Yesterday, Coldplay kicked off the second North American leg of their “A Head Full of Dreams” tour at at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. This is a follow-up to the first visit to North America in July, August and September of 2016. The band’s seventh tour, it is a return to larger arenas and stadium and in total they will play over 100 shows across five continents. Their latest EP, Kaleidoscope, came out last month. [Read more…]
2016 marks Coldplay’s first global stadium and arena tour in years, in support of their seventh studio album, A Head Full of Dreams. The U.S. leg of the tour began in mid-July and runs through early September. As always, the tour promised surprises and a lot of candy for both eyes and ears, with a setlist that spans their entire career. [Read more…]
“Essentially, the word around here is grateful…” Chris Martin at his piano, backed by the Royal Academy of Music, opening the encore for the night with a cover of “White Christmas”. I’ve written quite a few articles about Coldplay in the past, so any who have read them would know that they are one of my favorite bands (along with Depeche Mode and Pixies). I hadn’t seen them live since their show in San Jose in April of 2012, so it has been a while. They took 2013 off as far as performing live goes, and have been in the studio working on new material. The band has always used their gifts and successes in music to help others, and one of the organizations that they’ve been a big supporter of is Kids Company in the UK. And, as per tradition, they tend to do a special show each year for Christmas and/or New Year’s, so this year it was another of their “Under 1 Roof” multi-artist events. Sharing the bill with them this year was Lily Allen, Ricky Gervais reprising his character from The Office performing as David Brent and Foregone Conclusion, magician Dynamo, and Rizzle Kicks, with Fearne Cotton hosting the evening, along with some surprise guests like Robbie Williams and Tim Rice-Oxley from Keane.
As is somewhat of a tradition, it was announced this month that Coldplay will be doing a special charity concert in London to benefit one of their favorite organizations, Kids Company, who provide practical, emotional, and educational support to vulnerable inner-city children and young people in London and Bristol. The special event, “Under 1 Roof: A Night For Kids Company”, will be held on December 19th at Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith, London. Joining Coldplay on stage will be Ricky Gervais, in character from The Office’s David Brent as David Brent and Foregone Conclusion, Lily Allen, magician Dynamo, and hip hop duo Rizzle Kicks, all hosted by Fearne Cotton. [Read more…]
So I was having dinner with a friend last night, telling her about Saturday’s Coldplay concert in San Jose (see “Coldplay at the HP Pavilion | San Jose, CA | 4/28/2012”). I had mentioned that after the show, I met Jason Regler, the inventor of the “xylobands”, the wrist bands handed out to concert goers to wear during the performance, which are activated over RF signal to light up (and light up with different flashing patterns) for different songs, at different times during the concert. These were first introduced for the “American Express Unstaged” concert in Madrid, which was directed by Anton Corbijn (see “Coldplay “Unstaged” at Plaza de Toros | Madrid, Spain | 10/26/2011”). In any event, since my friend has never seen Coldplay in concert, I thought I’d send her a link to one of the videos I shot during one of those sequences, so she could see just how awesome these are when employed during a show. That’s when a very strange thing happened, which I thought I’d share with the readers of the Rock Subculture Journal… [Read more…]
Last night, April 28th, was the second in two back-to-back performances by Coldplay at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, CA – part of their official Mylo Xyloto world tour. This was the sixth time I’ve seen Coldplay in the past six months (having seen their AMEX Unstaged show in Madrid, Spain in October, some of the special European tour dates at the O2 in London and the Palais Omnisports de Paris Bercy in December, and the special iHeartRadio charity gig at Club Nokia and the Jimmy Kimmel Live! block party in Los Angeles in February. As such, I don’t think I’m in a position to do a “normal” sort of review at this point, as I tend to subjectively compare to all of the other shows I’ve attended in the past year and beyond… but as I’ve come to expect, with last night’s gig, Coldplay put on a high energy show with a great mix of hits and new material. Watching many in the crowd seeing the show with “fresh eyes”, it was certain that the nearly 18,000 in attendance came away having shared an awesome experience with this fantastic concert.
Following last night’s Coldplay iHeartRadio benefit concert at Club Nokia, I was lucky enough to share a pair of tickets with another Coldplay fan who won them from The World Famous KROQ for a special Jimmy Kimmel Live! outdoor mini-concert / block party (or “bloq” party) behind the El Capitan Theater, where the regular show is shot in studio. Some of the songs performed at this concert will be broadcast on a special post Academy Award special of the JKL! show, following the Oscars telecast. This concert was originally scheduled for February 7, 2012, and rescheduled for tonight, February 9th.
I was fortunate enough to attend a very special Coldplay benefit concert tonight, which took place at Club Nokia in Los Angeles, in collaboration with iHeartRadio and Clear Channel Media and Entertainment Los Angeles radio stations KIIS FM, 98-7FM and MYFM. The proceeds of the show benefit two charities – A Place Called Home and Youth Mentoring Connection. [Read more…]
This is the fifth in a series of photojournals covering concerts during my trip to England and France. Tonight’s performance was Coldplay, which took place at the Palais Omnisports de Paris Bercy in Paris, France on December 14th, 2011. [Read more…]
This is the first in a series of photojournals covering concerts during my trip to England and France. Tonight’s performance was Coldplay, which took place at the O2 Arena in London, England on December 9th, 2011. [Read more…]