Small Reminders/Updates on Coldplay.com (feat. Roadie #42!)

[Tash]

Roadie #42 - Blog #175
15 July 2012 8:36 pm
#42, the DC close shave and the return of Oldplay


Good grief - here we are at the last show of the leg and I’ve got a bag full of untold stories and observations from along the way.

I must apologise for the radio silence of late. I won’t make excuses - hows about I tell you about right now and then when I get home I’ll start picking through some stuff I missed out along the way?

We’re in Washington DC right now - although for a little while, it did feel as though maybe we wouldn’t be.

We were all set for the trip down to DC from the day off in NYC. We get as far as the fasten seatbelts sign before the pilot comes over the bing-bong to tell us that there are storms in DC and the airport has temporarily stopped all air traffic. Shouldn’t be a problem, but for a half hour, we’ll be going nowhere. Get comfy.



Half an hour turns into slightly longer. The clock ticks onwards from “early afternoon on gig day” to “worryingly closer to showtime” - quite literally with every second. Tour Manager Marguerite swings into “this cannot fuck up” mode. There’s talk of trains, there’s talk of Baltimore - there’s probably talk of a lot else besides, but I decide to keep my head down and stay out of the way. Too many cooks and all that.

Eventually, the storm clears (both literally and metaphorically) and we’re taxiing towards a non-cancelled show. Near-misses it seems, don’t only occur in the air…

Arriving late means that the first DC show day is a complete blur for me. Wolf Gang are well underway by the time we get in, meaning we’re straight into show-prep and done before you know it.

Two shows in one city always means the chance for a bit of mischief after the first show. For the band party, there is no runner as we’re staying in the city. For the crew party, there is no load-out after the show and even better, no load-in the following morning. All of this makes it seem rude not to get together and write off the following morning. And so it is in DC. Mags has organised an end of tour-leg party for all. I’m not a big one for hanging out in noisy rooms after noisy pop concerts, but this is a gathering of the tour family and as such pretty much unmissable.

This is probably the happiest and warmest touring family I can ever remember being part of, so the opportunity to all hang out in a room together with our hair let well down is truly wonderful. I’m starting to realise how much I’m going to miss this tour (or more importantly my friends on it) when it’s over, so I’m trying to force myself from hotel-room hermitage and out to enjoy as much of it as I can while we’re still out here.

As is the nature of these things, my memories are somewhat blurry of the evening - and it’s probably best for all concerned that photographic evidence is minimal. I do remember the 3am champagne toast, complete with squalls of feedback from the karaoke mic (prompting inevitable screams for the audio department to get a grip). I remember Robyn and her folks turning up moments after the DJ had played her track Dancing On My Own and her proceeding to commandeer the decks for a DJ set of her own.



(And I may be mistaken, but I swear I remember the same song of hers being put on later by the resident DJ, prompting the wonderfully bizarre sight of her dancing on the bar while the video version of herself sang the tune on the screens behind her.)

Unsurprisingly, the following morning doesn’t start until the following afternoon. Most conversations in the venue begin with “what time did you leave?”.

I’m in the midst of one of these conversations in catering when through the walls comes an explosion of punk rock mayhem. This can mean only one thing.

Oldlay.

For many years, there has been a “crew band” comprised mainly of the backline department, but filled out by anyone who fancies getting involved. Robyn’s tour manager it seems, is none other than Ali McMordie, from seminal punk heroes Stiff Little Fingers. He’s taken the bass spot on the stage and I arrive on the arena floor just as they finish a rousing cover of Anarchy In The UK (complete with Nicole from production and Tiff from wardrobe dancing up a storm).

It’s too good for just one tune and they plough through another as I reach for the camera. No better way to blow away the morning after cobwebs!

Like a Halley’s Comet sighting, it came from nowhere and disappears every bit as fast. When they’ll grace the Coldplay stage again, I have no idea, but in the meantime, I give you the July 2012 incarnation of Oldlay. Contact Steve Strange at X-Ray for booking details…



On the subject of folks getting up and doing their own thing, I should mention how many great outfits folks have been wearing to the shows on this tour. The whole graffiti theme of the record screams of self-expression and creativity, so seeing folks arriving in their own Mylo outfits is a superb strengthening of all of that.

Trainer Dan pointed this guy out to me before one of the recent shows - apparently this fella has been to a bunch of Coldplay shows and even kept the butterflies from a Viva show he saw a couple years ago to make the hat he wore this time around - good work!



Another Trainer Dan spot was these two young ladies who created their own entire outfits for the show they came to



All this talk of unusual attire would of course be incomplete without this crew contribution from that most happy-go-lucky of lampies, Phil Sharpe.



I *think* this may have had something to do with Oxfam, but as ever, it feels more fun not knowing.

So that’s the crew and the fans - what of the band? Well, it’s been a family-tastic tour, with the band enjoying a lot of time with loved ones, whilst in some of the more lovely parts of the USA. This always results in huge smiling faces and fully enthused shows.





They’re hugely on form and they’re enjoying every minute of it, it would seem. Perhaps they too realise how wonderful what’s going on here is. Whatever the reason, the shows have been belters.





I’ve been on the road for over twenty years and I can recall plenty of that time that’s been a struggle. What’s going on here though is very special and supremely enjoyable. These are friendships that will endure until all of this is just a “do you remember when?”.



I’ll remember this for the rest of my life - and for that, I feel very fortunate.

R42

[Safy]

LOVELY BLOG

[Coeurli]

Amazing blog as always

[Tash]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Roadie #42
All this talk of unusual attire would of course be incomplete without this crew contribution from that most happy-go-lucky of lampies, Phil Sharpe.



I *think* this may have had something to do with Oxfam, but as ever, it feels more fun not knowing.

---

[Twisted mind]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tash;5358793
These are friendships that will endure until all of this is just a “do you remember when?”.

I’ll remember this for the rest of my life - and for that, I feel very fortunate.

R42

---

*makes emotionally laden unintelligible fangirl squeal*

[Tash]

Wolf Gang interview
18 July 2012 9:13 pm
Max McElligott tells us about the band's recent support slots


London four-piece Wolf Gang supported Coldplay on the latest leg of the band's Mylo Xyloto tour in North America. We asked frontman Max McElligott to tell us how they got on.



Hi Max, how are you?
Very well thank you!

You've reached the end of your dates with Coldplay, how have they been?
We had the most amazing time, it really exceeded our expectation of how it would be, which was already pretty high!

For Coldplay fans who haven't yet heard Wolf Gang, what do you sound like?
I suppose we play melodic rock/pop, our set for these dates was pretty upbeat/romantic, we don't shy away from big choruses.

You Tube

Was this the first time you'd done an arena tour?
Yes it was, we've played to large crowds for one-off supports with the likes of the Killers or at festivals, but this was the first time where each night our workplace was a huge arena!

How was it playing in these big venues?
Well let's just say it really gets the adrenaline going... you can't see everyone's face like at a smaller show, but you still feel an overall presence that is quite empowering.

Presumably you have to approach support shows slightly different to headline ones?
Actually we put as much energy into a support as we do with a headline show, you won't see us shying away from the dancing and the falling around the stage just because it's not our show! Obviously you don't play for as long, but that just means you have to use up all the energy in a shorter amount of time...

Do you think there's an art to playing a good support show?
When we were discussing what or setlist would be for these shows, we settled on mostly upbeat punchy songs, because you have to capture the attention of a crowd that doesn't necessarily know or care who you are. So you have to hustle and try and win them over, which is a fun challenge. And you must always thank the band who's stage you are sharing!

Were the Coldplay audiences receptive?
I genuinely think that the crowds we played to enjoyed our set, we had a really positive response on our Twitter and Facebook, and each night we would go and do a meet and greet for whoever wanted to come and say hi, we were kind of taken aback at how many people turned up each night!

Have you guys toured America before?
We've played SXSW in Austin, Coachella in Palm Springs and one or two shows in LA and New York, but nothing quite like this before.

How were you getting around?
We were driving around in an increasingly smelly bus. The scale and diversity of America really becomes apparent when you're seeing it all slide by past the window. We've seen some beautiful things on this trip.

What was the longest journey?
We had a 14 hour drive through what I think may have been Louisiana...

How do you kill time on the long trips?
We had internet on the bus so I'd be responding to tweets and working on music on my laptop. There's an Xbox on the bus so I think Lasse and James were getting really into a boxing game. Listening to music is always a soothing way to pass the time...

Did you manage to do any sightseeing?
Well we wanted to cram as much music in as possible on this tour so whenever there was a day off, we went and played our own headline shows, in Dallas, Jacksonville and Boston. So that ate into our free time. I guess the sightseeing will have to wait until next time...

What were your favourite experiences of the tour?
The first support date we played in Dallas was just epic, as we'd waited so long to jump onto that stage and play our hearts out, it felt amazing.

Any idea how you came to be on the tour?
I'm can't be 100% certain but I hear that Guy Berryman had heard the songs and liked them so apparently it came through him.

Were you a fan of Coldplay?
We grew up hearing their songs all the time, I used to play the piano parts just for fun, it was quite educational to see how each song was structured, it was a good insight into solid songwriting.

What do you think of their show?
We all agreed it's probably the best live show we've ever seen. It doesn't matter what kind of music you're into, it's just an undeniable feast for the ears and eyes, a real jubilant euphoric celebration of epicness... you forget how many amazing songs they have.

Did you have a chance to hang out with the band at all?
We bumped into them a few times backstage, they all seem like very down to earth and friendly chaps. They filled our dressing room with Champagne and a card for when we got off stage after the first show which was a nice touch.

What have Wolf Gang got planned for the rest of the year?
We are returning to America actually in October, we'll be playing our own shows on the East and the West coast, and hitting up the places we played with Coldplay for round 2!

Finally, what's your favourite Coldplay song?
There are too many to pick one, but I used to listen to 'Amsterdam' religiously. It has a really lovely piano part, that starts off really introspectively and ends with a huge release. Tugs the heart strings.

For more information on Wolf Gang, head to wolf-gang.co.uk

[the_escapist]

It was great seeing this band support Coldplay. They are up to great things!

[Texasluvsjonny]

14hour drive thru Louisiana LOL. It wouldn't take 14hrs to walk across Louisiana.

[LFDianne]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Texasluvsjonny;5362775
14hour drive thru Louisiana LOL. It wouldn't take 14hrs to walk across Louisiana.

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I was surprised that it takes my son 4 hours to get from New Orleans , where he goes to college, to Monroe where my brother in law lives. But in talking with someone in the crew, it was 16 hours to get from Houston to Tampa.

[taameen**sparks**]

Wolf Gang were so awesome

[wabbit]

Roadie #42 - Blog #176
24 July 2012 9:43 pm
#42 gets mistaken for a woman and spins a ripping piano yarn

So I arrive at the check-in desk at Heathrow airport and tell them where I’m going and what my name is. I always feel a little doubtful when I do this that it’s actually going to work, that they’ll look at me incredulously and demand a huge docket of paperwork that demonstrates my entitlement to travel. Years of following this procedure though, (and on occasion turning up not actually knowing what city I’m going to, just a vague idea of which country it might be) has made me a little complacent, I guess.

I know that Tour Manager Marguerite will have been as dotted-of-i and crossed-of-t as she ever is, so I know that somewhere in my phone will be the email with my flight confirmation details. I eventually find the required code and recite it to the lady behind the desk who repeats it to someone on the phone. She shakes her head and laughs. “Well he doesn’t *look* like an Anne-Rose”.

“I can be Anne-Rose if it helps me get to Toronto” I offer helpfully. She’s still engrossed in the phoneceall though.

“Yes probably Copenhagen”.

Now I like Copenhagen, but it’s not really on my list of places to be today.

She tries to explain, but it’s beyond me. Someone with the same surname as me, but a double barrelled first name, has checked in over in Copenhagen. Someone there pressed the wrong button, so she has become me and now I’m her. I never knew that these people wielded such power. I say I’m cool with it if they are. I’ve still got a posh seat and we both land in the same place at the same time. Let’s just get to the lounge, eh? Names are for tombstones, baby…

I take my dubious documentation and plough onwards. The airport is in full Olympic chaos mode.

I decide to proceed direct to the gate, in the hope that there is a little respite from the crowds over there. This involves a short train journey. The carriage is resplendent with the same flocks of the world’s most lost. I miss my stop because it’s impossible to move. Never mind, I think. This thing is a loop. I’ll wait ’til they’ve all gone and start again, but I can snag pole position by the door for the next lap.

We reach the last stop and a woman who has clearly never thrown away her Prefect badge tells me (in no uncertain terms) that I’m to get off the train immediately. I argue, I plead, I beg, but she is a formidable opponent. She is here to ensure that the Olympics are secure and I am not to interfere. She waves me off up the stairs with talk of checking in again and going through security again.


“Yes, hello” I wince as I arrive at the transfers desk “my name is Anne-Rose…”

I’m standing at another counter in front of another confused individual. She gets on the phone and reads out some numbers from my boarding card. “Well he doesn’t *look* like an Anne-Rose…..”. I begin to slump in my shoes and think of getting back home to bed. I’m starting to quite fancy it.

“Ah yes - Copenhagen - right…”

I’m waved onwards and twenty minutes later I plop down into seat 20A to YYZ feeling as though I’ve already completed an assault course.

The flight attendant is wheeling the drinks trolley past and absently enquires over the partition “would you like a drink, Miss? Er? Oh….”

“Cup of tea and a double vodka please”.

And so to Cananda…

Now I did promise to have a yarn-clearout, didn’t I?
This has got pretty long already though, so I’m going to channel the 2002 Christopher Martin. On the first tour I did with the band (Rush Of Blood), Chris was forever legging it back to the mic after the house lights had come up and people had begun to leave. “The regular Coldplay concert is over, but I’ve got this song I’ve been fiddling with - if you want to hear it, you can stick around - if you think it’s shit, you can go home.”

Same goes. Those with time to kill can stick with me as I gas on about wet pianos and stadium shows. Anyone with a better offer (which has to include pretty much anything, really) you are formally excused.

Still here? Right, this began as a blog from Dallas show one on the last leg - about getting back indoors, under a roof and in the dry. Here goes:

Me, I’m all for it right now. I loved the stadiums and always have, but arenas do feel very, very comfy. No rain, no worries and no need to plan your trips to catering around the half hour round trip which that can sometimes entail.

While we’re talking transitions from huge outdoors to merely ‘very big’ indoor ones, I should probably wrap up the last of the stadium shows, which I’ve not mentioned in these pages yet. Now, I’ll say right here, that the following is not a tale for the faint hearted. Certainly too, I should mention that what follows has a very narrow focus on what happened in my world on these shows - not the *only* things that happened. But they happened to me and I’m writing, so…

It all began on the second Emirates Stadium show. I was under the stage trying to solve a somewhat perplexing technical issue that had caused Rhianna to arrive somewhat later than planned on the video screen the night before. There’s actually a crowd of us working around my rack trying to work out at exactly what point in the signal chain goes from glorious harmony to crazed technical fizzle.

Suddenly, through the speakers perched on my rack, I hear a piano firing one note like a machine gun. Either someone is sat playing something extremely avant-garde at one of Chris’s pianos out on the stage, or I have more trouble than I first thought.

By employing a methodology commonly referred to as “unplugging one thing at a time until the fucking noise stops”, I determine that the problem is coming from the piano out on the B-stage. Not good. Andy, my co-conspirator, takes off with a laptop to run some tests. Soon he’s radioing back that the poor old b-stage upright has had a complete nervous breakdown. Even with gentle coaxing (turning it off and on again) it can’t be convinced to play nicely - it just wants to perform the jackhammer sonata. Very not-good.

We do, of course, have a spare piano, so it’s hurriedly thrown up onto the ramp (Equipment failures always make me want to hurriedly throw up…) and the pianos are switched out. This leaves us good for a show, but nowhere to go should there be more problems. (Which, at the rate we’ve been going, is more likely than not.)

We get the errant piano into the loading dock and begin to pull it apart. Besides enough butterflies to stuff a mattress, there is a pretty impressive amount of water in there. We get to work clearing it out and putting fans on it for a bit of air drying. From memory, the show passed with pleasantly little in the way of surprises.

Fast forward to Sunderland a couple of nights later. My folks are in attendance, making any visits from the fuck-up-fairy particularly unwelcome. It’s rainfall the like of which would have any sane individual refusing to leave the house. Perfect for a Coldplay stadium show, then

Chris launches into Paradise and it sounds pretty different from the standard version. Improvisation? Freeing himself from the bounds of rigid harmonic structures? No. The piano is fucked.

There’s a full on Keystone-Cops-meets-F1-pit-crew moment and there is a new piano in place for him. They make it through Paradise and head for the C-stage. As they’re out there, the familiar machine-gun-sonata begins through my speakers. Oh Lord. The piano we calmed down in London has relapsed in the downpour.

We’ve got the length of “Speed Of Sound” to get the piano out from underneath the B-stage, up the ramp and onto the mainstage in time for Clocks.

There’s two dead pianos lying on their backs on the skate-ramp stage right. Some gigs have a bunch of broken drumsticks behind the drumriser by the end - we’re going through timber at a slightly more alarming rate.

We skin-of-the-teeth it through to the end of the Sunderland show, but the horror begins to dawn, that we have one good piano now and after the day off, we have two stadium shows in one day - at opposite ends of the country - and the helicopter that’s getting us between them is not piano-friendly.

Our Wembley Stadium Radio festival is already being handled by the old piano that Vicki Taylor painted for the Viva Grammy awards. We also know a hire company that has the same model (in black) they can hire to us as a spare. That’s that sorted then. A van is booked with a reliably lead-footed driver to get these two pianos from London to Manchester. He’s convinced he can get the journey done with enough time for the pianos to be onstage by showtime that night.

There’s talk of getting the pianos a police escort into the Manchester show in case he gets stuck in gig traffic. Andy is still in Manchester holding the fort. His number comes up on my phone and I answer “Please don’t be bad news, please don’t be bad news, please don’t….”

“None of the pianos up here is working properly - not one”.

“That’s bad news”.

Potentially, this could get really rubbish. We could easily be sat pacing anxiously ten minutes to show with no working pianos and a van stuck somewhere outside Manchester.

It’s the stuff of nightmares and then something beyond my wildest dreams happens. I get a call from Yamaha UK. I’ve mailed them asking if there is any way at all they can help - a repair, a loan, anything. The piano we use was discontinued years and years ago, so they don’t even carry it anymore, so my hopes weren’t high. The ones we use we have to bid for on eBay against folks who want them because it’s “as used by Coldplay”. They’re rarer than rocking horse shit. (And right now, all of the ones we have in Manchester are about as much use…)

Felicity from Yamaha tells me of a fella in their service department who refuses to throw anything away, because it’s all “bound to come in useful”. This sounds embarrassingly like myself and a lot of us on the crew. Apparently though, the chap in question has a special room in the warehouse that is known as his dump. In there, there is not one, but TWO of our beloved pianos with a huge sign on them saying “DO NOT THROW AWAY, COLDPLAY WILL RING UP AND ASK FOR THESE ONE DAY”.

This kind of stuff simply does not happen. It’s like a gift from the roadie-gods. The ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card. I eventually have to stop frothing my thanks and praise in their direction for long enough to arrange a van to get them to Manchester immediately. I go to call Andy to tell him the good news, but notice that there’s a voicemail from him.

Turns out that Xylobands inventor Jason, has recently bought a “Coldplay piano” from eBay for his son. An hour ago it was sat in his living room, but now, it’s in a van speeding towards the Manchester show. Word also reaches us that Paris is in town. And he’s got his spraycans! Incredible. He reckons if he gets to work right away when the new pianos arrive, he can have them Mylo-ed up and ready to go by showtime. Just staggering.
By rights, we should not have had a show tonight - on paper, we were completely beaten. Someone, somewhere though, is looking out for us.

By the time we make it up from London, most of the vans coming from all corners have arrived and the Manchester gig is positively awash with pianos (Eight of them, I believe). I pass stage manager Craig Finley, as I head up to the stage to check things out. “You’ve got a LOT of effin pianos here today young man”

(Photo from Mr Finley’s Facebook)

“Yeah, and with any luck, a couple of ‘em work!”

We round up the dead and send them back to Yamaha.

The final two Manchester shows are two of the only ones on the tour with not a drop of rain. Whoever has our backs is going well above and beyond…

To cap it all, I get a message on my phone on the day of the final Manchester show. It’s “Gaz” the fella I brought one of our eBay pianos from last year. Up until Sunderland, it had been Chris’s main piano. Gaz had listed it on eBay “as used by Coldplay” and eventually sussed that it was us buying it. His first words when he found out were “you’re not gonna paint it mad colours are ya?”.

“Um, sorry fella…”

Today, he’s got tickets for the show and he quite fancies meeting up to have a look at his old pride and joy in the centre of the Coldplay stage. I break it to him that not only have we graffiti-ed it up to the eyeballs, but we’ve spent the summer standing it in the middle of torrential downpours with just a shower cap for protection.

I meet him and his missus and tell him the tale I’ve just told you. He shakes his head in utter disbelief - and quite rightly so.

He has a photo taken next to one of our newly recruited pianos - for his is in the sick bay many miles away now.

Talking of all this reminds me - I need to phone a fella about some waterproofing, once we land in Toronto. We’ll be back in the great outdoors again in only a few weeks.

Never a dull moment…

R42

[Coeurli]

OMG. What a story! This has to be one of the best R42 blogs ever

[Twisted mind]

Holy snot, what the poor roadies have to go through! Thank god they had such impossible luck to get these rare pianos back. What a crazy story this is!

[Coeurli]

Hear Hudson Hank, produced by Guy
26 July 2012 6:24 pm
Download two free songs from the new album which had Guy at the helm



Guy has produced the new album for New York band Hudson Hank. Check out their track Earthbone above - and download that and another song for free at https://soundcloud.com/hudsonhank.

Anchorman



I am sorry I don't know how to put the soundcloud thingy
But you can listen to the songs by clicking the link, including Earthbone

[zzz]

Earthbone by hudson hank on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free
http://www.soundcloud.com/hudsonhank/earthbone

edit: oh wow, that worked...