CHRIS EXPLAINS HIS ‘TROUBLE’

The excitement of scooping three awards seemed to go to Chris Martin's head, as he explains...

COLDPLAY – currently taking the US by storm and out-selling acts including THE CHARLATANS and STEREOPHONICS at venues across the country – have revealed what lay behind their bizarre acceptance speeches at the NME CARLING AWARDS last week.

Speaking in this week’s issue of NME, on sale across the UK today (February 14), singer Chris Martin explains why he felt “terrified” at the Awards, and why he went AWOL before the end of the show.

Coldplay won three awards on the day, but Martin made some nervous, confused speeches from the stage and ended up running from the venue in Shoreditch, London.

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“I was completely terrified by the whole situation,” he told NME.COM. “I got there and I was sat among Oasis, Radiohead and U2 and I felt like this little kid, I didn’t know what I was doing. Then I had to get the awards and I was terrified.”

There were no problems with the first award for the Radio 1 Evening Session Of The Year, but when he went up to collect the second award for Best New Artist, Martin was visibly nervy and made an ill-advised comment about Craig David and “cauliflower hair”.

He explained: “I’ve been so aware that some people are not as keen on us any more as they were, but I forget that lots of people still like us. I keep thinking lots of people are out to get us, when they aren’t. I get paranoid.

“After we got our second award, I thought I had been rude about Bono. I think he’s great, but then I think I said I had to go. I just felt I was in some sort of nightmare. I don’t really think I said anything, I just imagined it. Maybe I was a bit jet-lagged [the band flew in from Australia that day]. I wanted to say, ‘We’re doing well and we’ve got a new album on the way.’ But it came out as this garbled nonsense. I hadn’t eaten all day and I had some champagne, when I don’t normally drink much. I drank it out of fear. It seems amusing today.”

Asked about the Craig David remark, Martin said: “I don’t know what that was about. I meant to say Brussels sprouts and it came out as cauliflower. Everything came out wrong.”

The Coldplay singer apologised when he went to collect the third award for Best Single, then made a sharp exit before the ceremony finished.

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“I just ran off,” he told NME.COM. “I ended up hanging around half a mile away around Liverpool Street station. Then my girlfriend found me.”

Despite the trauma, Martin added: “I was glad we won three, because it gave me a chance to patch up what I said on the first one. And I respect the NME because it champions the new boys. We’ve grown up reading it.”

Coldplay, whose single ‘Yellow’ is getting heavy airplay in the US, flew out to Canada the day after the awards for their first North American tour, and as reported on NME.COM on Monday (February 12), got off to a flying start last week with a date at Vancouver Commodore Ballroom on Thursday (February 8), and proceeded to play shows in Seattle, Portland and San Francisco.

The remaining dates are:

Los Angeles Mayan Theater (February 14)

New York Irving Plaza (16)

Boston Paradise (17)

Chicago Metro (19)

Toronto Guvernment (20)

Miami Crobar (22)

Miami Hard Rock Cafe, Gavin Radio Convention (23)

The Commodore Ballroom gig was webcast live by [url=]www.hob.com and will be repeated on February 27.

We want to know what you think of Coldplay if you’ve seen them playing live in the US or Canada. Are they living up to the hype? Will they herald a new Britrock invasion? E-mail your comments to us at anthony@nme.com.

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