How coldplay has made me ponder …

I’m still kinda hungover by the immense coldplay concert.

More than anything I always love success stories. Why? Because they’re about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

There is a coldplay special showing on Channel 5 right now, and its a documentary with a young chris martin. Its hard to tell how old he is, but he looks no older than 25. The same age I am now.

One of the interesting nuggets of information I’ve found out about coldplay is that they met at UCL (A fact I’m sure my partner Tim is very proud of). At a very ordinary looking hall, called Ramsay Hall.

I found an article on the UCL webpage, where Chris Martin (lead singer coldplay), talks about his times in University.

“I went to London like Dick Whittington looking for gold. I didn’t have a cat but about 12 bags and my dad had to drive me there. I arrived at this big place called Ramsay Hall, Tottenham Ct Rd – brilliant – and I met Jonny and everything changed.”

His friend and lead guitarist Jonny continues, “I can remember meeting Will for the first time and I can remember meeting Chris for the first time. Chris was running up and down the corridor with this really long curly mop and I thought he was a bit mad, a bit wacky and Will was very nice. I can’t remember meeting Guy, I think he always used to be drunk.”

“We met each other because we were living in the halls of residence, it was like this block of rooms, everyone has their own room and downstairs was the bar and the pool table so everyone met in and around that area and people would introduce themselves to each other. I can remember meeting them all over a pint.”

I don’t know about you, but I feel that is such an easily identifiable story. The type that is replayed year in year out, as people meet other people, and partnerships are forged.

In fact, it makes me wonder, what if Timothy and I had been as musically inclined as Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland and we had hooked up with 2 other dudes?

Timothy would have looked something like this presumably.

Chope! Actually I would probably be lead singer, and the one with the babes. So minus Raine, and Clara, plus the mike, add a guitar, and thats how he would look.

As I’m sure you all know by now. The story goes, I was at a pussy cat dolls concert for a girl (not for tim), and I met him there. Our passion was not music but business. And instead of jamming, and smoking loads of weed, we met up at starbucks and could only talk about business, and the internet.

We firmed up our intentions to go into blog advertising, in a cramped japanese restaurant in london that is no more (On my recent trip to london, I made this discovery to my dismay). It has now been converted to a taiwanese restaurant called “Leong’s Legend Continues …” *sob sob*

Anyway, on with the coldplay story. In that same TV documentary, Chris Martin seems like such an innocent and in a way careless “kid”. Already he was so successful, having had massive hits in Yellow. But he openly said this (something like it), “We’re not famous, you ask a band like U2, if coldplay is famous, and they’ll be having a laugh, there’s a long way yet to go. I love the music, and I want our music to be everlasting. When the grandkids of some 60 year olds pick up our records, we hope they’ll say, yeah that was a great band.”

There are 2 morals of the story for me. The first is that however far Nuffnang has come today (And it has indeed), we are still only ketupats (or small fries). Although, that’s not going to stop us from becoming huge one day.

The second is when, in what strikes me as an awfully sincere assertion (You have to see the documentary to really understand), he says, that he loves the music, and thats all the band’s ever been about.

From that statement, my belief that it is passion, that ultimately drives success is reaffirmed.

But I often wonder, will we “grow” in the same way coldplay has “grown” as individuals and as performers? (compare chris martin with photo on top).

I also wonder, who will my Gwyneth Paltrow be? (Chris Martin’s wife, whom he met backstage, and now has 2 kids with).

Perhaps equally as crucial, will our success, have the same beautiful effects, that Coldplay’s music has on thousands upon thousands of people, singing along in what is probably blistring cold, but feeling euphoria and hope nonetheless.

Watch this coldplay perfomance, and put yourself in Chris Martin’s shoes, as you play the piano, and the crowd sing along. Then ask yourself a question, “Where will you be in 10 years?”