It seems eerily prophetic that the band Starfish was renamed as Coldplay in 1998, for, a large flock of music fans were to be left out in the cold and an equal measure were to be played for a fool, come September of 2024. Martin, and his boys, bewildered bystanders at best, scratching their scalps, fretting over the events (not their guitars) that subsequently unfolded; would have least anticipated an online ticket booking hulla–baloo-ning into an alleged ticket scalping scam. They may well be cooling their heels with glasses of ice-cold Martini (Bond-style) shaken (up), not stirred; crooning their chartbuster song, “I want something just like this”.
Collective emotions of almost a billion countrymen get stirred every 2nd of October, when we reminisce the great line by Gandhiji- “Be the change you wish to see in the world”. Children of the country have since taken note and ushered in ground-breaking change touching many spheres. In fact,13 million of us recently logged in and queued up to change and stamp India’s live entertainment history by a defining moment of fandom but, only 1.5 lakh amongst us will be the defining few to touch the concert ground for “Music of the Spheres” playing under “A sky full of stars”. Who knew that concert- planning would go so fast from securing front-row seat to filing legal suit!
Where reigning chaos replaces ‘raining tickets’ will the members of Coldplay develop pre-event cold feet? Dunno! But it is possible that a certain eminent Professor clicked recently at a luxury hotel with holes in his socks, may have his feet cold. He however insists that said wardrobe choice is his bit towards sustainable living. If only he could teach a thing or two about sustainable online ticketing without portals crashing or alleged bots and black-market operators crashing the party!
Anyway, my “hymn for the concert weekend” would be “Viva la Vida” (live the life) watching a past Coldplay concert online with cold-drinks and a warm spirit.