Dusseldorf live photoblog

22.52: Right then, we’d better say our goodbyes. Mr Phil Harvey (Coldplay’s elusive fifth member) just passed by and said what an amazing show tonight has been. We’d wholeheartedly agree. Thanks for reading this (and thanks for your hundreds of emails). Hope we’ve given you a little flavour of what it was like to be here. G’night folks.

22.47: OK, it’s Scientist now – so just LITii left. The crew are already lined up to start taking things down and we can see the cars ready to whisk us out of here.

22.42: How it looked during Lovers when the butterflies rained down…

Can you spot Chris’s umbrella (ella, ella…)?

22.22 And here we have it! Only filmed 19 minutes ago…

A mighty performance by the crowd.

22.19 Video coming (fingers crossed). Here’s some C Stage pictures. We couldn’t get very near, so the big screens helped out…

As we type this, about 50,000 Dusseldorfians (?) are going doolally to Coldplay’s Billie Jean cover.

22.07: We’re just trying to rustle you up a quick video of the crowd singing Viva. Standby…

21.57: B Stage action…

(Yes, we’ve gone back to the trusty silhouettes)

21.47: Some slightly more conventional shots of the show (which, it must be said, is proving to be something of a stormer)

21.31: Oddly, nobody’s emailing in asking for mysterious silhouetted pictures of Guy and Chris performing. Ah well, sometimes you have to trust your instincts…

21.24: It’s Yellow, which means it’s balloons o’clock…

21.20: What’s known in the trade as the pre-gig huddle (quite a few of you asked for this too…)

21.09: For all of you who’ve emailed anchorman@coldplay.com pointing out that we haven’t had many pictures of Chris yet today…

🙂

21.08: They’ve just gone on, and we’ve got a wireless signal right behind the stage. Yee-ha! Pics to follow…

20:51: How it’s looking out there…

(from the stage – we rushed this one as you might gather)

20.40: Twenty minutes until stage time…

20:36: Aussie rockers Howling Bells only came off stage a few minutes ago, but Joel and Glenn from the band are already playing some (very competitive) table tennis. They say their show was "really good". Having watched some of it on our way up to the stadium summit, we’d very much agree.

20:29: Guy, Will and Jonny are currently in the warm-up room. You wouldn’t really guess from these pictures, but they’re actually warming up their voices – which they do before every show, by "laa laaa laaaaa-ing" along to a tape of warm-up exercises.

By the way, we wanted to send our very best wishes to Katrine Mortensen, who was apparently in a nasty car accident on the way to a Coldplay show recently. Hopefully we’ll see you at another gig soon.

20.18: We hi-jacked this photo opportunity near the entrance to the venue. It just seemed too good not to.

20.13: This is how it looks from the very, very back (as requested by Marcus). Was it worth the Everest-like walk up there? We’ll let you be the judge of that…

These, meanwhile, are German sausages – or wurst. They do sausages very well over here.

20.10: Well, that took rather longer than expected. This place is a maze..

And now for the real pictures…

19.36: Right, we’re gonna follow this arrow and see what we find…

19.27: "Can we get some roadie pictures?" Rachel Gannon

Here’s one of some of the crew playing football earlier. The chap in blue is Paul, the Set Designer.

19.22: Arlene (mgmt) and EJ (band PA) ping ponging out some of their pre-show stress…

19:18: We just discovered this curious array of percussion in the band’s warm-up room:

19.04: "What are the band doing right now?" Rachel W

They’re actually in their dressing room eating their dinner. It’s very quiet in there (we’re in the management office next door). All you can hear is the odd "chink" of cutlery on plate. Not sure exactly what they’re having, but think we heard Beef Bourgignon being mentioned at one point.

18:59: Several of you have asked us to give a shout out to Coldplay fansite Coldplaying.com (which seems only fair given the amount of shout outs they give us). So here you go…

18:53: "Now that you’re back, how about some Guy pictures? :D" Brooke

Et voila! Taken less than a minute ago…

18.50: Just ploughing through all your picture requests and questions. To speed things up a bit (we can talk, etc) please could you put the request or question in the subject of the email? And send it to anchorman@coldplay.com. Thanks!

18:37: Sorry folks that took a little bit longer than we thought it would. But you’ll be pleased to know that Team Coldplay had a resounding victory over Team Coldplay Crew. Pics…

On our way to the pitches…

In the shadow of the Arena…

Watching a crew vs crew match…

The opposition wasn’t as tough as it could’ve been

Where anyone sensible would be heading now. But you’ll have our undivided attention from hereon in…

17.11: "And what are they doing until it is time to go on stage?" Beate

If it’s Jonny and Will, it often (and currently) looks a bit like this…

17.08: Oooh, we’ve just been asked to join the band in a game of football. It’d be rude not to (but we’ll try to get you some pictures to make up for being away for a wee while).

17.04: "Could I see a picture of their dressing room, would be nice to see all the food and drinks they request" Christopher L

(Chortle)

16:56: We thought we’d get you folks a bit more involved with today’s photoblog. So, is there anything you’d like us to take a picture of? Or, is there something specific you’d like to know about being backstage at a Coldplay stadium gig in Dusseldorf? Then bang us an email at anchorman@coldplay.com and we’ll see what we can do…

16:35 DUSSELDORF: Coldplay.com in the house! Yes, just two hours after leaving London, we’re here (the extra hour is the time difference). Here are some pictures…

Jonny, on the way here…

Chris, heading towards the stage down one of the Esprit Arena’s many corridors…

And they were all for Yellow…

Chris checks out the Arena

He must not have brought his car…

13:44 LONDON: Hello folks – we were hoping to begin today’s live blogging here in London but we’ve had some tech problems. Sorry about that. Still, we’re on the plane and about to set off for Germany. Lots more to come when we’re there…