The Music Venue Trust recently spoke to NME regarding how “Coldplay are providing a lifeline for new talent” in their effort to donate 10 per cent of all profits from their 2025 UK stadium shows to save the grassroots.
MVT talks about Coldplay
This Friday, October 4th will see the release of Coldplay’s 10th album ‘Moon Music‘. Frontman Chris Martin spoke to NME about the band’s move to give a huge donation from their shows in London and Hull next summer to help keep struggling live music venues open.
Well, their help comes following the MVT’s campaigning for a mandatory levy for £1 of every ticket sold to a gig at arena level and above to go back into the grassroots, at a time when the scene faces “disaster” with around two venues closing per week in the UK. Enter Shikari took it upon themselves to do it last year, and now Coldplay are taking it to the next level.
Frontman Chris Martin told NME that he put his plan into action when he became aware of the situation at the tail-end of last year.
“I’d just assumed The Leicester Charlotte would be fine,” he said. “I didn’t think there was an issue because I didn’t think about it. It was around COVID that you started to hear about this or that venue having to close. I thought, ‘Oh, we played all those venues, Oasis played all those venues – these are important’.”
When asked if it bothered him that we may never see another Coldplay if venues continue to disappear, he replied:
“I think a lot of people would be happy about that! The truth is that playing live is an important connection.
“It doesn’t bother me that there might not be another Coldplay, but it does bother me that there might not be acts that are free to start on the bottom rung and work all the way up – so that by the time they get to stadiums, they are really good. You can’t just jump into that.”
He agreed that “there’s nothing wrong with staying on the first rung [of the ladder” of playing live and that side of the ecosystem needs to be kept as a viable career, Martin noted that the talent pipeline would suffer if smaller gig spaces disappear.
“With all of the artists that are playing stadiums next year, it’s no coincidence that all of them started in a van, driving around and playing pubs: Oasis, Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, the truth is all there,” said. “Taylor Swift has probably played more than anyone in tiny Nashville venues and county fairs.”
