Festival-goers enjoy a day of Britpop at� Splendour in the Grass at Woodfordia in Queensland at the weekend. Picture: Mark Calleja Source: The Courier-Mail
Chris Martin and Coldplay close the three-day Splendour in the Grass festival. Picture: Mark Calleja Source: The Courier-Mail
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IT was Coldplay's shortest visit to Australia, but the celebrated English band had time enough to impress 30,000 fans as they closed the three-day Splendour in the Grass Festival at Woodfordia in Queensland.
"It's not really the sort of place you'd come to for a day," said bass player Guy Berryman just before the show. "But we'll be back at some point in 2012 to do a proper tour."
The four-piece arrived in Australia on Saturday from Japan and leaves again today after their one-off headline performance at the festival, which included five songs from a new album due for release in October.
The new tracks, such as Every Teardrop is a Waterfall and Major Minus, bear all the hallmarks of the band's bombastic anthems Fix You and Yellow, which were also fixtures in last night's show.
"When we started making this record we wanted it to be a small acoustic-sounding album," said Berryman, "but now it couldn't be further from that."
Coldplay last toured Australia in 2009, which included their performance of You're the Voice with John Farnham at the Sound Relief benefit concert in Sydney. "That was a lot of fun," Berryman said.
Including Coldplay, it was a day of Britpop at the Splendour site's main amphitheatre, with English acts Pulp, featuring Jarvis Cocker, Elbow and Kaiser Chiefs following local bands The Vines and Cloud Control. Also featured over the weekend were American headliners Kanye West along with veteran rock band Jane's Addiction.
The Living End, the Panics, Sparkadia, Architecture in Helsinki and Pnau were among the leading Australian acts.
Splendour in the Grass is in its 17th year and has been based in Byron Bay in NSW for most of that time. Festival organisers hope that after two years of temporary residence at Woodfordia, home of the annual Woodford Folk Festival, Splendour will be able to move to its new proposed site at North Byron Parklands in Yelgun near Byron Bay next year.
Splendour acquired the land there in 2006 and has been awaiting final approval from the NSW government. Objections to the festival have been raised by some residents over environmental concerns. Co-promoter Paul Piticco said that a move back to Byron next year would be dependent on approval, if granted, in the next three to four months.
Australia is set to host more music festivals than ever before, with the just-announced touring Harvest festival later this year the latest added to the list.
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