Coldplay’s Chris Martin and U2’s Bono have both commented on the recent Paris attacks that left 130 dead.
Martin said that he heard the news shortly before going onstage in Los Angeles and found it difficult to know how to deal with it.
“At first, we were just depressed, thinking, ‘What’s the point, what are we doing, why bother?’” he told USA Today. “But then we just decided to go onstage anyway and play some music.”
Martin said that their show was given an impromptu setlist change, to reflect what had happened, with new songs replaced by old favourites such as Fix You and Yellow. They also decided to open with a cover of John Lennon’s Imagine, which became one of the songs linked to the aftermath of the attacks after pianist Davide Martello performed it outside the Bataclan venue, where the most deadly attacks had taken place, on a portable piano.
Martin said: “Our job as musicians is just to tell the truth, so that maybe it resonates with others going through something similar. Imagine was going be so resonant because it’s about the antithesis of that kind of terrible activity. Our role that night was to play those kinds of songs.”
He added: “For me personally, it was just so nice to be with my friends, and to think, ‘Well, everyone here is pretty cool and wants to feel good.’ It’s so easy to get despondent and despairing about things in the world. If it isn’t a terrorist attack, it’s an earthquake or an outbreak of something. So your options are to give up and do nothing, or to live more fully than ever. I don’t want to give up hope, because that doesn’t get you anything.”
In his comments, Bono was adamant that the attacks should not let music fans change their way of life. Speaking of his decision to play a rearranged show in Paris next week, he told AP: “Knowing our French audience and having a sense of them by now, I would say joy is an act of defiance. That’s what U2 does, that’s what French people want from us and that’s it.”
The band were originally due to perform in Paris on 14 November, one day after the attacks. Speaking about Eagles of Death Metal, whose show was the scene for the majority of the carnage, Bono described them as “very graceful about it” and the situation as “the most ugly nightmare.”
But he remained defiant in the face of adversary: “We’re going back, you bet. Nothing will stop us from going back. Be vigilant, but be unafraid.”
