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One Big Sunday 2001
One Big Sunday, 2nd September 2001; Venue: Leicester, UK

Coldplay were excellent. That's all we need to say. Oh well, go on then - a bit more...
Chris and the lads seemed quite humbled by the support of the crowd and thanked them for sticking around to see us 'You've probably come to see everyone else', he said. But the band got the crowd involved - getting them to help out with a bit of the 'Aerosmith type stuff, y'know!' But the crowd couldn't clap in time, and so Will had to take charge. 'You just watch...'

        

Chris also apologied for their lack of dancers... 'Though I'm sure Johnny will do some big moves for you and everyone will be happy...' he said, mischiveously pointing to his right! We didn't see any though during the four songs they performed on air - 'Shiver', 'Don't Panic', 'Trouble' and 'Yellow' - or the two after which you could see only hear if you were there or were online. One of which was a new track 'Got To Put A Smile Upon Your Face'.

Watch The Tracks: 'Shiver' | 'Don't Panic'
Watch The Tracks: 'Yellow' | 'Trouble'

Chris and Will popped in to see Rajesh, Backstage, just before the show started - and told them about curries, their car park trauma and what they think of One Big Sunday...
Read below or listen here

Rajesh: We know what you were doing last night!
Chris: What?
Rajesh: You were out on the razz with Faithless!
Chris: I tell you, Maxi Jazz can put away the nann bread. I've never seen one man eat so many nann's!
Rajesh: Do you like your currys hot or do you eat them mild?
Chris: I get my assistant to eat them. We have people to do everything for us.
Rajesh: When did you arrive?
Chris: We came in by helicopter about 5 minutes ago.
Rajesh: No you never! You always do this when I interview you. You're such a wind up merchant.
Chris: But everyone else... me and Will turned up in the car park in this Ford Escort, and the guy driving us said 'Er, look, we've got artists in the car' and they said 'That's all very well mate, but you still have to park over there'. And then we couldn't go and park next to Posh's limo, so we had to walk in with the people.
Rajesh: Hey you know, it's not long since you were one of them.
Chris: No, but we're happy about it.

Rajesh: So you haven't got a tour bus then?
Chris: We've got nothing! Will came in on bicycle and Guy's still on a donkey. Half way up the M6.
Will: Johnny's still trying to scrounge enough change to get the bus.
Rajesh: What do you make of this event? There's 50,000 people here, you know, it's daytime in a park, when I saw you last time was in Aberdeen in April - it was a very atmospheric gig...
Chris: That was a shocker...
Rajesh: That was a great gig!
Chris: Nah!
Rajesh: Well, the audience were a bit loud, at the back... busy getting drunk I think, rather than paying attention...

Chris: Cheers, thanks man! Thanks for giving us that big ego boost we need!
Rajesh: Hey, I thought it was good!
Chris: That was a long time ago, we're learning as a band.
Rajesh: How can you build up that atmosphere? How difficult is it?
Chris: Who knows? We haven't got any idea, we just do what we do. We need to get one of those air horns. One of those things that goes 'prrrrrrr'. To be honest with you, we're a bit nervous about whether we're going to be needed at this thing. but we're playing at the end, so people will presumably go...

But they didn't! And during the final track Chris jumped from the stage to to the scaffolding on the huge video screens and clambered up to near the top to finish the final strains of 'Yellow'. Though amazingly dangerous, it seemed to fit the song perfectly... and as the song finished he helpfully disposed of his microphone into the crowd before decending his perch.

       



 Will and Chris from Coldplay - Radio One Breakfast Show, 2nd September 2001

Your album 'Parachutes' sold 1.6 million copies in Britain, how do you aim to follow that up with your second album?
Chris: I don't think things are about sales because there's a lot worse bands than us that sell a lot more and a lot better who sell a lot less. We just want to make something that's much better, there's a whole bunch of new songs for the album and if we could just get in the studio we would make another record! We're going in on October 4th, that's when we're starting.

'Parachutes' is quite a chilled, relaxed album. Do you aim to keep the same style on the next album?
Chris: No. We've become a party band! No kidding, Will likes to hit the drums really hard these days, and I just got an electric guitar, our new songs are a bit more dancey... well, not dancey...
Will: A bit more exciting, different and faster in some places.
Chris: It's the same band doing different songs.

What's your favourite song from 'Parachutes'?
Chris: It's a classic record isn't it? How do you pick a favourite?! We always like 'Trouble'. We don't tend to listen to our record, we made that record to make money and musically it's a shambles!