Oxfam Coldplay Tour Blog 2011

Coffee, PJs of various sorts, and more Balloons

Hello all! 

Just checking in from Cinncinati, Ohio. Today has been quite the eventful day despite my thinking that a day off in Cinncinati was going to be one of those marathon-movie-watching-in-bed days that are often accompanied by massive amounts of hotel room coffee and some form of chinese take out.

We awoke around 11:30 in the morning by the declaration that we’d arrived to our hotel and that we had to wake up and get off the bus so that it could be parked off-site. Often times on days off, we get to wake up at our own leisure and check in our hotels when we’re ready to; but today our buses were too big to park in front of the hotel so we had to be rushed off upon arrival. So I climbed out of my bunk in the most undignified of manners and got my bags in order. Our bunks are three high and three deep in the center of the bus. They are sandwiched in a corridor between front and back “lounges.” I use the term “lounge” lightly here because there isn’t much lounging happening on a bus of 12 people. Anyway, my bunk is on the very top, so one could imagine how difficult it is to climb down half asleep….

I got off the bus with my buddy and bus-mate, Marta, just as we were being told (after exerting the energy to climb out of the bunk, put on shoes, and take our bags out of the hold) that our rooms aren’t ready and we needed to wait on the bus. Marta had declared that she’d rather walk around the city in pajamas then wait on the bus. So I washed the eyeliner from last night that had worked its way all around my face and headed out with her. We started the day with coffee and ice cream under a sun umbrella shielding us from the sudden rain (I told you that it’s this crew that brings rain everywhere we go!), walked around the gorgeous downtown Cincinnati, and ended with lunch. We ran into another bus-mate in the hotel after checking in (finally!) who told us about the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center a few blocks away and Marta and I agreed that we’d get out of our pjs and head over there in an hour. I’m writing this in a mad rush because I only have about 15 minutes before I have to meet her in the lobby.

Speaking of pjs, there was an email waiting for me from our lovely production team about being invited to the PJ Harvey concert later on tonight. What a day indeed! 

Now about all this rain, last night was show 10 of this leg and the 5th show that saw rain! Despite all the rain, however, the amazing Oxfam volunteers have managed to motivate 7,649 new people to take action with Oxfam America! Oxfam America’s goal for the US portions of the Viva La Vida tour this summer is 30,000 new people taking action with Oxfam, and we are well on our way to exceeding that goal! 

Remember when I talked about leaving the bricks and carrying the balloons? Well, today I’m carrying 7,649 balloons; I’m so inspired by all the love we’ve been getting by Coldplay fans.

Here’s how the number break-down looks:

West Palm Beach 5/15/09: 1,100 (I told you they’d set the bar!)

Atlanta 5/17: 600

Birmingham 5/18: 617

Virginia Beach 5/20: 1045

Washington, DC 5/21: 881

Hartford 5/23: 917

Hershey 5/24: 765

Philadelphia 5/26: 1000

Pittsburgh 5/30: 724 (adjusted from 838 due to a tired Oxfam roadie clerical error)

Just from the Viva La Vida tour alone last year, Oxfam was able to get 80,000 new people to take action with us from all over the world! 20 people here, and 60 people there add up to a strong force. We all count. If you haven’t signed up with Oxfam yet, make yourself count and join us by checking out Oxfamamerica.org/concerts. 

Peace from Cincinnati,

s

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 at 3:34 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.