My Coldplay.com - A Coldplay Blog

Here are some pictures from Coldplay’s headlining slot on the Chiba Marine Stadium stage last night in Tokyo. The set was about a hour long and included an appearance by Alicia Keys during ‘Clocks’ and a cover of a Japanese song called “The Only One of All Flowers in The World” by Sports Music Assemble People. More pictures are here, with a full report from NME.com, plus video below…

SUMMER SONIC: Coldplay’s Only Festival Date in 2008 - The Definitive Report

Well, had you asked me what I thought of them a month or two ago, just before Coldplay released ‘Livin La Vida Loca’ (or whatever it was called), I would have told you quite firmly, ‘Interesting to read about because Chris Martin seems constantly on the edge of a nervous breakdown, but too fucking boring to ever actually put on the record.’

Then they released their fourth, Brian Eno produced album. The big cheesy choruses were replaced by evokative ambiances and daring, meandering new approaches to making music (relative to their old stuff, at least). Suddnely, they relased something as musically interesting as their press presence had always suggested they could be.

And so it was with new-found confidence in their avante-garde leanings that the band headlined Summer Sonic in a way that no other band could pull off…

The show climaxed with the band being joined onstage by Alicia Keyes, who played piano on ‘Clocks’. She didn’t have a microphone so just waved a lot, looking a bit lost and awe-struck. It was still very good, mind you. He introduced her on stage as ‘the most beautiful woman in the world… except for my wife.’ I’m guessing he caught a glimpse of Gwenyth stood looking disapprovingly in the wings so added that final compensatory clause as an afterthought so as to avoid martial bickering all the way home.

Against a backdrop depicting the French Romantic painting by Eugène Delacroix, ‘Liberty Leading The People’, used as the bands album artwork for ‘Viva La Vida’, they performed in costumes aping the style of French Revolutionaries, just like they’ve been doing on the rest of the tour - giving them a way more interesting visual edge than back in the days when they used to dress like geography teachers.

Perhaps trying to compensate for Coldplay’s last festival headline slot at Fuji Rock a few years back, where Chris Martin walked out on stage and shouted ‘SAYONARA!‘ (Japanese for ‘Goodbye’) after one song, the curly haired choir-boy spent a remarkable amount of the performance communicating in admirable, if often confused, Japanese. Not that anyone minded. Even if his grammar was up shit creek, all was forgiven when he broke into a section of a song by Japanese pop-juggernauts SMAP. The response was frenetic.

Early on in the set, during ‘Politik’, Martin changed the lyrics of the song to sing, ‘Sixty thousands Japanese people watching us / Let Alicia Keyes always play with us’, giving a hint of the special performance that was still to come. He also seemed to spend a lot of the performance running off the stage and through the crowd. Here’s the moment his little legs got the better of him during ‘Fix You’:
The show climaxed with the band being joined onstage by Alicia Keyes, who played piano on ‘Clocks’. She didn’t have a microphone so just waved a lot, looking a bit lost and awe-struck. It was still very good, mind you. He introduced her on stage as ‘the most beautiful woman in the world… except for my wife.’ I’m guessing he caught a glimpse of Gwenyth stood looking disapprovingly in the wings so added that final compensatory clause as an afterthought so as to avoid martial bickering all the way home.

Against a backdrop depicting the French Romantic painting by Eugène Delacroix, ‘Liberty Leading The People’, used as the bands album artwork for ‘Viva La Vida’, they performed in costumes aping the style of French Revolutionaries, just like they’ve been doing on the rest of the tour - giving them a way more interesting visual edge than back in the days when they used to dress like geography teachers.

Perhaps trying to compensate for Coldplay’s last festival headline slot at Fuji Rock a few years back, where Chris Martin walked out on stage and shouted ‘SAYONARA!’ (Japanese for ‘Goodbye’) after one song, the curly haired choir-boy spent a remarkable amount of the performance communicating in admirable, if often confused, Japanese. Not that anyone minded. Even if his grammar was up shit creek, all was forgiven when he broke into a section of a song by Japanese pop-juggernauts SMAP. The response was frenetic.

Early on in the set, during ‘Politik’, Martin changed the lyrics of the song to sing, ‘Sixty thousands Japanese people watching us / Let Alicia Keyes always play with us’, giving a hint of the special performance that was still to come. He also seemed to spend a lot of the performance running off the stage and through the crowd. Here’s the moment his little legs got the better of him during ‘Fix You’:

Elsewhere the band performed all the songs you’d expect to hear, reflecting all stages of their career. For ‘The Scientist’, all four members of the band ran into a specially constructed podium in the middle of the crowd, performing a stripped-down acoustic version of the song, followed by a harmonica enfused ‘DWNC’. I got a video of that, but I can’t really post it here, sorry, but if you’re wiley you might find it elsewhere on the web (ssshhh!).

They even gave Tokyo a reson to dance, playing a thumping remix of talk, and a spruced-up, Wah-wah enhanced version of ‘God Put A Smile Upon Your Face’ that sounded like the Doctor Who theme tune.

Then, after they finished, there was a massive firework display.

Here’s the setlist:

Life In Technicolour
Violet Hill
Politik
In My Place
Viva La Vida
42
Fix You
Chinese Sleep Chant
God Put A Smile On Your Face
Speed Of Sound
世界にひとつだけの花 /The Only One of All Flowers in The World [SMAP Cover]
Yellow
Lost!
The Scientist (on podium)
DWNC (on podium)

Talk Remix
Clocks (with Alicia Keyes)
Lovers In Japan
Death and All His Friends
The Escapist

All in all: bloody bootiful!

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Now, for the most amazing part of the night: Coldplay! I looooove Coldplay, and have for a good 5 years now. I’ve seen them before, in Toronto two years ago, and while it was a good show, I have to say that it wasn’t amazing. Probably because I had the cheapest seats in the house, and went alone. Anyway, tonight, Peter and I were there and had a good spot. To try and explain; this was in a baseball stadium and we were on the floor. They’d divided the front half of the floor into L and R (we were in L) and into front and back. We were at the VERY back of the front section, so that we could lean over the fence that was behind us. We were really close to the audio tent as well. Running between the front and back and left and right were aisle ways where they had staff/security/the occasional band.

About 2/3s of the way through the set (which was 30 mins longer than it was supposed to be), The entire band jumped off stage, ran down those aisle ways, and ended up on a tiny stage we didn’t know was there, RIGHT BESIDE US!!!! They were probably only about 10 people away. It was freaking amazing! And when they started playing The Scientist, my FAVORITE song in the entire world, I actually nearly started to cry. I was certainly on the verge of hyperventilation (this is the song that got me liking coldplay, but more importantly, was a big part of the soccer slideshow that maggie made us before we went to BCs. and won. anyone on that team will understand why the song is so amazing to me). Anyway, moving on…So they were SOOO close and it was sooo great!!! I was soo happy we’d lucked into that spot. And then, bonus, as they were running back to the stage, the bass guitarist gave me a high five! Cool!

Then, the next song (Clocks) was pretty great as they brought Alicia Keys out to play the piano, which was pretty great. Overall, they had a great set, but the last third, from basically the second small concert on was just amazing. I even got a piece of the confetti they blew out of the stage at the end (some shiny mylar butterflies).

We wrapped up the night with some cup noodle, in Peter’s car, with the top down, parked outside the Messe, blasting Coldplay. Classic.

Next post will have (slightly not allowed to have been taken) pics and video.

http://gaijinbedbug.blogspot.com

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Coldplay and Alicia Keys team up at Summer Sonic festival

Chris Martin duets with ‘most beautiful woman in world… except my wife’

Coldplay were joined onstage by Alicia Keys, who played piano on ‘Clocks’ as the band closed the final night of Japanese festival Summer Sonic tonight (August 10).

Against a backdrop depicting the French Romantic painting by Eugène Delacroix, ‘Liberty Leading The People’ - used as the band’s album artwork for recent release ‘Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends’ - the band performed in costumes aping the style of French revolutionaries, as they have done for other dates on their current tour.

Throughout the performance, frontman Chris Martin displayed an admirable - if slightly questionable, grammatically speaking - level of Japanese, communicating with the crowd in their native tongue at almost any opportunity.

After 2005 single ‘Speed of Sound’, he performed a solo, piano-rendition of a song by Japan’s most famous pop band, SMAP, eliciting a breathtakingly loud response from the surprised audience.

Early on in the set, during ‘Politik’, Martin changed the lyrics of the song to sing, “60,000 Japanese people watching us/Let Alicia Keys always play with us”, giving an early hint of the upcoming collaboration.

Elsewhere the band performed songs from across all their albums including the massive single ‘Yellow’, ‘Fix You’ and ‘In My Place’.

For ‘The Scientist’, all four members of the band ran into a specially constructed podium in the middle of the crowd, performing a stripped-down acoustic version of the song.

Then, introducing her on stage before ‘Clocks’, Martin said that Keys was, “the most beautiful woman in the world… except for my wife”.

Earlier in the day, the Tokyo event, which runs a sister festival in Osaka the same weekend, saw performances from Super Furry Animals, Late Of The Pier, DEVO and The Wombats.

http://www.nme.com

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VIDEOS More to follow…

LIFE IN TECHNICOLOR [thanks knutts]

VIOLET HILL [thanks Rushmore1984]

POLITIK

IN MY PLACE [thanks shimizujapom]

Another version [thanks Rushmore1984]

VIVA LA VIDA [from the TV thanks 5hy52y265hy25y]

Another version [thanks tmge0430]

42

FIX YOU

CHINESE SLEEP CHANT

GOD PUT A SMILE UPON YOUR FACE

SPEED OF SOUND

COVER: THE ONLY ONE OF ALL FLOWERS IN THE WORLD [thanks Rushmore1984]

Another version [thanks knutts]

YELLOW

LOST!

THE SCIENTIST [thanks Rushmore1984]

Another clip thanks AlexHobanNME

THE SCIENTIST/DEATH WILL NEVER CONQUER [thanks typeronin]

CLOCKS (with Alicia Keys) [from the TV thanks 5hy52y265hy25y]

Another clip thanks sojucouk

LOVERS IN JAPAN

DEATH AND ALL HIS FRIENDS

THE ESCAPIST