledge that in lp7. you can make non-generic pop, happy, hopeful music, and i'm hoping for that.

happy chris back in LA. hope the smile is sign of how the recording is going right now. more

following the mumfold comment, they already sounded like sort of a more folky coldplay to me. as in there were similarities to begin with. but now the similarities are more pronounced.

so mila who did the artwork for GS was working with the band at least since early 2013 and the record was released in May 2014. so who knows.

no i was talking about the lyrics, "see you soon" vs. "good things are coming our way"

most hard core coldplay fans are like [video=youtube;dsz-EeNZBkI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsz-EeNZBkI but coldplay are like [video=youtube;fqAudfTG20s] :)

one of the beauties of coldplay's music is it's universality. and usually the lyrics are just ambiguous enough for the listener to make their own interpretation. i'm looking forward to more of those since for me, trying in a way to be more explicit in GS didn't pan out that well (before GS, i was looking for more explicit lyrics, strange how that worked out huh?) and let's not forget, they are a band after all :) anyway, i think we might get a celebratory record with themes of hope, love, resilience. if they did write that happy song, looking forward to hearing that as well. hope they would take more of a non-generic route to creating soundscapes.

Climate Change Activists Ramp Up Legal Strategy Versus Funds A pair of not-for-profit agencies with some well-funded backers is ramping up a legal strategy to goad big investment funds to offload their holdings of fossil fuel-dependent companies – a move that, if successful, could profoundly disrupt world asset markets. The London-based Asset Owners Disclosure Project, which rates funds on their readiness for climate change, last week formally teamed up with Client Earth, an environmentalist group founded by legendary musician-producer Brian Eno and Coldplay front man Chris Martin, to launch what they’ve dubbed the Climate and Pensions Legal Initiative. Client Earth is backed by the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, the philanthropic arm of London hedge-fund manager Christopher Hohn. The goal of the new initiative, says AODP Chief Executive Office Justin Poulter, is to work with fund investors to pressure their trustees and portfolio managers into giving proper consideration to climate change risks in designing their portfolios. The AODP is basing its push on the grounds that the trustee boards that administer the pension funds are in breach of a fiduciary duty to do this kind of forward-looking risk assessment, given the length of their investment horizons. In keeping with that mission, the AODP on Monday released its latest ranking of 500 of the world’s biggest funds by the climate-change preparedness. Only nine funds – a group led by the Local Government Super Fund of Australia and which includes the Californian Public Employees Retirement System, or CalPERS, and the New York State Common Retirement Fund – earned the AODP’s top AAA rating. By contrast, 192 earned a “D” – effectively a fail – based on the feedback and public information they provide on their preparation for climate change. A further 232 funds that are deemed to have done nothing at all to weigh climate change risks earned an “X.” Among that latter group are some of the giant sovereign wealth funds from China, Abu Dhabi and Russia, as well as teacher pension funds from New Jersey and Illinois and the employee retirement funds of big companies such as Alcoa, Hewlett-Packard and Verizon. Only 35 of the surveyed funds calculate their carbon footprint, 17 have a systemic scenario analysis on climate change and seven have a target to reduce their footprint, the AODP says. That leaves a lot of fund trustees in the two organizations’ crosshairs. “The people that got those [low] ratings are going to be the people we are focusing on next,” Mr. Poulter said of the strategy to enlist members to lobby their funds’ trustees. “The ideal outcome is that there is no [legal] case and the funds realize that they can do better in managing the funds for their members,” he added. Although four funds were new entrants into the “AAA” ranks this year, Mr. Poulter sees that improvement from the 2014 rankings as the nascent emergence of an awareness of the risks to their portfolios. He said the past year’s fall in the oil price may have been a catalyst for some funds to reassess the longer term risks of holding stakes in oil producers. That oil price collapse also meant that more environmentally friendly portfolios have likely paid off better than some of their more carbon-heavy counterparts. Among the nine recipients of the “AAA” rating, portfolio performances in the last fiscal year ranged from 6.5% for CalPERS to 15.7% for Fjärde-AP Fonden from Sweden. x coldplay are patrons and phil is a trustee in the organization.

come on phil, if you are reading the forum, a studio pic has been way over due..

yeah, this is a great idea! and here is one of my favorites [video=youtube;4XRo_Oxibeo] [video=youtube;0Gf0hn3tvkA]

so the super group theories go out the window... two separate bands <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/grchughes">@grchughes</a> ah,don't get confused by the two bands together story! We are announcing one band as headliner but a great penultimate too..</p>— Emily Eavis (@emilyeavis) <a href="https://twitter.com/emilyeavis/status/591329640058236928">April 23, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

they seem like decent people to do it right by the kids. according to LA times, joint custody, no spousal support, etc. good for them, great for the kids that parents get along.

hmmm.... that's 2 out of 4 band members. :(