Oxfam Coldplay Tour Blog 2010

Hello from Toronto!

Hello world!

I’m coming at you from the lovely lovely Toronto, Canada on the second of two much appreciated days off. This leg has been characterized by many long drives that end with our arriving to our hotel on a day off at 7pm with just enough time to take a good shower, grab dinner, and have a decent night’s sleep on a real bed before waking up the next day and doing it all over again.

This tour has given me the opportunity to become acquainted with many of our neighbor in the north’s major cities and the more time I spend here, the more I love it. I’ve mentioned before how Oxfam Canada’s teams never cease to amaze me, so I’m very much looking forward to working with Team Toronto tomorrow at Rogers Center. Even Team Vancouver, who managed to acquire 1600 Action Cards at their show last month, bragged about how impressed I’d be with them. I don’t doubt that.

I’ve been fortunate to work with so many amazing teams in the US and Canada. However, I’ll be honest with you, world, when I look back on this past summer, it’s all a blur. Being in a new city everyday, heading up Oxfam teams, working long days on absurd amounts of sleep, tracking sign-ups, blogging, constantly misplacing and finding my reading glasses, wondering if I have any clean clothes left, and working with Team Rock to make sure the Oxfam operations continue to function like a well-oiled machine, is a lot to keep track of. My fear of forgetting the people I meet and the things I see is why I take so many pictures. My run as Oxfam roadie will end when the tour heads back to Europe and the baton is passed back to my boy, Pete. So maybe when all is said and done I’ll start a photo sharing account where you can see the thousands of pictures of volunteers, the crew, Coldplay etc. I will say this, however, I never forget my teams. I remember all of you, your favorite Coldplay songs, and how you got involved with Oxfam. Just try me, I won’t disappoint.

Speaking of pictures, lets do a little bit of a recap in pictures of the past few days.

After Houston, we set out for St. Louis where I reunited with “Team Jen” and was able to catch the Incubus concert the day before Coldplay performed at the same venue. Check this out, its a picture of Incubus fans holding up real lighters during a song. I’ve never seen that at a show before!

We made it to East Troy, Wisconsin where the Team and I had to hold on to the Oxfam tent lest it fly away in a sudden thunderstorm.

The storm was intense, but we were able to pull off a really great night. Check out this pic of some of the team members looking like a group of rebel “Justice Defenders.”

This brings us to Saratoga Springs. I’d have to have Chris Martin-like song writing skills to be able to express how awesomely awesome this team was. As if their collective commitment to social justice, or the fact that the team was organized by one skateboard riding/fluorescent hat wearing, Craig, wasn’t enough to impress me, they broke the record for the most sign-ups in a US city. Yes, Indianapolis, you have been de-throned by Team Saratoga Springs, who got an amazing 1350 people to take action with Oxfam at a single show! On top of that, they were the source of what is one by far one of the coolest things I’ve seen on this tour.

The team must also have some collective good karma because Coldplay’s team happened to have extra pit tickets that they just happened to give to the Oxfam volunteers. This almost never happens and it was a great way to reward such a committed bunch. The team created quite the visual spectacle during Viva La Vida by taking off their Oxfam bandanas and waving them in the air. You could see the waving Oxfam bandanas clearly from any point in the amphitheater, and it looked super cool. No pictures of that scene unfortunately; although I don’t think I’ll be needing a picture to remember that amazing moment.

Here’s a picture of Team Saratoga featuring me on Craig’s board.

Much love to all of the Oxfam teams- and don’t worry, Indianapolis, I’d still ask you out for a second date.

xoxo from Toronto,

s

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 3:04 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.