Live Music: Viva La Coldplay!

By Jerry Steffen
Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Just a little over a year since their Viva La Vida tour began in June 2008, the British band Coldplay will conclude the American leg of their concert go-around in Central Florida with a 7:30 PM performance at the Ford Amphitheatre in Tampa on August 9th (find tickets: CLICK HERE).

With tickets selling between $35 to sit in the grass to around $100 for a seat near the stage, it's nice to know fans may get little something extra for their hard-earned bucks. Last May, the band announced that they'll be giving away a live tour CD called LeftRightLeftRightLeft at all of their remaining concerts this year. The nine tracks found on this special disc were recorded at various Coldplay performances earlier on the tour.

Get pumped up for the show with "A Dozen Things About Coldplay You Probably Didn't Know" and a full set-list so you know what to expect.

A Dozen Things About Coldplay You Probably Didn't Know

• Coldplay's roots trace back to 1996 when Chris Martin, Jonny Buckland and Guy Berryman began organizing a band they dubbed Pectoralz while they were students at the University College of London. A year later the band, now known as Starfish, recruited Will Champion (drums) to round out the line-up of the British band we now know as Coldplay.
• After briefly playing as Starfish, the band finally settled on Coldplay, a name Chris Martin borrowed from a friend who once used it for his group. The name Coldplay originally came from a book of American contemporary poems titled "Child's Reflections, Cold Play" compiled by Philip Horky.
• Coldplay's first album was the EP Safety. Although 500 copies were pressed, only around 50 copies were actually sold to the public. Apparently, the rest of the discs were sent to record companies or given to friends of the band.
• Like the Irish rockers U2, Coldplay considers their group a democracy which means they share all of their profits equally. They also agreed that if anyone ever uses drugs they are automatically out of the band.
• Although most of the lyrics to the Coldplay hit "Yellow" were inspired by a surprisingly starry evening outside their recording studio in Wales, Chris Martin said the song's title actually came from a copy of the Yellow Pages, which was lying nearby in the studio. Martin later quipped, "In an alternate universe, this song could be called 'Playboy.'"
• The Parachutes album track "Don't Panic" was a re-do of a song of theirs which was first released three years earlier as part of the band's second EP The Blue Room from 1997. The song title "Don't Panic" was borrowed from Douglas Adams' sci-fi comedy series "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
• Chris Martin said he was inspired to write "The Scientist" after listening to the 1970 George Harrison track "All Things Must Pass." Martin said that the lyrics, on the other hand, were about women. He explained, "It's weird that whatever else is on your mind, whether it's the downfall of global economics or terrible environmental troubles, the thing that always gets you most is when you fancy someone."
• Coldplay's "Clocks" was inspired by the English rock band Muse; "Shiver" came about after listening to Jeff Buckley; "Lost!" was motivated by Blur; "Talk" borrowed bits from the German synth-pop band Kraftwerk; "The Hardest Part" was a tip-of-the-hat to R.E.M.
• Just after Chris Martin and his wife (actress Gwyneth Paltrow) celebrated the birth of their daughter Apple, Chris was inspired to pen the words to the Coldplay track "Speed of Sound." He said, "I just had my daughter -- and was kind of feeling in a sense of awe and wonderment, so the song is kind of a Kate Bush song about miracles."
• Chris Martin once stated that "Fix You" was "probably the most important song we've ever written." On the track, Martin plays an old keyboard his father-in-law gave to his daughter Gwyneth. He recalled, "My father-in-law Bruce Paltrow bought this big keyboard just before he died. No one had ever plugged it in. I plugged it in, and there was this incredible sound I'd never heard before. All these songs poured out from this one sound. Something has to inspire you, and something else takes over."
• Although the Coldplay track "Viva la Vida" was featured on an iTunes commercial, the band refuses to sell their music for product endorsements having already turned down multi-million dollar deals from such corporations as Gatorade and the Gap. Said Martin, "We wouldn't be able to live with ourselves if we sold the songs' meanings like that."
• Jonny Buckland and Chris Martin made a cameo appearance in the 2004 British zombie comedy film "Shaun of the Dead."
• Coldplay has supported social and political causes such as Amnesty International and Make Poverty History. Guy Berryman explained, "You can make people aware of issues. It isn't very much effort for us at all, but if it can help people, then we want to do it."

Viva La Vida Tour Set List

(6/18/2009)
Life in Technicolor

Violet Hill

Clocks

In My Place

Yellow

Glass of Water

Cemeteries of London

42

Fix You

Strawberry Swing

God Put a Smile upon Your Face (techno)

Talk (techno)

Hardest Part

Postcards from Faraway

Viva La Vida

Lost!

Green Eyes

Death Will Never Conquer

I'm a Believer

Viva La Vida (techno)

1st Encore

Politik
Lovers in Japan

Death and All His Friends

2nd Encore

The Scientist
Life in Technicolor (reprise)

The Escapist