And if there was any doubt that this home was in fact the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Martin, egle-eyed readers will recognize the kitchen as the “set” of Gwynie’s most recent photo shoot with Mario Testino for the August 2010 issue of Vogue to promote her new…cookbook. Oh yeah…

Master bedroom:

Living room:

Kitchen:

The decor is aggressively pastel-y and soft. Not sure if I would choose to live in this kind of space — but for the Martins it might be a nice change from the decor of some of their other, full-time homes in England.

Could you live in such a space?

More at The Happy Home.

…watching a uber pregnant M.I.A. perform alongside T.I., Jay-Z, and Lil’ Wayne, was awesome. She is possibly the coolest woman in music EVER.

…make all of Coldplay wear the same purple outfits that Will Champion was wearing.

…keep giving Jennifer Hudson awards for her amazing singing, but make it a stipulation that she’s not allowed to wear outfits that cover her face anymore. (Luckily her makeup was gorgeous.)

…Katy Perry should not be allowed to perform anywhere, let alone as Chiquita Banana.

…Alison Krauss and Robert Plant doing “Rich Woman” = fantastic. It kinda was like this:

…don’t ever allow Gwyneth Paltrow to present again dressed up as a gold disco ball. Especially when she’s wearing some throwaway shiny tights from some high school cheerleader conference. Especially when she’s salivating over Radiohead. (Are you trying to make her British-obsessed lady boner explode? Granted, it’s hard to say who was more excited, her or her Radiohead-worshiping husband.)

…thank you for making Zooey Deschanel the obligatory actress/singer/songwriter presenter of the night instead of Scarlert Johansson, even if she had the laborious task of explaining about 50 times to reporters that she’s NOT Katy Perry.

…even though I think the Beatles are amazing, I don’t think Paul McCartney is amazing. And I’m insulted that he only did a Beatles song. John Lennon is turning over in his grave.

…thanks for giving Taylor Swift to redeem herself from that awful SNL performance by allowing her to perform with a simple arrangement and no dance moves. However, I still preferred Miley Cyrus, because despite what anyone says, she can actually sing.

Here are the top ten Christmas tracks I’ve been spinning this year:

10. “Christmas Duel” by The Hives and Cyndi Lauper

The Most Attractive Man Alive (aka Pele from the Hives) and Cyndi Effing Lauper did a duet this year in which they list all the naughty, nasty things they’ve done over the last year: Example, sleeping with each other’s sister/brother, marrying drunk, hiring hit men, etc. Chalk another one up for the not safe for kids/family Christmas song play list.

9. “Christmas Song” by The Raveonettes


8. “Candy Cane Children” by the White Stripes

7. “12 Days of Christmas” by Taking Back Sunday

6. “2000 Miles” by The Pretenders

5. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Coldplay from Mince Spies

4. “Last Christmas” by Wham!

3. “All I Want for Christmas” by Mariah Carey

2. “Christmas Song” by Weezer

Yes, the song is a bit pessimistic and sad, but the melody can’t be beat.

1. “Spotlight on Christmas” by Rufus Wainwright

I love this song so much. I think it puts everything in perspective. Great uptempo song…definitely the one ditty I play the most this season.

Nothing Earth-shattering happened at the show… typical set list, although for some reason “Speed of Sound” really spoke to me today. The entire STADIUM was scary shaking during “Viva La Vida.” Seriously SHAKING because everyone was flipping out over the song. One encore song (“Yellow”, of course).

Jonas Bjerre of Mew, Guy Berryman of Coldplay and Magne Furholmen of A-Ha have teamed up, under the guise of Apparatjik, to right the theme track for Bruce Parry’s BBC2 new series Amazon.

The series, which debuted on September 22nd, has a soundtrack to accompany it’s debut. Amazon / Tribe: Songs for Survival is out digitally in the UK now, and Kensaltown Records will the two-disc CD in the UK on October 6.

Preview the song in the trailer:

The other is a “cover” version made by the band, which features Chris Martin wandering around a town and grassy hill wearing a comical king hat and robe, carrying a print of “Liberty Leading the People,” which is featured on the cover of “…Death and All of His Friends.”:

The band describes it as their homage to Depeche Mode and Anton Corbijn, as the “cover” is a direct rip-off of Anton Corbijn’s video for “Enjoy the Silence”:

Which do you like better? “Viva la Vida” official, “cover,” or neither–you prefer “Enjoy the Silence.”

It wasn’t really my style of music, but it was definitely a re-imagining of the song, so I give them props for that.

You can listen to it on the BBC site, or download it below.

DOWNLOAD: “Violet Hill” by Pendulum (Coldplay cover) [mp3] (Link from Coldplaying.com)
Do you like it, Y/N?

At one point, early on in the night everyone got great amusement out of screaming out “BLUE BALLS!” in reference to the gigantic video screen projection spheres that were lowered from the ceiling at various points through the show.

Throughout the show pre-recorded footage and live feeds of the concert were projected onto the AV balls, and as I mentioned in my earlier post, they were used as lyric prompts during “Lost!”

These magical spheres are called “PufferSpheres,” made by a Edinburgh-based company called Pufferfish. Previously they have worked with companies like Google for special events and presentations.

During the final song of the night, machines through the arena shot out tons and tons of confetti into the air. It was especially cool when they made the glowing balls turn blue and all the neon-colored confetti became awesome GLOW IN THE DARK CONFETTI!

As some of you may remember, my mom loves British bands like Coldplay and Keane, so I ended up taking my mom to the concert. She wrote me this email yesterday:

Thank you for taking me to the Coldplay concert. I really enjoyed it and had a great time. I am so dead tired today. All I want to do is sleep. All that anticipation and excitement wore me out, but it was worth it. Thanks again for one of the highlights of the year for me.

More photos from the show:

Video of “Viva La Vida”:

More over at The Music Slut, My Coldplay, Brooklyn Vegan, Stereogum, Official Coldplay Site [1, 2, 3]

Oh, and on a personal note–you might recall that in 2006 I met two Scottish kids named Alan and Martin (aka “The Men About Town”) at the Cinematics show at Rebel. Well last night I ended up running into another Scottish kid named Will, and upon meeting me he mentioned that he thought I had met his two friends (The Men About Town). I knew how excited the Men About Town were when they had their pictures posted on the site, so I offered Will the same–that way he could finally be even with the Men About Town. Here Will is with M & J of the Music Slut:

Funny thing is, it just so happens that we were on the same exact street as where I met the Men About Town. There’s just something about MSG and Scottish people, eh?

Here I am in my little bubble…

Setlist: Life in technicolor (intro), Violet hill, clocks, in my place, viva la vida, Chinese Sleep Chant, god put a smile upon your face, 42, square one, trouble, lost!, strawberry swing, [yellow, Death Will Never Conquer (from gate 60, toward the back of MSG)], fix you, lovers in japan/ reign of love [outro]

Of course celebrities are fans of free as well. Folks like Kirsten Dunst, Ed Burns, Charlize Theron, and Danny Masterson (who sadly did not make it in the gossip mentions anywhere else, and who I saw on Sunday afternoon at brunch–weird).

From Gate 60:

There were many stops and mistakes during the performance, like right before they played “Chinese Sleep Chant”–when there were technical difficulties with Jonny Buckland’s equipment at the front right stage and Chris declared that “some people say we are much better as a three piece.” And right before launching into their anthem “Viva La Vida,” Chris stated, “Somehow it’s made it to number one in your country. It just goes to show that with good marketing and a handsome bass player you can achieve anything.”

Coldplay–ok, Chris Martin–can be particularly cloying in their desire to seem like the “everyman band”…always polite, always humble, always suffering from a horrible guilt complex in regards to being successful, and this pattern of behavior carried through the MSG performance with Chris continuing to take knocks at himself and his fellow band members throughout the concert.

While this very un-rock star type behavior can make everyone uncomfortable at times (Seriously, it’s that whole YOU ROCK STAR, US SCREAMING FANS thing that makes concert dynamics work, Chris.), I honestly believe that deep down somewhere the men of Coldplay remain honest guys who truly do care about their fans and at their very core they are just four regular dudes who happen to sell millions of records.

During the final number, “Fix You” when Chris mucked up the lyrics from the beginning. Later in the song he improvised by singing, “Lyrics to old songs that you don’t know/And you embarrass yourself at MSG/But it doesn’t matter one bit, everyone got in for free”–one of the many times Chris brought up the fact that the tickets were gratis.

Pretty colors with lyrics projected on the video balls during “Lost”

As I was walking out, I heard some guy behind me declaring to his wife, “Oh boy, the bloggers are going to CRUCIFY them tomorrow. He [Chris Martin] messed up three times in that one song, AND they didn’t play an encore.” Er.. ok. I think the point of seeing a live show is to see a band LIVE–there are going to be mistakes! Seriously, are people predicting what bloggers are going to write about the next day? Or is saying “oh boy, the bloggers are going to write about this…” a “safe” way of putting forth your own questionable opinions?

It was a little disappointing that there was no encore, but hey–maybe they were paying MSG by the hour. But probably with all that merchandise they sold (commemorative concert tees with “VIVA” and “VIVA LA VIDA” cost $30, posters cost $10) helped them recoup any of the money they shelled out do put this show on.

Anyway, I thought the concert was a great. I would say that some of the new songs did fall a little flat with the crowd due to their slow and/or non-sing-a-long nature (“Chinese Sleep Chant” and “42″), but others were tremendous fun (“Lost” and “VLV”). A little sad they didn’t do some of my CP faves like “Shiver” or “Everything’s Not Lost,” but I suppose some songs had to get the boot in order to play the new diddys. (Not everyone can play 3 1/2 hour shows like Ryan Adams.)

The boys are also on the cover of the new June 2008 issue of SPIN:

COLDPLAY: SHINE ON

UPDATE: I Am Fuel, You Are Friends have posted MP3s of the entire Brixton concert. Head there for a download.

Oh, and to add even more levity… remember Slipnutz from Conan O’Brien?