I Just Had A Rush Of Blood To The Head

It was June of 2008, the weather was cold, and my thoughts were as dark as the clouds that continuously lingered over town. I was home for four weeks for my holidays from my first year of university, and I was one unhappy child. It was during this time that I happened to hear a certain song called "Violet Hill" on the radio. It took just one listen for me to become completely hooked. Coldplay. I'd heard of them, I'd listened to them, and I'd liked them, but I'd never loved them. They had never even been one of my top ten bands. Oh how things were about to change! I listened to Violet Hill about 40 times within a week. Just before returning to varsity after the holidays, I heard Viva La Vida for the first time, and I loved it almost as much as I loved Violet Hill. I'll never forget saying goodbye to a friend at 4am, as she left for good, the line "be my mirror, my sword and shield, my missionaries in a foreign field..." coursing through my head over and over and over again. It was an eerie feeling. By now I had acquired all of Coldplay's albums, and had taken a shine to "The Scientist". What line could express the emotions of a young, lost first year better than "nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be this hard, oh take me back to the start" ? It sounds horribly corny and cliche, but this song got me through many tear-filled days. So, I think Coldplay were the first band that I actually fell in love with properly. I'd always loved music, but I think they were the start of my passion for it.

Flashforward to May 2011. Throughput all of Big Concerts' announcements, I'd never once let myself believe that one could actually be Coldplay. I'd said it jokingly, I's told Lauren to hold thumbs that it was them, but I'd never actually believed that it would be. So when, through extensive creeping, I found out that there was an announcement coming soon, and that it was probably Coldplay, I could not contain my excitement. I'm sure my friends were slightly offended by the fact that I kept losing track of our conversations, getting a glazed look upon my face, and beginning to mutter "Coldplay". As as result, I thought that I'd be an absolute mess the day the announcement was confirmed: I expected to jump, scream, squeal, and perhaps cry an actual tear or two (cue shock and horror). Instead, I calmly sat in my bed, smiling slightly and immediately checking up on flights to Joburg. I am going to see Coldplay. My life will officially be complete after this. It hasn't hit me yet, I think I'm in shock. Tickets go on sale on Thursday at 9am. Oh. My. Goodness.

This Is War

Upon a visit to Twitter tonight, one will see the words "Jared Leto" under the list of trending topics. Pause, catch your breathe. This time, it's not his sheer beauty that has the world talking.

Seems Mr. Leto has gotten himself into a right pickle over his actions towards a fan at a concert. Said fan, a young Brazillian girl has become highly offended, and claims to have lost all respect for her favourite singer after seeing him live in concert. Confused yet? Read on...

The girl and her mother attended a 30 Seconds To Mars concert as a treat for the girl's birthday, they were positioned directly in front of the stage, at the barrier. People pushed and shoved, as they tend to do at concerts (It probably wasn't such a great idea to have one's first gig be 30 Seconds To Mars anyway, just saying). Jared then apparently make quite a rude sign involving his middle finger, because the girl's mom wasn't singing along. The girl began to cry as she was pushed and shoved more and more. She says Jared then proceeded to call her mom a "pain in the ass", and then just happened to call her on stage.

Videos on Youtube back up her story. Or do they? In the videos, Jared asks "is that your sister?" a voice replies to the affirmative (first sign of a language barrier, perhaps?). Jared does in fact ask if she is being a pain in the ass, and after the girl says "no", he says that he thinks she is, and invites the girl on stage.

Well then, personally I fail to see what the problem is! Perhaps he was joking and they didn't realize. Perhaps it was noisy and they couldn't hear him. Perhaps I'm wrong, I don't know the entire situation and therefore cannot pass judgement, but in my own humble opinion, it's really not worth all the fuss that is being kicked up.

[Insert U2 song title here]

Disclaimer: if you are a U2 fan, I strongly advise you to navigate far away from this page, and return to your U2 forums, where you can continue fangirling over how gorgeouslysexilyamazinglyOMG Bono is.

U2 recently visited South Africa. In fact, they might still be here. The last thing I felt the need to do was go stalk B and his cronies. Rumour has it that South African singer Steve Hofmeyer had purchased R5000 worth of tickets for one of U2's shows, but proceeded to throw them into a river after hearing Bono say that it was good to sing struggle songs. Really. I my own humble opinion, I think good ol' Steve may have a point. Go ahead and sing struggle songs in your own country, but to make comments like that in a country such as South Africa, where it is quite a volatile topic was quite an unwise move on Bono's part. Perhaps he is not as familiar as we are with the history of the country, and perhaps he was just trying to help. I can't say. It reminds me of Brandon Flowers' comment on how it was inappropriate of Green Day to Sing "American Idiot" in Europe, where fans may not have bee familiar with all of the satirical comments in the song.

I can say that I think that U2 only ever did one thing right, and that was, well, the song "One". I don't hate them, but let's just say that all the money in Las Vegas wouldn't have persuaded me to go to a concert of their's.