So there we are – the record is finally out there.

For me, it mainly means I can stop worrying about having the files on my laptop. For others hopefully, it means being overjoyed that they finally have them on theirs.

It also means that (praise the lord) the pre-release-promo phase is coming to a close. It’s been a white knuckle ride for all concerned and not a little exhausting. I’m constantly amazed by the way that the band can not only function throughout this schedule, but actually be cheery and engaging with the relentless round of interviews that they get on top of what we’re dealing with.

The schedule was shuffled crazily at the last moment last week to accommodate the Steve Jobs memorial ceremony at Apple Headquarters. We of course, were very much on the periphery of it. The event and those that were gathered were literally at the very heart of the Apple organisation. The love, respect and sense of loss clearly palpable in the stillness and quiet.

The speeches were both moving and at times very very funny. (Jony Ives: “we worked together for fifteen years and he still laughed at the way I said Aluminium”). In the midst of a corporate campus so dedicated to the cutting edge of technology, it was a deeply emotional human experience.

By the time we reached New York for the Colbert Report and the Today show, the fatigue was running full tilt. Good performances from what I recall, but I have to admit to recalling little else…



Coldplay have played the Jools Holland show at BBC TV centre several times now. It always feels very comfortable and familiar. There’s the inevitable nerve-jangle of live telly, but it’s more than made up for by the chance to stand twenty foot from The Waterboys as they do their thing.

There’s a performance of another kind going on in Madrid. The album-launch show is to be webcast live, so there is a complete run through being undertaken to a tape of the stadium show in Johannesburg. The web-stream is being tested, so the band stand huddled around a laptop in the TV studio in London, as hundreds of miles away, four bored looking crew stand on the stage pretending to be them for the cameras – completely unaware that their doppelgang-ees are looking in, grinning.

I’ve a feeling that tonight’s version may be somewhat more dynamic. Well, you can see for yourselves, I guess…

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