Coldplay

Kaotican Alphabet

Live blog from Hannover today

22.Sep.2012
Join us for a blog from Coldplay's last European MX date

01.55: As promised, here’s one last photo, of the band saying goodnight after Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall. Great ending to a great show.

Thanks again for tuning in.

22.41: There are now approximately four minutes until the cars set off for the airport, and we’re a good two minutes away from where they’ll leave one, so we’d better run. Thanks to everyone for reading the blog and for your hundreds of emails. We’ll try to post some more photos when we’re back online…

Goodnight! Or as they say in Germany…

22.38: C Stage…

22.24: And here’s some video evidence of tonight’s amazing crowd…

That only happened about 10 minutes ago. Technology is quite clever, isn’t it?

22.22: Charlie Brown / Viva pics. Did we mention that it’s "going off" out there?

22.08: X Stage pictures….


21.54: Off to take some more photos. Back soon….

21.53: Confetti shots…


21.49: The In My Place jump (x2)

21.47: Put your mother flipping hands in the air!

21.45: These are during Hurts Like Heaven…


Great effort. And he still seems to be having a whale of a time.

21:44 btw

HELLO COLDPLAYING

21.40: And here’s how it’s looking out in the Arena…

21.38: This is one for the family albums…

They really have loved this tour.

21.35: Here’s the band going on and doing the traditional pre-show huddle…


21.29: And here they are heading to the stage (Chris, if you’re wondering, is doing the Mobot).

21.25: Let’s begin with a couple from the dressing room with about five minutes until show time, when Charli XCX and her band had popped into say hello and cheerio (as it’s the last night of the tour).

21.22: Sorry, that was a longer gap than expected. But we’re back, with lots and lots of photos to share. Standby…

20.57: Right, they’re due on in a minute, so we’re going to go and take some photos of them going on and playing a song and wotnot. Back in about 15 minutes or so…

20.55: Chris was *also* hiding behind a bottle of beer with Anton Corbijn on it. He’s a master of disguise…

20.53: And, yes, as implied below, we finally found Chris. Turns out he was hiding behind Jonny…

20.50: In a particularly surreal moment just now, we remarked that the guitar riff Jonny was playing on his practice guitar in the dressing room sounded like Faith by George Michael, and started singing along. Whereupon Jonny started *actually* playing Faith, and we did the whole song, while Chris clapped along. Many years from now, we’ll regret not recording that….

20.44: Medina’s emailed to ask: Which song do you enjoy hearing live the most? 🙂

Now there’s a tricky one. Charlie Brown is pretty special on this tour, with the big wristbands moment. But Us Against The World is always a winner. Love that song.

20.42: In-ear monitors in the dressing room, ready for action. (18 minutes until stage time)

20.37: Here’s Guy, Will and Jonny in the warm-up room doing their pre-show vocal exercises (which basically involves going la-la-laaaaaa in time with a CD). Not exactly sure where Chris is (not in the dressing room). We’ll track him down eventually…

20.30: HALF AN HOUR UNTIL STAGE TIME

20.28: How many mails do you receive in one minute? asks Renate to anchorman@coldplay.com. Well, in the minute when yours arrived Renate (8.21pm) we got six including yours. Thanks to everyone who’s sending them.

20.27: Here’s the corridor which we’re based in today – this where the band’s dressing room is and management and tour management have their offices.

20.24: Here’s how the stadium was looking from outside earlier…

20.20: Out front, the sausages are flying off the shelves…

20.12: Here’s Guy in the dressing room a little while ago. He tells us he’s looking forward to chilling out during the next six weeks before the band head down under.

20.09: Hello to "the new Mrs McDermott" from Alberta, Canada who just emailed anchorman@coldplay.com. Glad you’re enjoying the blog. And congratulations (we’re assuming you just got married?)!

20.05: Here’s Marina and the Diamonds, who’s sounding great tonight. She’s definitely worth a listen if you haven’t heard her stuff.




20.03: (The internet has decided that now would be a good time to go really slowwwww)

20.00: (Sorry, back, just uploading some photos…)

19.46: Right, Marina and the Diamonds has just come on. Let’s see if we can beat the seven minute round trip record…

19.43: The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed Coldplay soundman Dan Green in the background of that fish and chips photo. Proper photo of him, below. Chris was also in catering with Phil and various uncles and aunts (ie, it would’ve been a bit rude to point a camera at them).

19.38: Well, that was nice. We had the fish, chips and mushy peas (you can take the chap out of England, but you can’t take the England out of the chap, etc), while Arlene from management tells us the jerk chicken was superb. Those pears look pretty amazing too, right?

Mmm, mushy peas.

19.20: And with that we’re going to dash to get something to eat in catering. Back very soon. Maybe make yourself a cup of tea or take the dog for a walk, or something.

19.19: During our eventful seven minute trip to the stage and back for Charli XCX, we also bumped into Coldplay’s fabled fifth member Phil Harvey. So naturally we took a photo of him too…

19.15: And here’s the aforementioned Marina, watching Charli XCX (with her tongue out).

19.12: Here’s Charli XCX. We bumped into Marina and the Diamonds on the way back from taking photos and she was singing Charli’s praises, saying how great she’s been on this tour. Certainly what we heard just now sounded rather good. So go check her out.

19.07: And back. Seven minutes round trip. Not bad. Photos incoming. Oh, and thanks for all the emails you’ve been sending to anchorman@coldplay.com. It’s always marvellous to hear from you.

19.00: Charli XCX has just come on. Off to take a few photos. Back soon…

18.58: Guy’s bass guitars are under the stage and ready to go…

18.53: They’re doing a roaring trade in bread snacks out front…

18.49: Here’s a few action shots of the Xylobands being given out at the gates just now…

18.40: Here’s a shot of tonight’s crowd coming in – underneath the badge of Hannover 96, the football team that plays in this stadium (they’ve had a good start to the season). They’ve got a game here on Wednesday too. The crew have got their work cut out…

18.35: Sorry for the slight delay in blog service, we went to look for Will and Jonny. Eventually we found them, and regular readers won’t be surprised to hear that they were playing football on their PS3 (they always play as one team together, against a computer team – we’re told this helps to avoid arguments…). Talking of football, Will is *extremely* pleased about his beloved Southampton’s win today.

18.13: Here’s Will, Phil, Guy and Jonny on the bus from the aeroplane to the cars which transported us to the AWD Arena (Chris hadn’t got on yet).

18.09: If you’ve ever wondered what a German wind farm looks like from an aeroplane that’s going to land in a few minutes…

18.06: While you wait for photos, why not read the Wikipedia article on today’s venue, the AWD Arena. Sounds like it has a rich history as a gig venue – with the Rolling Stones, Queen, Madonna and Tina Turner all having performed here.

18.02: Hello! We’ve made it to Hannover and we even had time to whizz around taking some photos before the blog was due to start. Incoming….

13.54: And so to Germany. See you when we get there…

13.51: The graffiti backdrop behind the stage in Paris. It really is enormous…

13.37: Another photo from Stockholm. Chris lying down on the job…

13.28: Here’s a nice photo from the Stockholm show – don’t think it’s been posted on the site before…

13:22: We’re not meant to start this blog for a few hours, yet, but as there’s wifi in the airport lounge…

13:15: Good afternoon. Tonight in Hannover, Coldplay will play the final European show of the Mylo Xyloto tour in front of 45,000 fans at the AWD Arena. We thought we’d tag along with a laptop and a camera to give you an insight into what happens, for our first Coldplay.com live blog since the Emirates.

Join us from around 6pm German time (5pm UK, 12noon ET, 9am PT) – and if there’s anything you’d particularly like us to photograph / tell you about, then drop an email to anchorman@coldplay.com.

Anchorman