Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Coldplay anticipate a moo-ving experience
COLDPLAY frontman Chris Martin says he can’t wait to play his latest song to a live audience – the cows at Worthy Farm.
The band are due to play at Glastonbury’s Live at Worthy Farm global livestream later this month.
But instead of a crowd of thousands of music fans crammed in front of the Pyramid Stage, the live audience will consist only of Pilton farm’s resident population. And Martin said he couldn’t wait to put on a show for his bovine audience – plus those around the world who watch the livestream.
The 44-year-old was speaking after the release of the band’s new song, Higher Power, which they premiered overnight with the help of French astronaut Thomas Pesquet on board the International Space Station.
Speaking to Zoe Ball on her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show, Coldplay’s cofounder, who grew up in Devon and went to school in Dorset, said he was “trying to stay level about everything”.
Speaking about their forthcoming performance, Martin said: “Glastonbury is our home, really, as a band, and it’s funny, the last few times we’ve closed the festival... I like to go down in the winter and climb up the pyramid and sit there and think about what we’re going to do and just look at the cows and the grass and think ‘OK, I’ll imagine you are people’.”
“But this year we have to just treat them as cows and grass and play to them, and I’m into that; every member of the audience is special whether they’re human or bovine. So we’re going to give a great show.”
He added: “[For} a lot of people who do my job, last year was quite an eyeopener; like who am I without Wembley Stadium saying ‘You’re awesome’?
“I really mean what I say, I’m trying to just do the music that wants to be done and give it and leave it at that.”
A special performance of Higher Power featuring dancing alien holograms was sent up to Mr Pesquet, who gave the track its first play after midnight on board the ISS.
Martin, who boarded at Sherborne School in Dorset, and the rest of Coldplay will also perform Higher Power on American Idol tomorrow and at the Brit Awards on May 11, where they will open the ceremony from a pontoon on the River Thames.