Coldplay are gearing up for the start of their North American tour in support of new album “Viva La Vida,” which hits stores next week.
The band will make their first US concert stop a free one, playing New York’s Madison Square Garden on June 23. Later this month, the band will also make appearances on “Today” (June 27) and “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” on June 26.
The English outfit’s visit to Comedy Central may give them an opportunity to explain more about one of their songs – single “Violet Hill,” which offers a dig at conservative TV host Bill O’Reilly.
According to the new issue of Rolling Stone magazine, singer Chris Martin was prompted to add a line to the song, which had existed for a while, but remained unfinished, about “a fox becoming a god and a ‘carnival of idiots on show.’”
“One day I was watching Bill O’Reilly and I was like, ‘I know how to finish that song,’” Martin said. “My best friend, Tim, he’s a musician in a band called the High Wire, but he also has to work in a bar. He was having trouble with his boss, and it made me think that so many people spend their lives being told what to do by people that they just don’t like. So it was that idea, and watching Bill O’Reilly, and all these words just came out.”
The band, fronted by Martin, will officially kick off their North American tour July 14 and 15 with sold out dates at the Los Angeles Forum after several dates were postponed due to production delays.
“We’re very sorry, but we promise you a show worthy of your patience and understanding when we start in mid-July,” the band said in a statement about the rescheduled dates, which can be found on Coldplay.com.
Coldplay’s album was released in their native UK on Thursday but already British retailers expect it to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest album of the year.
”‘Viva La Vida’ will be this year’s biggest selling album,” HMV record store spokesperson Gennaro Castaldo told UK paper The Telegraph. “Any release by Coldplay is now a major event, and the band has such wide appeal that ‘Viva La Vida’ is likely to sell more in just three days than most new albums by other artists manage over a whole month.”
“It’s certainly among the largest orders HMV has ever placed for a new album,” he added.
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