Inside the ‘Spinal Tap’ tour costing Coldplay millions (2024)

Ed Power

Inside the ‘Spinal Tap’ tour costing Coldplay millions (1)

Coldplay fans making their way to Estadio River Plate in Buenos Aires last October didn’t yet know it – but they were in for an extra-special treat. Chris Martin and his multi-coloured chums were bringing their Music of the Spheres tour to Argentina, playing to a combined audience of 626,841 over a record-smashing 10-nights. It was to be a mind-blowing residency. A budget-busting one, too. Coldplay were unveiling their new Jet Screen – a “huge visual project” that had personally cost the group £8 million.

Even for Coldplay, that was a significant sum. Chris Martin has an estimated net worth of £160 million. But he would still notice £8 million evaporating from his bank account. The screen, positioned above a second, moon-shaped bank of lights, was indeed spectacular. Coldplay were so chuffed with the gigs that they released a concert movie of the Argentina shows last April.

The problem was that only the audience in Buenos Aires had an opportunity to see the full production first-hand. The Jet Screen is too big to fit in any other stadiums Coldplay headlined during Music of the Spheres, a Technicolor wig-out that will continue into 2024. Much like the famous “Stonehenge” set prop from satirical rockumentary Spinal Tap, somebody got their measurements wrong.

Inside the ‘Spinal Tap’ tour costing Coldplay millions (2)

This detail has come to light in a remarkable exchange of legal writs between Coldplay and their former manager, Dave Holmes. He claims that Coldplay owes him £10 million in unpaid commissions (much to do with two unreleased new albums). The band have shot back this week. Coldplay say Holmes was responsible for the overheads on Music of the Spheres going through the roof.

Central to these claims is the Jet Screen. In the case of Spinal Tap and Stonehenge, the issue was that the band provided the dimensions in inches rather than feet – resulting in a pint-sized obelisk. Spinal Tap blamed their manager, Ian Faith. He said he was following their orders.

“It’s my job to do what I’m asked to do by the creative element of this band. And that’s what I did!,” thundered Faith. He proffered the napkin upon which Tap drummer Nigel Tufnel had sketched his original diagram. “Whether he knows the difference between feet and inches is not my problem!” hissed Faith to Tufnel and Tap singer David St Hubbins.

Inside the ‘Spinal Tap’ tour costing Coldplay millions (3)

Unless the case goes to court, we’ll never know if an equivalent exchange occurred between Holmes and Chris Martin. But Coldplay have certainly blamed their manager for other Spinal Tap elements of Music of the Spheres. Alongside the Jet Screen, they complained, in the new legal documents, about “16 bespoke stage pylons”, into which the production sank £8 million before it became clear that they were too expensive to use.

Still, even without such overspend, Music of the Spheres was totally Tap anyway. Taking its lead from the 2021 album of the same name, the tour was conceived as a bright and bouncy celebration of pop music as means of cosmic connection. Or, as Martin sang on the LP’s lead single, “you’ve got a higher power/ got me singing every second, dancing every hour”.

The aim of the tour was to have the audience dancing every minute. Nigel Tufnel would have been impressed with Coldplay’s determination to throw everything at the wall in the hope of something sticking. Flashing wristbands, confetti, balloons, multiple stages and singing muppets – not Chris Martin but bespoke puppetry commissioned for the tour – were among the delights. And then the lucky citizens of Buenos Aires got to sample the Jet Screen, too.

Inside the ‘Spinal Tap’ tour costing Coldplay millions (4)

Coldplay have long enjoyed going overboard for their fans. It is jarring to recall that, in their early career, they were regarded as soppy clones of Radiohead. One apocryphal story has Radiohead’s Thom Yorke hearing Coldplay’s Yellow for the first time and lamenting, ‘what have I done!’.

Whatever their provenance, the jangly indie man-tears that sustained Coldplay’s early career were soon supplanted by a pop sensibility. Their tours followed suit. Taking their 2008 Viva La Vida album on the road, they included a segment where a giant screen projection of Simon Cowell comments negatively about Chris Martin’s hair – and Martin shakes his head in disappointment. At that time, Coldplay still had critics on their side. But you could see their credibility going up in flame over the course of the concert. Not even U2, at their naffest, would have stooped to an X-Factor skit. Martin and the gang were all for it.

In the case of Music of the Spheres, the true Spinal Tap element of the tour is that it wasn’t even supposed to happen. In 2019, following the release of their Everyday Life LP, Martin said Coldplay would never again go on the road unless the gigs could be environmentally friendly. Two years later, they changed their minds and said they would take Music of the Spheres worldwide.

Inside the ‘Spinal Tap’ tour costing Coldplay millions (5)

To justify the turnabout, they announced a range of eco-friendly innovations. The tour started in Costa Rica as an acknowledgment of the country’s renewable-sourced power grid. The shows would be powered by “hydro-treated” vegetable oil and “kinetic energy.” Where possible, Coldplay vowed to take commercial flights. When they simply had to fly by private jet, they arranged for the planes to use fuel made from cooking oil. The confetti that swirled throughout the concert’s two-plus hour run-time was biodegradable.

But even as the confetti was rotting away, so was their relationship with Holmes, whom they sacked in 2022 after 17 years working together. In new documents lodged this week, Coldplay accused their manager of striking a side deal with concert monolith Live Nation.

Coldplay alleged that Holmes received a $20 million loan at preferential rates from Live Nation in 2015 – topped up by a further $10 million in 2018. “To the best of [our] knowledge . . . Mr Holmes used monies obtained by the loan agreements to fund a property development venture in or around Vancouver, Canada,” say the band in their filing at the High Court in London. “It is to be inferred,” the claim goes on, “that Mr Holmes was only able to acquire loans totalling $30 million at a fixed annual interest rate of 2.72 per cent from Live Nation by virtue of his position as Coldplay’s manager.”

Inside the ‘Spinal Tap’ tour costing Coldplay millions (6)

The problem, as Coldplay see it, is that Holmes was supposed to be negotiating with Live Nation about the Music of the Spheres tour so that they received the best possible deal. But who do you negotiate with someone who has just fronted you $30 million at “mates’ rates”?

“That would potentially or actually conflict with his obligations to secure best possible terms for [Coldplay],” reads the claim, adding that Holmes had a “personal interest in maintaining the best possible relations with Live Nation in order to ensure he would have leverage in the event that he required any form of indulgence by reference to the loan terms”.

Live Nation has stated that it “has a strong and longstanding relationship with Coldplay”. It continued: “Any past dealings with their management team were considered an extension of this relationship.”

Coldplay also assert that Holmes didn’t adequately supervise budgeting for Music of the Spheres, leading to an overspend of £17.5 million – which must be seen in the context of the tour’s estimated £500 million gross to date. He is accused of not opening “the shared online Dropbox which contained the designs for the Music of the Spheres Tour at any time between August 2020 and February 2022”.

YetHolmes isn’t taking this lying down. “Coldplay know they are in trouble with their defence,” his spokesperson told The Times. “Accusing Dave Holmes of nonexistent ethical lapses and other made-up misconduct will not deflect from the real issue at hand – Coldplay had a contract with Dave, they are refusing to honour it and they need to pay Dave what they owe him.”

A row between a band and their manager over an unopened Dropbox may mark the moment rock’n roll finally died. What hasn’t died, however, is the Music of the Spheres tour. The Jet Screen may be gathering dust in a warehouse somewhere. Yet the show goes on for Coldplay, with the tour scheduled to finish in Croke Park Dublin in August 2024.

Tickets for those dates top out at €987.85 for the “Ultimate Spheres Experience”. How ultimate? For that price, you’d expect Chris Martin to dress up as a dwarf and dance around a miniature Stonehenge, clapped on by David St Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel. But then, what would be the point? Music of the Spheres has already proved much more Spinal Tap than the original.

Inside the ‘Spinal Tap’ tour costing Coldplay millions (2024)
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