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The global citizen festival took place in Mumbai yesterday and thousands went to witness the mega vent  from all over the country. Headlined by British band Coldplay and frontman cum curator of the festival, Chris Martin, the festival was described by fans as nothing    short of out-of-this-world!

Enthusiastic festival began to que from 9 am in the morning outside MMRDA grounds and estimated figures were well beyond 100,000 after the gates were closed. The Prime Minister greeted the audience through a live webcast and appreciated the efforts of the organisers in making the festival happen.  While being playfully humorous he spoke of the concerns of our nation and thanked the citizens of India for being with him during his recent ‘cleanliness drive’.

Shankar Eshaan Loy
Shankar Eshaan Loy setting the mode to groove!

The line up for the day was Coldplay, Jay-Z, Demi Lovato, Arijit Singh, Aamir Khan, The Vamps, A.R. Rahman, Big B Amitabh Bachchan, Rock On star Farhan Akhtar, Shah Rukh Khan, Frieda Pinto, Ranveer Singh, Sonakshi Sinha, Shraddha Kapoor, Sachin Tendulkar, Vidya Balan and Shankar Eshaan Loy. The focus of the festival was on issues such as gender inequality, world poverty, world peace and sanitation.

Amitabh with Shillong Choir
Melody and Bass! Amitabh Bachchan and the Shillong Choir

Parineeti Chopra and Arjun Kapoor announced the opening of the festival. Arijit Singh went on stage  to set the pace with ‘Ae Dil Hain Mushkil’  along with other favorites . Sonakshi Sinha delighted the audience next with her performance of ‘Har Kisi Ko Nahi Milta’. Shankar Eshaan Loy had them singing along ‘Breathless’ and their other hits.

Actor Alia Bhatt introduced the first international act of the day with pop icon Demi Lovato who thrilled the audience in her iconic golden get-up.  Amitabh Bachchan collaborated with the Shillong Choir which constituted one of the highlights of the day.

Farhan Akhtar came on next to set rock the audience with songs from Rock On and Rock On 2.

Jay Z
“we gonna run this town tonight” – Jay Z

The main highlights of the day were Jay-Z and of course, Coldplay. Shah Rukh Khan went on stage a second time to introduce the rap star legend. The audience grooved to track ‘Empire State of Mind’ which was the most loved among his line ups. The stars of the evening, Coldplay, collaborated with A.R.Rahman and Arijit Singh to sing Maa Tujhe Salaam and the crowd went nuts. They played for a good 1 hour and 45 minutes, a perfect showdown to such a grand event.

The charity event was not all fun and joy though. Midway through, the stalls had run out of food and water. The congress put up a last minute opposition to the festival claiming that the BJP was using the event to get political mileage. Moreover a PIL was filed by two activists in the Bombay High Court alleging the exemption of entertainment tax on the event to be reversed. A few hiccups nevertheless but the excited audience remained enthusiastic and unperturbed.

Image credits: hindustantimes.com and Global Citizen India at Twitter

With inputs from Arushi Pathak

Arindam Goswami

[email protected]

 

To get a chance at winning the coveted Coldplay concert tickets, contact [email protected].
Having been elected to three of the four seats that constitute the DUSU panel, ABVP has decided to carry out a gesture of gratitude towards the students of Delhi University. The party will distribute 100 tickets to the Coldplay concert to be held in Mumbai in November. However, that’s not all. The party will also fund the travel and accommodation expenses of these lucky students.

Wondering how these 100 are to be selected? Firstly, bad luck for those who haven’t voted for ABVP. In order to be selected, one has to email a picture or a link to a post to substantiate that they’ve voted for the party. In order to explain this hazy guideline, ABVP spokesperson Hirana Kamar has said, “Interested students have to email a picture or a link to a post to prove that they’ve voted for ABVP. It could be anything from a picture of a student wearing an ABVP t-shirt prior to the elections or a facebook post that the student had posted earlier, advocating their support for the party.” The email can be sent at [email protected].

The party has decided to take this move to rebuff accusations that they only give away freebies before the elections to lure students to vote for them. Wondering how they’re collecting the funds for this expedition? Well, most of the Coldplay concert tickets are free! People are required to undertake some sort of community work backed by NGOs to get them. So, ABVP workers will themselves carry out community work so as to earn the coveted tickets. Like ABVP party worker, Mameha Nagari had earlier declared, the party works for #girlpower and not #musclepower. So, they will be helping a NGO called “Naari Shakti” that supports women students who’ve been harassed by party workers during elections. Additionally, they will also be working with rag-pickers by helping them clean up the campus and subsequently collect income for them.

As for the travel and accommodation costs, the party will be paying for them by using a fraction of the funds that they’ve saved up this year by adhering to the Lyngdoh Commission which states the maximum permitted expenditure for each candidate as Rs. 5000.

According to DUSU President, Amar Tripathi, “We are not a party that attracts votes before elections by bribing students. We do not make hollow promises, but actually materialise them. This is just a tiny gesture of gratitude towards our voters. We do not believe in alienating them from University politics after the elections are over.”

Photo Credits: www.indiatoday.com

Swareena Gurung
[email protected]

Coldplay released their sixth studio album, “Ghost Stories” after pre-release promotional hit singles; “Midnight”, “Magic” and “A Sky Full of Stars”, via Altantic Records on 19th May, 2014.

Co-produced by the band with Paul Epworth along with Mylo Xyloto fame producers, Daniel Green and Rik Simpson, the album is almost a concept record that revolves around the idea of one’s past haunting one’s present and future and linking it to the media-hyped “consciously-uncoupled” Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow.

The album starts with distinctly muted variations and Coldplay’s patented Guy Berryman-Jonny Buckland mesh of echoing guitar with “Always in my head”. The beat of melancholy hit the strings of your heart when Chris breaks the sonic background with his soft lyrics, “I think of you, I haven’t slept” and bam! You know this is going to be the break-up album of the season.

You jump to “Magic” with an abrupt ending, and suddenly you begin to hear beats of drums warmly mixed with gentle guitar and weightless piano drifts. With that you sink into “Ink”, a not so cheerful track with soft beats, flawless keyboard and piano swirls. With deep lyrics, “All I know is that I love you so, so much it hurts”, the song moves in a flow towards emptiness of losing the spark where he tries to hold on to what is lost, so much; it hurts.


With Timbaland on board, “True Love” is a doleful song where Chris pours his heart out by saying, “Tell me you love me, if don’t then lie to me” with Will Champion’s soft-drum intervals while symbolizing his failing marriage. The song comes across as a perfect attempt to delineate the slithering pain of piercing heartbreak by coming to terms with all that is lost while telling a tale of lonely love holding on a thin string of hope.

“Midnight” comes as a chilly shocker with clicking piano, shifting bass pad, and no immediate center to the lyrics. The not-so Coldplay song has some excellent electro cues courtesy, “The Fourth State II” by Jon Hopkins and undeniable “robo-teched” voice of Martin throwing light on the of the darkness of pain.

“Another’s Arms” breaks with synth guided minor key melancholia with sweet chorus and lyrics portraying bonafide couple habits with “Late night watching Tv/Used to be here beside me/Used to be your arms around me/Your body on my body”. The song also incorporates a vocal sample from “Silver Cord” by Jane Weaver, which adds true love to the pain and an unsaturated optimistic wave to hold on to the broken pieces giving an accurate depiction of misery.

“Oceans” is the album’s acoustic track with guitar strings of sorrow and pain of rejection. Chris through this track comes in terms with his genuine “Ghost Stories” of rejection and the lonesome path ahead.

He ends the track by consoling his broken heart with reassuring lyrics, “Got to find yourself in this world”.

“A Sky Full of Star” marks the band’s first raving dance track outlined with EDM influences, emerging an energetic, heartfelt piano ballad in perfect composition with pounding electronics. It gives the album a different twist and shows that everything is not about Chris and Gwyneth. However, the lyrics seem to declare Chris’s undying love, where he doesn’t seem to care “if she tears him apart”. Irrelevant of the lyrics, the song brings pumps to the album making a happy drive back home (on the highway of life.)

“O” concludes the album on a positive note with them typical Coldplay soothing piano ballads hoping that “maybe one day I’ll fly with you”. The song ends the album as a perfect consoling track showing light in the end of the dark tunnel of rejection and hurt. Chris’s heartfelt lyrics, ask you to “Fly on” more like asking you to “Carry on” while solacing from heartache. It puts an end to the emotional treadmill with commiserating melody oozing compassionate optimism.

Ghost Stories emerges a transitional album, full of sonic details, sad girl echoes and beats of ‘Magic’ and ‘Ink’. The deep lyrics, echoing guitars, sudden electronics and the same old acoustic piano ballads bring out the usual and the unusual Coldplay in 9 tracks and 43 minutes.

Amidst all, the album stays committed to the sentiment of dying love while battling with ghosts of broken relationships with sanguine lyrics asking Chris, “And if you were to ask me/After all that we have been through/Still believe in magic? He replies by resisting the ghosts of his past with, “Ofcourse, I do!”

TRIVIA: Apple and Moses Martin appear as guest vocalists on the final track O! Getting their first vocal break on their parents break-up album, maybe isn’t a very good idea?

The album cover for Ghost Stories is etched by Czech artist Mile Furstove, featuring a pair of angel wings imposed onto a painting of an ocean under a sky at night. The images include a couple in love, a man facing a mission, a flight of white doves, amongst other imagery depicted in the artwork.