Ok I <3 coldplay.  Any friend of mine can tell you that There are no other artists on this planet I <3 more then Chris, Will, Guy and Johnny…and they’re the only band whose music I purchase legally (well there is one other artist..but won’t mention him in this post. Ask me if you care to know :))! So you can imagine how super excited I was when I found out that Coldplay has a EP dropping on November 24th! Two coldplay albums in one year!!! Wooohooo!

Icing on the cake? This album will have a version of life in technicolor with lyrics! LIT was one of my fav songs on the last album Viva la Vida or Death and all his friends (VLVODAAHF) ..and I remember Chris mentioning in an interview early this year that the lyrical version was going to come out on their next album and since then I’ve been waiting to hear it!

Tracklisting:

1. Life In Technicolor ii
2. Postcards From Far Away
3. Glass Of Water
4. Rainy Day
5. Prospekt’s March/ Poppyfields
6. Lost+ (with Jay-Z)
7. Lovers In Japan (Osaka Sun mix)
8. Now My Feet Won’t Touch The Ground

No major surprises in the track listing. Postcards from far away, glass of water, rainy day, prospekt’s march/poppyfields were all written prior to the release of VLVODAAHF and didn’t make it onto that album because according to the boys those songs didn’t fit the mood of that album (not an exact quote). Coldplay also recorded a song with kylie Minogue that didn’t make it onto the last album…was hoping it would be on this one, but doesn’t look like it made it Hope that gets released sometime in the near future.

So two coldplay albums in one year…plus I got to see em live for the 3rd time earlier this year. Can it get any better?  Well I’m hoping they come back to cali next year on the second leg of the tour! I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed. I know they recently announced some new japanese tour dates (Lucky you Sharky, I hope you get to go see em!) and will prolly be adding more dates over the upcoming months.

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Excerpt from a story from Business week:

”
A contentious battle between Apple and part of the music industry is set be decided today (Oct. 2), when a panel of judges appointed by Congress is expected to rule whether Apple (APPL) and other online music distributors should pay higher royalty fees to music publishers.

The ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board affects not only Apple but also Amazon.com (AMZN), EMusic, RealNetworks’ (RNWK) Rhapsody, and Best Buy’s (BBY) Napster. Music publishers, who represent creators of song lyrics and sheet music, want an increase in royalty payments while Apple and the other companies are pushing for a reduction.

…..

Many within the industry expect the board to leave the current royalty rate unchanged at 9.1¢ for every 99¢ music download. The panel is due to provide the parties with a written decision on Oct. 2 before making it public on Oct. 6.

Music publishers would like to see the rate raised to 15¢ for every 99¢ sale, arguing that online music distribution costs much less than those of CDs, which also carry a 9.1¢ royalty. “You don’t have to ship them, there aren’t any breakage problems,” says David Israelite, president and CEO of the National Music Publishers’ Assn..

…

The RIAA and the Digital Media Assn. say the current rate is already too high and want it reduced to about 4¢ per download. Record labels are competing against music that’s distributed freely, explains DiMA Executive Director Jon Potter. “It’s a difficult thing to do,” he says.

….

Ultimately, the music industry could suffer if Apple were somehow forced to raise its prices, some analysts say. “If the price is too high, everyone is going to go the other way, which is free,” says Daniel Ernst, an analyst at Soleil-Hudson Square Research, which has a buy rating on Apple.”

For once I’m on the same side as the RIAA. With over 5 billion songs being legally downloaded from itunes I think its pretty safe to say that $0.99 a song is a sweet spot for most consumers. Any increase in royalties will hurt the bottom line of companies that sell digital music and cause them to increase their prices…driving consumers back to peer-to-peer file sharing networks, torrents etc etc. Music publishers shouldn’t get greedy..as it is the royalty rate per song of 9.1 cents is the same as CDs, but their overhead costs are much less…doesn’t that translate into a better deal already for the music publishers? David Israelite’s comment in the article quoted above seems to go against logic. You’re getting the same $$ with less risk/expenses! Be happy and move on!

Off topic - Now there are people like me who still don’t purchase songs at 99cents/track… its not that its  expensive (1/4 the price of a coffee!) but its due to DRM. I don’t want any restrictions on the number of computer’s I can listen to a track, the number of people I can share it with, the number of times I can burn it onto a cd etc etc. Yeah there are alternatives out there like Amazon that offers DRM-free music but 1) its not as sexy as itunes and 2) its not itunes (Ok so I’m biased? haha).

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The new generation of Ipod nanos were announced at todays “Let’s Rock” event in SF around 10:30ish a.m (but you already knew about that because all of us geeks were following live blogs of the event from 10am this morning right?).

Changes:

- Cosmetics. Has a oval cross section. Went back to the “thin tall” factor of the 1G and 2G nano (3g nano was fat and short). Looks pretty sweet. Check out image below.
- built in accelerometer (same as iphone). This will allow games designed with the iphone in mind to play on the nano. Sweetness! It will also allow the nano to switch to cover flow mode (the mode in which instead of listening song titles/album titles it displays album covers instead that you can flick through through the use of the click wheel) ..and it also allows for the next bullet point
- Shuffle songs by shaking the nano! Now thats cool!
- Genius mode (this is also being added to the ipod touch and to itunes). Here’s Apple’s description of this feature:

“Say you’re listening to a song you really like and want to hear other tracks that go great with it. The Genius feature finds the songs in your music library that go great together and makes a Genius Playlist for you. It’s like having your own highly intelligent, personal DJ.”

- improved battery life (up to 24 hours)
- headphones with built in mics and built in remote control.
- voice recording capability
- Use of more environmentally friendly materials

Changes to the ipod touch were also announced, but I’ll skip that for now due to time constraints. It looks like the iphone now and includes the genius feature. Also has external volume control and speakers like the iphone. Aside from that there’s also a new version of itunes (version coming out and NBC will be returning to the video store (they left itunes a year or so ago because they wanted to charge around $5 per episode for their tv shows including heroes, but Steve Jobs did not want to charge customers any more then $1.99 at the time).  Also out by the end of this week will be iphone software version 2.1 that is supposed to reduce number of dropped calls, improve battery life, crash less and provde faster backups. Mine hasn’t crashed much and my backups are also fast, but I know some readers of this blog have those issues so hopefully 2.1 will fix those problems.

Oh and heres more info on the new nano and touch. Cool thing about apple is most of the time their products are available to buy at the same time as the announcement.  Oh and there was supposed to be some Microsoft announcement today as well..but who cares? (new zunes…blah).

Just ordered a 16gb ipod nano to use in the gym. It’ll be replacing my older 30gb ipod whose screen is starting to give up (I sat on it) and i a lil bulky for the gym..don’t want to use my iphone in the gym because then it’ll be covered in sweat at the end of each session. Ordered the black nano…second on the left in the pic below. Can’t wait till it arrives! I should have just gone to the apple store in a day or two and picked it up personally instead or ordering it online but I doubt I’ll have a chance to go to the apple stores anytime soon.

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San Jose, California was the 3rd stop of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida tour and there was nothing in the world I was going to miss it for =0) Was hoping to catch them in both San Jose and Oakland, but the latter show got canceled. Fuzzy and I forked out some serious dough for row 8 seats (spent less on row 2 seats to their show in 06, but auction prices are rocketing with their popularity), and it worth every penny…all 34000 pennies!

The stage setup was a lot different then the 05 and 06 tours. Two walkways extended on both sides of the arena. Looking up the “magic balls” that Chris talked about prior to the start of the tour could be seen…each one was rumored to cost $0.9 Million dollars! They’re basically screens that images/live footage is displayed on during certain segments of the concert. You’ll be able to catch a glimpse of em in the videos/pics below.

Setlist was similar to the setlist for the LA shows, but we got the added bonus of POLITK, one of my fav live songs…the live version of the song is what I used to listen to before, and hummed during, most of my college exams haha..yup im a weirdo. Besides politk, the san jose crowd was also rewarded with a full band performance of Yellow (versus the acoustic version they played in LA). Chris Martin called the LA show “Venti” (starbucks reference)..well if the LA show was Venti then the san jose show was super duper venti!

Two of the songs (In the san jose case the two songs were “The hardest part” and “death will never conquer”) were played in the seats between the upper and lower levels. That was a nice surprise for most people, but the hardcore fans knew from advance that they’ll be doing that. Death will never conquer was sung by Will, the drummer. Since the boys were pretty far away from the stage while they sung those two songs I had to watch it on the “magic balls”. Everything else happened pretty close to our seats so I wasn’t bummed about that.

The crowd was a good mix of older and younger crowd…while I was in line to buy merchandise I was talking to some “fans” and was surprised to hear that some people had not fully hard the album yet….so it was no surprise that barely anyone was singing along to 42…one of the songs from the new album that I think is pretty easy to sing along to - “Those who are dead are not dead they’re just living in my head”. Crowd fav seemed to be yellow…chris martin even turned his mic towards the audience for at least 1/3 of that song and joked to Will (who was playing the drums towards the back of the stage) that we were singing for him.

Some of the songs were sung on the walkways on the side of the main stage…so even if you weren’t sitting in the first few rows, you could still get a good view of the guys.

Anyone enough of my rambling..all you need to know is that the show was AWESOME! My fav songs of the evening were Lovers In Japan, Politk, Strawberry Swing, chinese sleep chant and scientist. During lovers in japan (you can see this in the video and pics) some “cannons” shot florescent colored confetti all over the crowd..at closer look they turned out to be butterfly shaped! Floor and seats (because no one was sitting) were covered with florescent butterflies by the end of the song lol.

Pics and videos follow are below. Video quality is decent, but by default youtube will display a lower resolution (standard) copy of the video so be sure to click “Watch in high quality” (located on the lower right of the video window) to see it at a higher resolution. Will take a lil longer to load, but its worth it

Set list was:

1. Life in Technicolor Video
2. Violet Hill Video
3. Clocks Video
4. In my Place Video 1 (Chris & Jon close to where I was sitting)
Video 2
5. Viva la Vida
6. 42 Video 1
Video 2
7. Yes
8. The Scientist Video
9. Chinese Sleep Chant Video (played on the left walkway)
10. God Put A Smile Upon Your Face (new version) Video (played on the left walkway)
11. Square One Video
12. Speed of Sound Video
13. Strawberry Swing Video
14. Yellow [full band] Video
15. Politik Video
16. Lost Video
17. The Hardest Part (acoustic) Video
18. Death Will Never Conquer (sung by will - this is on the hardest part video)
19. Fix You Video 1
Video 2
20. Lovers in Japan Video
21. Death and all his Friends Video 1
Video 2 (Coldplay leaving the stage)

That’s it for the videos. Now for the photos!
Pics from the San Jose 2008 Coldplay concert

Hope they come back to northern california after the european/australian leg of the tour as they did during the 05/06 Twisted logic tour. While I’m at it I might as well link the pics I took during the 05 and 06 shows

Pics from the San Jose 2006 Coldplay concert
Pics from the Mountain View 2005 Coldplay concert

Ok I’m done! Hope you enjoy the pics and videos! Comment here rather then on youtube

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Edit: Haha reading this post on the monday after the concert and its hilarious! Out of the 4 of us waiting for coldplay to arrive I was the oldest by 4 years haha. The others ended up going to the hotel that CP was supposed to be staying at that night to try and meet em, but the last update I got from them (around 2am-ish) was that it looked like CP flew straight out to Vegas after the show and didn’t stay at the hotel that night. Sucks that we weren’t able to get a pic taken with the guys, but hey at least a got a wave from CM out of it!
I still need to upload the pics and vids to the blog..will do that tonight…taking a while to upload the vids because there’s just too many of em.

07/18/08 3:30ish pm:
Woooohoooooooo!!!!! Oh my fucking god chris martin waved at me!!! Feel like a giddy school girl right now!! He saw me!!!! He saw me!!!! He waved back!!!!! Chris martin waved!!!!
Don’t care if u call me crazy..chris martin waved at me!!!
Sent from my iPhone

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It’s 2:07pm and been waiting outside the hp pavilion, to try and catch Coldplay going in for a soundcheck, since 11:50 a.m. Show starts at 7:30pm.
There’s two other fans here beside me. They drove 2 hours from Sacramento to be here.
Even though the chance of them coming out to talk to us is pretty slim I have to give it a shot!!

Sent from my iPhone

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First up, this is the first time I’ve been to the Fillmore venue and I have to say that it is now my favorite venue. Its really small (holds 1,250) and intimate and the sound is amazing!

Doors opened at 7pm, but Trideep Gogoi (referred to him as Deep in my other posts, but he wants to see his name online lol) and I got there a lil after 6pm. Felt a bit old because everyone else seemed to be in their teens besides the parents that were there to chaperon their kids. Ah whatever. There was around 30 or people in line in front of us…great…ANOTHER line just days after spending 4 hours in line for the iPhone! Anyway it wasn’t so bad and once we got in we managed to get spots really close to the stage..there was prolly about 6 or 7 people between us and the stage initially but by the end of the concert there was only about 4 people between us and the stage. Venue is general admission and standing room only…so coming early definitely helped.

Opening band was “The Daylights”. Never heard of em before, but they were pretty good! They’re sound a lil like switchfoot but check em out for yourself because its hard to describe their sound. On some tracks they sound like keane (without a keyboard player)..other tracks have a heavy southern california sound. They don’t fit in any box which is great. Purchased their album “Shift and Blur EP” on itunes after getting home and been listening to it today. Really impressed.

The Daylights

Second band was “Carolina Liars”. Wasn’t impressed by this group. Think the drummer and guitarists need to back off from singing…or screaming the lyrics and let the lead singer do his job..they kept drowning his voice out. Lyrics are good so there was some potential there.

Carolina Liars

Next was PHANTOM PLANET!!! They almost stole the show from OneRepublic! That’s how good they were! Alex Greenwald, the lead singer, interacted with the crowd throughout their set and the crowd was totally into them.

Phantom Planet

PP sang some songs off their new album “Rise the dead” and some older stuff…and closed off with California! Pretty much everyone in the audience was singing along..more then they did with any of OneRepublic’s songs…yeah OneRepublic may have more well known tracks worldwide..but this is cali! Had to stop myself from singing because I didn’t want to ruin the video I was making. Yes, you heard me right I recorded their performance of California =0)

Here it is - Phantom Planet: California Video

Next up was OneRepublic! Stage went dark and the backdrop with their name on it lit up with a bluish effect making it look similar to their album cover.I was so excited I can’t even remember which song they played first, but I think it was Mercy.

Wow they sound 10x better live then they do recorded! Was there an earthquake during their performance? Oh wait that was the crowd shaking the dance-floor-ish wooden floors of the venue.

They sang all 12 songs off their album..or so it seemed..I love their album..one of the few where every song has the potential to be on the charts and this could clearly be seen during the concert as there wasn’t a single low point..no songs that seemed to drag on.

The lead singer, Ryan Tedder, reminds me of Chris Martin in some ways.They both play the piano and guitars..they both dance around the stage in a similar fashion. Chris has a better overall stage presence IMO but I could be biased.

Took a few videos during their performance. Uploaded them onto youtube and linked them below for your viewing pleasure. Quality on youtube is so-so..the original looks much better but each file is around 500mb in size so won’t be practical for me to post links to the originals here haha, but if anyone wants em I can pass it on to you by sending you a dvd or using a file sharing website.

Here’s the  “Say (All I need)” Video

I’ve uploaded videos for “Apologize”, ”Stop and Stare”, “Mercy”, “Empathy”, “All we need” (all by OneRepublic) along with “Do the Panic” by Phantom Planet to my youtube account. You can get a small taste of how Phantom Planet got the audience to participate by watching the “Do the Panic” video. Also uploaded close to 60 pics from the concert to picasa. You can check em out by clicking on the links below

Link to Videos

Link to Pics

Overall it was a really good concert! Thanks to Deep for coming along!

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Was just browsing the venue’s website when I found out there there’s 3 other acts performing besides OneRepublic. Phantom planet I’ve heard of because of their song ‘california’ that was the opening track for the tv show O.C. The other two acts I’ve never heard of.
Screenshot of the page is below. Oh n in case you’re wondering why it says no service on the corner it’s because I’m using my old disconnected iPhone to write this blog entry. Makes an awesome web browsing device.

Sent from my iPhone

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So iTunes recently hit the 5 billion mark - yup you read correctly 5 Billion in downloads! Making it the largest music retailer in the U.S beating Walmart. You would think that the music industry would be happy about this..after all haven’t they been complaining about the decline in music sales over the years? (Blaming the decline in illegal downloads).

NOPE…not a chance…music industry now feels that iTunes is getting too big and powerful for its own good..and as a result most record labels (besides EMI) have not released their music DRM-free on iTunes. The same labels let amazon and other crappy-who-gives-a-shit sites sell their tracks DRM-free.

So I propose that we all say a big F*** Y** to these other record labels by only purchasing DRM-free tracks off of itunes..as for the songs yet to be released DRM-free on iTunes..obtain those from bit torrent and other music sharing means!!

I know that a bunch of my friends will just call be a Apple lover, Steve Job worshiper after reading this post, but I don’t care. Steve Jobs and iTunes is on YOUR side (Yeah their goal is to make money, but what they’re trying to do is good for both Apple and for YOU the consumer). From the beginning they wanted music to cost NO MORE then 99 cents a track, they publicity released a statement saying ALL music should be DRM-free, that labels should not make tracks “album only” (meaning you should be able to purchase individual tracks and not forced to purchase the entire album). All these moves are good for consumers, but the record industry saw this as a threat and is now trying to weaken iTunes dominance by giving other retailers an unfair advantage.

When NBC wanted to charge $4.99 an episode for Heros episodes it was iTunes that fought to keep the price at $1.99, but NBC didn’t agree to this and instead took all their shows off of iTunes. Now an year after they took the shows off, they’ve decided to let microsoft’s Zune store sell those same shows for $1.99..the price that itunes was originally fighting for!

So go out and stick it to record labels by only purchasing DRM-free tracks through iTunes.

Edit: (For the non-geeks)
DRM (digital rights management) in brief refers to protection that limits digital media files (video or audio) from playing on more then a specified number of computers/devices.

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I haven’t had a chance to watch the Today Show yet (tivoed it this morning), but it looks like the coldplaying.com members who won VIP passes to the show had amazing seatings! Still waiting to see the pics taken by C, but I found some pics taken by another member and WOW….so close up!

Theres videos of the show on the msnbc site for everyone outside the US who wasn’t able to watch it on tv or anyone who couldn’t tivo it. Heres a link to it -> CLICK HERE

Some highlights of the show according to a member of the cping forums -

• When the announcer lady called referred to Jonny as Guy. (Poor Jon, he didn’t know what to do )

• When the announcer ladies (with embarrassed faces) held up 2 freakin’ bras that the crowd had thrown at the stage!!!

• And then in the middle of Lost! Chris got thrown a pair of black panties and exclaimed “Wow people are getting undressed here man!” Gross!!

• When Al Roker said “Coldplay rules!!!”

• When Al Roker was talking to some fans standing behind the stage and he told them “Oh you get a great view of the drummer’s toosh!”

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Coldplay will be on the Today Show tomorrow morning! A friend, C , won VIP tickets to watch them perform some songs from up close! How awesome is that? Can’t wait to hear all the details and see the pics =0) (C if you’re reading this I hope you remember to take your camera!)

Wondering what the setlist will be. I’m guessing that they will definitely play Violet Hill and Viva la vida. Lovers in Japan maybe…Chris seems to like that track..and thats no surprise..its one of my favs. Hope they do strawberry swings..would love to catch that on my tivo.

Speaking about setlists..the following pic was taken (in the former bakery that they used to record, rehearse and chill) about a month or so before the album was released..

So far they have sung all those songs live this month (during the 3 free shows, the secret gig in holland and on tv) except Yes, Sparks, Shiver, Don’t Panic. Could this be the setlist for the full blown tour once it starts in the middle of next month? Guess only time will tell.

Let’s see what else is on my mind…Wanted (with Angelia Jolie!! Wooohoo) is coming out tomorrow..hope I get to see it this weekend. Also waiting for Wall-e…trailers look cool…the geek in me can’t wait to see the robot romance between Wall-e and Eve =0)

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“Officer, Angels and Airwaves made me speed! I couldn’t control myself as soon as I put one of their songs on”

Hmm think that excuse will work with a cop? IT SHOULD because thats the truth lol. Everytime I put a good song on, I feel inclined to step on the gas and weave in and out of lanes to beat traffic.

Heres some songs I speed to:

Angels and Airwaves “Start the machine”
Coldplay “Politik (live version)”
Coldplay ”
Angels and Airwaves “Valkyrie Missile”
Fort Minor “Right Now”
For Minor ” Slip out the back”
Diddy “Thought you said”
Fort Minor “Remember the name”
Angels and Airwaves “A little’s Enough”
Kanye West “Stronger”
Timbaland “Apologize”

I could easily list the entire Angels and Airwaves album under that heading because they all have the same effect lol.
“now th- that don’t kill me
can only make me stronger”

See…Kanye himself is promoting speeding!

“Yes Officer, I promise to listen to crappy music to curb my speeding. New 50 cent album? Yeah that should do the trick!”

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“Yesterday I was sitting. recalling. reminiscing
Trying to remember whenever there was nobody listening
Before the hugging and the kissing, the booing and the hissing
All I had was just a vision,
All I had was my ambition
Your love without condition
Kept me swinging when I’m missing
My eyes upon the prize
Kept me striving for the mission
When I was down for the count, falling out of commission
I can hear you voice now screaming out “son, listen”
Get on up, don’t give up, though you struck opposition
Time to buck all that stuff, find out what’s you condition
Like a pull in my soul, like keys in my ignition
Call you all my commission, my love and my vision and…”

Love those lyrics.  Its sad that artists who write lyrics with that much substance will never be as popular as dumbass artists who write lyrics like “this is why i’m hot..i’m hot coz your not” and end up in the top 10 of charts.  Another sign that theres something wrong with the world today?

Can you imagine what aliens from outer space would think if  they got a hold of songs off the top 10 charts? They’d think we all just drive around with 20 inch dubs, shoot each other, just care about bling bling,  treat women like toys for pleasure and get high.

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