Elsewhere in the 75-minute set, he started “Amsterdam,” an obscure Coldplay oldie, before deciding with a laugh that he couldn’t remember enough of the lyrics to go on.įor “Arabesque,” a new song with a driving beat and a searing saxophone lick, Coldplay brought out Kuti, whose father, Fela, pioneered the Afrobeat genre half a century ago. Perhaps that neighborly vibe was why Martin, whose onstage demeanor typically brings to mind a jittery teen, seemed so relaxed Monday, even when he was bemoaning the scourge of systemic racism, as in “ Trouble in Town,” which on Coldplay’s new album is threaded with what sounds like a body-cam recording of an abusive cop.ĭuring “Cry Cry Cry” and “Broken,” two gospel- and early-rock-inspired cuts from “Everyday Life,” he was grinning as he harmonized with members of a vocal quartet he introduced as the For Love Choir. Then he added that many of the songs Coldplay was doing were “born in L.A., like so many of you.” more than you could possibly understand,” Martin said not long into Monday’s gig - one way to put some heart behind all those corporate alliances. The idea of Coldplay as wilted-spinach purveyors for the masses had not yet taken hold.“We love playing in L.A. At that point, audiences who had adored anthems such as “High and Dry” and “Fake Plastic Trees” saw nothing in the least objectionable about Coldplay and Parachutes. Nor were Coldplay yet the celebrity hobnobbers we know today. But it should be remembered that, by the end of 2000, there was a sense among many rock fans that Radiohead had forsaken their responsibilities by releasing the weird and difficult Kid A (which came out that October). Twenty years on, it may seem slightly surreal to imagine that Coldplay were ever taken seriously as an indie band. Yet that was a minority opinion at the time.
Gill would later describe Coldplay as “pompous, mawkish, and unbearably smug… the sonic equivalent of wilted spinach”. Chris from Coldplay certainly wasn’t Independent critic Andy Gill’s favourite Martin. Rolling Stone hailed it as a “work of real transcendence” NME opined that it was “incredible” for a debut album. With Parachutes, the sweat and tears more than paid off. I didn’t feel the pressure until later on.” But Dan Keeling and Keith Wozencroft were very supportive once they’d heard a few tracks. “They’d spent a fair part of their budget. “They were feeling the pressure,” he recalls. We’d basically finished and had to put the release back by a week.”īecause of the early clashes, Coldplay had eaten into a chunk of time and cash by the time Nelson joined. He wrote ‘The Scientist’ really late in the recording of that album. I saw that on their second album, A Rush of Blood to the Head… ‘I think we need a piano-based song.’ And in a couple of days, he’d have one. “You might have recorded seven or eight songs for an album and he’d go ‘we need something like this’. And also trying to be the biggest band in the world. Writing great songs, performing great songs. That was going nowhere.”Ĭoldplay weren’t embarrassed about wanting to be huge, recalls Nelson (whose own son, Michael Joseph Nelson, fronts heartfelt songwriting vehicle Banners). The producer and Chris Martin were locking swords. We’d been in the studio with another producer and they’d fallen out straight away on the first day of pre-production. “It’s like anything in life – you have to relax. “It was that classic thing of trying too hard… feeling the pressure,” remembers Keeling. Nerves had a debilitating impact, and led to tensions both within the band and with the behind the scenes team Parlophone had assembled to help them on Parachutes. But they were also painfully aware that this was their one shot and that they daren’t muck it up. Tom Sheehan the photographer was there and we just did it.”Ĭoldplay were ambitious. “I went to B&Q and got a wallpaper table, went to the square. “I was thinking of the Sex Pistols outside Buckingham Palace,” he says. When it came time to sign their deal in April 1999, Keeling arranged a ceremony in Trafalgar Square. Still, he must have had an inkling great things beckoned for Coldplay.