Following the Laver shows in Melbourne we had occasion to drink with members of The Cold Play and assorted Melburnians. A boozy late-nite at Meyers Place Bar in the City and another quiet drink on their very own floor at a swank five-star hotel on Southbank.
Out in Melbourne with Coldplay
The Demazins were coming in handy with all these late nites. After careful assessment it was decided that Youth Group’s favourite Coldplayer is Jonny. Jonny is always grinning and he says sharp things and he’s a stand-out dark-horse as the most important musical ingredient. But one thing that you’ll read about Coldplay is that everybody knows that nobody knows anyone in the band except Chris Martin. What gives?
Jonny is the linchpin; every song he lends a guitar signature. In Coldplay’s band mechanics, there’s a couldn’t-do-it-without-you partnership between Chris and Jonny. That’s not big news: Chris hadn’t done a TV interview without Jonny until Enough Rope with Denton this year. They’re like Bono and The Edge. Old news: Chris M. wrote an article about U2 in Rolling Stone. U2 are their official role models and Coldplay live on this tour come off often as Joshua Tree-era U2. The interesting thing is the difference between The Edge giving press conferences demonstrating how he achieves his guitar sound and Jonny Buckland’s anonymity in the pub unless he wears his Cuban-military cap. And even then he’ll be missed by 99% of punters. What gives?
Their’s is a pioneering spin on the guitarist-singer stadium-rock partnership: mega-famous singer & anonymous guitarist. It’s a post-nineties thing. Everyone knows the singer/guitarist axis in bands: Mick and Keith, Plant and Page: they were some of the first and the biggest. Hair metal it’s most cartoon-like apogee. And Bon Jovi are like the last of the breed. In this format neither player is meant to be the centre point of audience interest. For a long while, if anything, people thought the guitarist was more important, eg: Johnny Marr was the real genius behind The Smiths, Tony Iommi thinking that he was Sabbath. The empirical chart-based evidence has shown that the public follows the singer. He’s the pied-piper. So presently no-one cares about the guitar player in the Biggest Band in the World.
It would appear that a stable post-nineties band mechanic is the Oasis model. Liam and Noel in their respective power bases as singer vs. songwriter are much more evenly balanced in this modern era. Neither is Oasis. No-one needs the shredder anymore.
Anyway, in Adelaide Jonny (the shreder) asked, with his ubiquitous smile, how our show went.
“They looked really scary but they were alright” I said. Truth be told, I recall the venue now as an Entertainment Centre but with a stamped earth & blood floor, as 8,000 ghouls baying and us sounding very weak and tinny in the boneyard. I was ill. I walked home straight after the show with an envelope full of flu-pills that Vicki had given me. The pills were from Thailand. They must have had a lot of salt in them. They made me feel better but I had to stop taking them after a day because I got sick of drinking a litre of water every hour. I missed out on the Kava (?!) Bar expedition across street that the other guys undertook. Onwards to Perth!