Every show is different
When the lights go down that's 30,000 people's lives colliding...
for that one moment
Everyone that's there working or watching is there for that moment
it's when you're all kind of in agreement about what you're all doing at that time...
so it's a wonderful feeling of togetherness and possibility
Then I start getting real adrenaline...
and start doing 'Rocky' shadow boxing and all that kind of stuff
So I get as excited as anyone else
And I still get that excitement when I go and see anyone else's concert
I love that moment
And then it's about trying to hold that energy for an hour and a half...
because it can go if you're not careful
Whilst it might not be perceived as cool...
to be really enthused by the fact that people show up to hear your music...
we don't really give a fuck, we really love that and it's exciting, you know?
It's exciting when you're 15 and you throw a party and people come...
so imagine what it's like on a daily basis to have 20,000 people coming. It's crazy!
Ever since I was about 12, the sight of microphones...
and dark venues and people plugging things in, it gets me really thrilled
When I was at school, when we had a concert three months away...
that would be the thing you'd just aim for and look forward to
In the build-up to a concert I just get really excited
I'm aware of everyone running around
There's always a panic about something
You know, the rain's coming down or... the wristbands aren't working...
or Will's bench-pressed too much and his abs have burst
I don't know what the problems might be -
Guy's just become too handsome to be lit properly...
or Jonny's fingers have started moving too fast and he's gonna play too many notes
Whatever the problem is, I always enjoy watching it get solved before 9pm
Every show takes me a while to get ready
It starts as soon as I wake up and... thinking about it
Getting ready to go on stage and going on stage is like a complete release
I think Bruce Springsteen says to the E Street Band...
you know, tonight could be someone's first concert or someone's last concert...
so we nicked that!
On the night, before we go on stage...
I think of the person in the top right-hand seat in the back of the room
Like, what would they want to see'? So I forget about my own issues
It's like you can flick a switch and just letting yourself go
When people show up now it's just like...
you can just get out of your head and go into your heart...
and it's an amazing feeling, it's like primal scream therapy, in a way
It's just total abandon... and no one can stop you
We're having the best time
We've managed with this album to replace our natural English anxiety with gratitude -
meaning that we can really enjoy ourselves without feeling guilty about it
which is kind of how some of us were raised to feel as our culture
The Mylo tour is the first where we've really looked at people in the eye while we played
You look at each other and it's a great feeling
You might never look at that person in the eyes again, so you have a real connection
I probably get to look at maybe a thousand people a night
Not many people get to do that- I've never tried to explain it before
It's like every time you look someone in the eyes you put a little thread between you -
so you can really connect with a lot of the audience
You have to approach everything from the freshness that they bring into it
So by the time you finish, you feel like you've got a sort of spider web of connection
rather than a detached feeling which is what I used to sometimes feel
Our favourite city in the world is Glastonbury Festival...
which is a city made up of tents and cows...
and that doesn't exist for more than about three or four days a year...
so when we wanted to launch the album we had to pick somewhere else that we loved...
to do the album launch concert...
somewhere where we thought the audience would be really vocal and fantastic...
and that was Madrid - and it was a good choice
I think the initial image we started with...
for the Mylo Xyloto album...
was a rose bursting through concrete
That was the kind of starting point of the whole thing...
was the splash of life and colour and passion...
in a bleak, grey place
Everything else kind of grew out of that one image
It feels like we're in the middle of the tour, right...
smack bang in the middle
We've done quite a lot of this... but there's still a lot more to go
It just feels like something we've never really done this well before
You know, it feels like we're ready to play stadiums now...
which I don't think we've ever felt like before
Stage-wise, we've got an artist called Paris...
and a designer called Misty to help us paint absolutely everything
We've got all the guitars, all the amps...
these enormous hundred meter drapes that we've put over the back
You know, the whole of the stage floor is painted
Everything's just covered in luminous paint
We wanted to take over the whole stadium and make it feel like it was ours
A show like this is a big undertaking
I think there's about 60 trucks on this tour, something like that
Every gig is different, every crowd is different, every stadium's different
We're playing the biggest gigs we've ever played
We feel like we're doing it as well as we've ever done
There's a really nice atmosphere on tour
We're lucky that we've worked with loads of great people
A lot of our background crew, which are the people who look after our amps...
and guitars and drums and all of that stuff...
have been with us pretty much since we started touring
Some of them, you know, some of them twelve, thirteen years
They're almost as much a part of the band as we are
We always tour with a football and a cricket bat and a cricket ball
We try and play football quite a lot - usually against the crew -
and we occasionally knock a cricket ball around
Will's got a ridiculous underarm spin bowl that he can do
He's just unreadable
One of his many talents!
It really feels like a gang - travelling the world - it feels like a family...
like kind of a circus family, I suppose...
and the ringmaster of that circus is Dave Holmes, our manager
We can just play the music, really - they make it look good and sound good
I think there's about 70 or 80 people travelling
You know, we get onto planes, we get into cars, we get on trains...
we get on helicopters, everything - we've done it all
Not rockets, actually, we've never done rockets
We've played a few memorable venues on this tour
We've played the Hollywood Bowl...
and that was the first time we played there in eleven years or something like that
We've done some small gigs on this tour as well
We played in Dingwall's in Camden...
and the last time we were in Paris we played the Cigale
I think the Mylo tour has been the best tour we've done
From a production point of view, from an organizational point of view...
it's been brilliant
We worked really hard from day one and Phil Harvey has been instrumental in it
He's really steered the ship
Phil Harvey is our fifth member
He was our first and original manager
He paid for us to record our first EP, he put on our first proper show in London
He's one of us, he's the buffer between us and everything else...
and he's a student of music - kind of- performance and production
He knows everything about the history of touring...
and the productions that people used
He studies bands and where they go wrong, when was their hey-day, why was that...
what was happening at that time that made them so great...
what can you learn from...
you know, knowing about the history of rock music
He's had the casting vote in our prickliest decisions...
and he's really the reason we've been getting better since 2005
So on this tour we'll visit something like 24 or 25 different countries...
playing 120, 125 shows
We will have got a lot of air miles by the end of it
For me, I guess there are moments...
where I still get the hairs on the back of my neck thing...
walking out up to the X stage, when you get to walk past people and see faces...
because normally I'm sat right at the back and you can just see a sea in front of you
When you're right up close it definitely sinks in a bit more...
and that's a pretty amazing moment
We come off stage while the fireworks are still going...
we're in the car, driving to the airport
So in a way it's a very rapid decompression
And you're sat... Within 20 minutes you're sat on an aeroplane...
and within two hours we're home
And the difference between that and what we've just come from...
this kind of noisy, loud, masses of energy situation...
it's pretty strange, I often think about that
Sometimes If you go straight back after a show to a hotel...
that is the weirdest, occasionally, if you're not feeling so good -
we just do a runner from the show and go straight into a hotel...
and that is such a surreal feeling
Literally half an hour between that mass exhilaration...
to just being totally on your own in a hotel room - it's very strange
A minute ago I was there and now I'm just sat in a hotel room all by myself...
and tomorrow we'll do it all again
The toughest bits are when you're away from home, from family
Occasionally you get things like... I remember we were playing in Las Vegas...
which is a very silly place at the best of times...
I got a call saying that one of my kids was in hospital...
and there I was in Las Vegas, you know
And I just thought this is...
There couldn't be a worse place to be when you know your kid is not very well
So it's hard and anyone that travels has that kind of thing to deal with often
We're not the first band to come across these problems by any means
But, yeah, those moments are pretty tricky
Glastonbury is definitely one where we always feel very welcome
There's no other festival like it in the world
I think it'll be very difficult for any other festival to develop such a history...
and such a strong feeling of loyalty...
that the Glastonbury audience has
It's got a very different, very special atmosphere there...
that you can really feel as a performer on the stage
I think it's a place that we'll always want to go back to
People really sing along very loudly
People singing along to our songs is one of the most important parts of the show
Any kind of interaction is the most important part of the show -
rather than be this kind of dividing line between the band and the audience
And what we've learned over the years is that...
if there's this sense of community, if everyone can sing along...
and it doesn't feel like there's a big divide between the audience and the band...
then everyone's going to have a better time
I think everyone's part of the show
You know, the way we've designed it...
and all of these little tricks we've picked up and invented along the way
it just makes for a... I think people walk away from the shows really happy
that there's been these big sing-alongs and...
you know, as cheesy as it sounds it's all about the communal spirit, really
It's just an amazing feeling
We always wanted to make the audience feel part of the show
Obviously the biggest new thing that we've done...
is the wristband that everyone gets when they come in
We saw the wristbands tested on a small group of people at a production rehearsal...
and then we tried it in an arena show
We didn't have enough wristbands for everyone and they didn't all work properly...
so it just took a little bit of honing and a little bit of adjustment...
but then it was one of those situations where one night it just all worked...
and the whole place just lit up with all of these multi-coloured flashing neon lights...
and I think we were on stage just looking at each other
We just couldn't believe that we'd managed to make this thing work
We were building this idea of, like, it's about everyone...
it's not just about us and the really fanatical people at the front...
it's about getting everyone involved
And so I think the wristband idea is just a progression of that thought
You know, everyone can be a part of the show
We can make every single person part of the lighting production...
by having a little light on their wrist
I suppose where it all stems from is people holding lighters up in the air
I think it's a natural progression for the history of rock
But, you know, to be able to incorporate things like that into the show...
and to show people things which hadn't been done before is an incredible privilege
I think my anticipation of 'Charlie Brown' in the show
is definitely heightened because I know the wristbands are going to go off
My anticipation of that song is very exciting...
because I know that all those lights are going to start flashing...
and for that reason...
it's probably one of my favourite songs to perform at the moment
We have an unbelievable job, we have an unbelievable crew...
we have unbelievable families, we have really unbelievable fans
And so our job as a band is to try and become unbelievably good...
and we're trying our best
I would love it if in 20 years...
I'd look back on this and think that's where I feel we started to become really good...
or it's the beginning of a good patch for us where we started to really be free...
and not worried about the people that don't like us...
but really grateful for the people that do...
and trying to make colourful music that they like and we like...
where it's just freedom of expression
I see this tour is the last, kind of, shackles being thrown off...
of being worried about what anyone thinks
Through the course of Mylo Xyloto I'd say that as a band...
we're functioning better than we ever have
We've been through the break-ups and addictions...
and arguments and financial disagreements...
and Phil not being here for a bit...
or not working properly together in the studio...
or falling out about which hours someone likes to work
We're a very private band, we don't tell anyone very much
We definitely don't tell anyone about all the darker side of things
because we don't really believe in that rock 'n' roll cliche, myth thing
We feel that everyone in the world...
whether you work in a biscuit factory or the White House...
there's thing's going on and struggles and issues...
and just because you're in a band doesn't make that any more glamorous
Do you see what I'm saying? So we don't tend to focus on the negatives...
but of course, like everyone else, negatives come up...
but we're really lucky that we've worked out how to deal with them...
and help each other through them and come out the other side a bit stronger
It's wonderful
It's that chemistry that people are coming to see as much as anything else
Because at the end of the day that's what makes a band special
You're not prodigiously talented musicians, you're not virtuosos...
but you have a chemistry that no one else in the world has
So you don't fuck with it
It's by learning to sort of pick each other up...
I think it feeds back into the music and into the concert...
in a really positive way
Sometimes it's overwhelming...
the fact that we're having the best time as a band this far in
We've a lot of ideas about how to make the concert even better and get better songs...
and at the moment there's kind of an understanding between the five of us...
of how we each function and it's really amazing
It's like when people who've been married for 70 years tell you...
'Oh, you've just got to work really hard and it'll get better'
You know, what does that mean?
Now we're starting to kind of understand
And every time we have a crisis we sort of tighten up again and move on...
so in that sense we're so blessed to have a band...
because it's always fixing itself
Everything feels possible and it's really so exciting to go to work every day