SOUNDTRACK: COLDPLAY-Tiny Desk Concert #957 (March 9, 2020).
Once, long ago, a Tiny Desk Concert was for a quiet, presumably up and coming band to play a short show for an internet audience.
Then there was Lizzo and Taylor Swift and now Coldplay (I’m actually not sure if Coldplay or Taylor Swift is actually bigger). But what makes it fun when a huge band does this is that they have an opportunity to do something very different.
For this Tiny Concert, Coldplay was reduced to just singer (and keyboardist) Chris Martin and guitarist Jonny Buckland (bassist Guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion were “hiding under the desk” because it was so tiny. But Coldplay was also expanded with the addition of the For Love Choir: Denise Green; Shaneka Hamilton; Dorian Holley; Stephen Mackey; Lamarcus Eldridge; Lawrence Young; Surrenity Xyz; Tiffany Smith and Mabvuto Carpenter.
Watching Martin at the keys, with the For Love Choir behind him and Coldplay guitarist Jonny Buckland at his side, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was the happiest day of his life. Laughing, bouncing to the music and playing off the crowd, Martin and company gave one of the most jubilant, uplifting and memorable performances we’ve ever had at the Tiny Desk.
I’m not sure it’s the most memorable, but it is certainly fun watching Chris Martin (who the rest of the time seems very serious) laugh and smile and joke his way through the set (while being musically spot on).
It’s a bit unfortunate, to me, that Coldplay did this show after their newest album, Everyday Life, from which I haven’t heard a thing (which is crazy since most of their other stuff is so overplayed).
The first song, “Cry Cry Cry” features the choir, but to me the “Cry Cry” of the chorus sounds so much like Janis Joplin “Cry Baby” I can’t get past it.
I also had to laugh that the crowd was responsive to this song (and the other two songs from the new album), but they went berserk for “Viva La Vida.” And as as he plays those notes and starts singing it becomes really clear that this is Coldplay. I didn’t really notice Buckland on the first song, but he adds some nice guitar moments to this one. Everyone lives the choir for these songs, but I feel like their backing lines are not right for the verses. Their oohs and ahhs are nice though and the end “woah oh ohs” are really splendid with all of those voices.
Martin jokes that he was happy to step inside the internet to be on the Tiny Desk and to see that Bob is a real person. Then he shouts out everyone in the choir without looking (I didn’t realize they’d been playing together for a while, otherwise I was really impressed that he could remember that many names so easily).
The choir is prominent on “Broken” and Martin joked that, “In a very real way, they’ve Photoshopped our songs to be much better than they actually are.”
As the song fades out he starts playing the opening to Prince’s “1999.” How unexpected. Each of the singers in the choir takes a line or two and everyone is really into it. It sounds great.
They end with “Champion Of The World.” Martin says that after releasing the new album, they stayed in semi-hibernation. But this Tiny Desk is pure and wonderful and makes us remember that this is why we do what we do,
Even if they only played one song I would have wanted them to play, it’s still a very positive and joy-filled show.
[READ: March 29, 2020] “Here and There”
McCann has written a novel called Apeirogon which is a fictionalized account of the lives of Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian and Rami Elhanan, an Israeli. Aramin’s ten-year-old daughter, Abir, was killed by an Israeli soldier. Elhana’s 13-year old daughter, Smadar, was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber.
This excerpt only looks at Rami’s story.
Smadar had her grandfather’s watch on her wrist when she was killed. It was still running. She made sure to wind that watch every night lest it signal that her other grandfather Yitzak had died during the night too.
Smadar and her grandfather were buried side by side under a grove of knotted carob trees. (more…)