Now I know that Coldplay are not really part of the AW music clique, but this is more about the news story than a critique of their music……
As part of their current tour, Coldplay initially announced 4 dates for Jan 2024 at the National Stadium (capacity 55,000) here in Singapore, which initially seemed a lot (they played 2 nights last time they were here). Tickets went on “pre-sale” on Monday (basically anyone with a Live Nation account, anyone that had registered with their website – I.e. open to all) which promptly sold out and a 5th and then a 6th date were added for the general sale the next day. All six dates sold out within a couple of hours.
This is a country with a population of approx 5 million – probably about half the size of London – and they can sell out immediately 6 nights at 55,000 per night, I find this staggering. I believe they played only 3 nights at Manchester and Cardiff.
Oh, and yes, I did manage to get tickets – not sure if I will manage to go or my son will convince me to let him and his friends have….
P.s. Today we say the announcement that Taylor Swift will be playing 3 nights at the same stadium – abd it’s the only concerts in SE Asia. This will be interesting…….
Maybe it’s because it’s a mega-gig, people want to be entertained, and the music is “safe enough” for the context, not being particularly rock n roll or seditious? Also, folk may come in from the populous countries that surround that fine city-state? (I like it, not being nasty.)
Genuine question: didn’t Coldplay say a couple of years ago that they were going to stop touring because they wanted to do their bit for global warming?
The tour is sponsored by DHL, so no idea how the carbon footprint thing works,. Being DHL it probably means the PA system will turn up a couple of days after the concert, so maybe it’s an acoustic set……..
The tour has been declared ‘carbon neutral’ a few weeks ago (there were DHL adverts promoting this too). My mate’s dad has worked for them for donkeys years, which is great if you’re playing six degrees of separation. Apparently before this tour the band very kindly took their roadcrew off for a week’s yoga retreat in South America so that they could understand where the new material was coming from. No idea if it helped, but they are clearly selling out stadiums.
Well, some parts of South America are the source of some of the things enjoyed by roadies…
I did wonder if they were stocking up, like.
Not a good idea “stocking up” and then taking your “stock” to Singapore, Malaysia etc.
I’m sure I’d read somewhere that they’d decided not do any new records any more; just do ‘the old’?
Would it be true that not too many big acts tour that part of the world and people will also fly in from neighbouring countries for big shows?
To some extent, yes – although they are playing in booth Malaysia and Indonesia (which were announced and sold earlier).
There is definitely some custom from neighbouring countries (there are press reports citing Malaysian and Indonsian ministers rueing that by not being so easy on approvals / permits / etc they have lost out to Singapore in the tourist dollars).
The Taylor Swift concert, being the only ones in SE Asia, will definitely be attracting the neighbours.
I’m thinking the COVID Years have a lot to do with concert sellouts. “Pah, £200, a bargain, let’s go enjoy ourselves!”
At the risk of being repetitively boring (cries of “No chance” and “Unfair” from the backbenches) I always get confused between Coldplay and Radiohead (whichever did Yello has my vote).
If either group were playing down the local bar tonight, I’d go see them.
However, it’s Fete de la Musique today all over France: tonight the bar has not one, not two but three groups playing. I give you:
1. One Way Street (“Le classic rock”)
2. Hot Stuff (“Le classic rock”)
3. Rob In Trip And The Oysters (“Pop/Indie/Folk”)
Who needs poncey English bands, eh, when we got Rob In Trip And The Oysters on stage at 2130???
2130, on a school night?!
We live for the moment in The Languedoc – who cares if we’re late for school tomorrow?
None so AW friendly as Rob In Trip And The Oysters
I posted that in case you wondered where Principal Edwards Magic Theatre were based these days
They’ve got very larky in the intervening half-century.
Hippies…cuh!
Although I don`t have any of Coldplay`s music I often wonder why they are held in such low regard by many who visit this place.
Their music seems pleasant enough and they seem to bring a lot of joy and happiness to their fans.
It`s not that there are music snobs around here is it?
I liked their first album and probably bought 2 others after that, but found they were basically repeating themselves and I lost interest. Also Chris Martin has a particularly weak and annoying voice
They are not in the same stratosphere as Radiohead who came first and were certainly a huge “influence” on Coldplay and quite a few other bands with their more commercial stuff
Radiohead, horrible band and the singer’s voice, the feckin` cat 🙀 jumped through the window* when something by them came on the radio.
*The window was shut 🤣
Complete nonsense, but you have strong opinions. Everyone is entitled to them even if they are wrong
I had to buy a multi-pack of Coldplay albums some years ago, as I was quickly pulling together the presentation for a friend’s wake and the family had requested a specific song (“Fix You”?). I have to admit I’ve never listened to any of them. What I casually hear is pleasant in a “TV incidental music ” kind of way, but I’ve never felt the need to dive in. I’m sure they put on a cracking live show.
I think the reason for the Coldplay hate comes from the fact that a) they (or some of them) are a bunch of posh boys, a mortal sin in the eyes of the British music press of the time (have a listen to the Chart Music podcast); and b) they picked up some of the textures etc that Radiohead was using on OK Computer, pre-digested it for the masses and then regurgitated it. Nothing wrong with that, if it is done well, but they were very obviously coat-tail riding. I’m pretty sure the 90 degree handbrake turn that Radiohead did on Kid A was to create a bit of an air gap between themselves and the likes of Coldplay.
I’ve always been interested in the fact that Eno produced several of their albums, yet even the Eno coolness factor hasn’t been able to give Coldplay even a veneer of critical respectability.
I’ve recounted on here before about how I couldn’t see the appeal, saw them almost by mistake at Glasto one year, they put on a great show (mainly the lights), and I was converted for the hour.
I’ve never felt the need to hear a record, though. My neighbours saw them recently(ish) at the O2 and report they still put on a good show.
Was that the year they did a song by Viola Beach who had all just died in a car crash? I thought that was a very nice thing to do.
5 things I know about Coldplay:
1. Justin Timberlake once praised them.
2. Yellow is pleasant to strum.
3. Apart from Chris Martin no one can name any of them.
4. Fix You was very movingly sung by the old folks in that old people’s choir thingy.
5. Apart from Yellow and Fix You I don’t know any other songs by them.
It was either 1999 or 2000.
The Viola Beach thing was 2016. A nice touch.
It may be what scientist’s refer to as ‘The Sheeran Effect’, whereby the disdain piled upon an act is in directly proportional to the bafflement their success arouses. I’d probably go and see Coldplay if they were playing close enough and I was given a decent enough free ticket, but if Sheeran was playing in the garden I’d shut the curtains.
Never!
Oh come on! They are no Robin In And The Oysters, are they? (I like Yello though – first heard it in Goa on a bootleg cassette when I was under a palm tree and watching some elephants walk along the beach. I took off my headphones and said to the dusky maiden sitting next to me (I may have imagined that part) and said “This is good”)
Which song by Yello? I only know that one on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I like that.
Oh yeah
No, honestly, I do.
Well done, Dai. That’s today’s tea-in-the-keyboard moment.
Do you mean Yello Jell-o (pronounced like the j in fjord)?
Mello Yello Jello
Donovan invents Europop
Yeah, have your fun against socially-challenged me. I don’t care, at 1030 tonight I’ll be boppin with Rob In
Except Rob In didn’t turn up!
We had to make do with copious amounts of local wine and Le Classic Rock. To be honest, I thought the decision to go with all 6 minutes of Like A Rolling Stone was a mistep
As were the full 17 minutes of Sister Ray.
Chris Martin is pretty savvy: they’ve collaborated with lots of major stars, in order to ensure worldwide radio attention. Also, how many Coldplay songs include a ‘woooohooo/oohhh-hooo/arrr-haaaaa’ moment for festival crowds? They seem to have abandoned any attempt at meaningful lyrics.
I categorically refuse to believe they’re anyone’s favourite band, other than when an aural emetic is required.
I used to work with a girl who definitely had Coldplay as her favourite band, she would even travel around Europe to go to gigs of theirs in different cities!
She briefly dated my nephew, and I always thought it was because he has a slight resemblance to Chris Martin and sing and play the guitar…but it didn’t last long.
Early Coldplay was quite good, but very of its time – I find it hard to listen to those albums now. But they’ve always known how to write a killer chorus and they’re perfect radio playlist fodder.
Someone I know went to their first ever stadium gig the other week to see Coldplay in Cardiff. He was absolutely astounded at how good and immersive it was.
He isn’t a live music fan at all, but something must have prompted him to go to this, and he is in his fifties.
A friend of mine posted clips of the Manchester show on FB. Lots of multicoloured lights throughout the crowd was a big theme. I didn’t ask how it was done but perhaps the crowd were asked to download something their phones and hold them up? Either that or there thousands of less than green disposable lights used.
A Friend of mine went to the Manchester gig as a freebie on behalf of the company that makes the illuminating wristbands as used at the gig. Through some ….. witchcraft the wristbands would flash and change colour on the lighting techs ( presumably) command. My mates opinion of the show?. A great spectacle but he wouldn`t buy an album of theirs.
Ah. That explains my observation above.
In 2014, Garth Brooks sold out five nights at Dublin’s 80,000-seat Croke Park.
The promoters reckoned at the time they could have sold out two our three more.
Pretty good for a country with a population of roughly 6,000,000.
Sadly, the promoters hadn’t bothered to apply for licenses and had to cancel all five shows.
The night the GB cancellation was announced, was the same night the Germans stuck seven
past Brazil in the WC Seni Final in, uh, Brazil.
The next morning, I went into the local Tesco
With roughly half the Irish ladies on the tills GB fans and one in two of the other till ladies coming from Brazil, the place was like a morgue.
Chris Martin totally won the hearts of the crowd at the Diego Maradona stadium in Naples last night, first with a salutation in the local dialect (“Grazie mille guagliù, ve vulimme bene”), then by singing Napule È, a song by the late, much loved Neapolitan singer-songwriter Pino Daniele, again in the local dialect.
And here he is giving a little speech in Italian and dialect. He says in the speech “I don’t speak Italian” but if that’s the case he’s clearly put in some time and effort to learn this much and it even sounds spontaneous. He sure knows how to win over an Italian crowd.
Did they play Yello?
Cool speech by the way…
Cool advert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqHb69aPbCI&pp=ygUReWVsbG93IGRobCBhZHZlcnQ%3D
Dunno. I wasn’t there. I don’t do stadiums. Or Coldplay. Or evenings.
They did do that now fairly common thing of getting a fan up on stage to join them. Did Springsteen start that? He was the first I recall, when the kid asked to play Growin’ Up with him.
Did the Oysters turn up, despite Rob In’s no-show?
No Rob In or his Oysters – apparently the lure of actually getting paid took them elsewhere
They’ve sold out and gone commercial!
Typical Hippy Sell-Out! Chalk another one up for The Man.
Having shelled out to see the band, bet the audience weren’t as happy as clams when they didn’t turn up!
Fete de la Musique is free everywhere across France.
Rob In & Oysters decided to play at some fancy restaurant for money – selfish bastards!
“ P.s. Today we say the announcement that Taylor Swift will be playing 3 nights at the same stadium – abd it’s the only concerts in SE Asia. This will be interesting…….”
And so this morning, Taylor Swift has now added more dates and also extended to six nights (and the tickets are not on sale yet – only the pre-registration for the sale).
Looks like we have a my band is bigger than your band competition here in Singapore.