Tour rumours: Coldplay,Soundgarden, The Maccabees,Azealia Banks

Sun 29th Jan, 2012 in Local News

Coldplay will tour Australia later this year, according to Collingwood president Eddie McGuire.

McGuire, who also works with everyone’s favourite rumour monger Nui Te Koha at Triple M, claims that the news about the Coldplay tour comes straight from Michael Gudinski who blabbed the gossip while sitting next to Eddie last night. The news story on Triple M doesn’t actually mention where the pair were sitting next to each other – at a picnic? at church? at a secret meeting of the Illuminati? – but nonetheless it does seem like a reasonably credible piece of news.

Chris Martin and the other blokes who play in Coldplay visited Australia for just one show last year – a headline slot at Splendour In The Grass – and have since released their fifth album MyloXyloto so a return tour in 2012 is almost a certainty.

Has Chris Cornell brought a share house with The Wombats? He’s currently touring with Soundgarden just months after visiting us for a solo acoustic tour last October and already he’s talking up another visit.

The Soundgarden frontman told Triple M that the band “will come back soon after our album comes out and do a proper headlining tour” and repeating the claim on stage in at the band’s Big Day Out sideshow in Sydney. FL’s review of the Sydney gig was full of praise for the band (if not the sound mixer) claiming that the show “proved they are still a devastating and visceral band who seem to get just as much of a kick out of revisiting their music as their fans do”.

English indie rockers The Maccabees have also revealed that they’ll be touring Australia “in a couple of months” to play tracks from their newly released third album Given To The Wild.

Front man man Orlando Weeks dropped the tasty tour tidbit in an interview with Zan Rowe on triple j and although he was a little unclear on the specifics it seems that an appearance at Groovin’ the Moo could be on the cards.

Weeks admitted “I should know this but I’ve got some many things in my brain… I think it’s April. It’s a travelling festival thing; we’re going to be in Australia for like 3 1/2 weeks… The fact that we’re coming to Australia to play is such a huge deal to us. None of us have even been to Australia”.

The Groovin’ the Moo actually kicks off in May, but with festival promoter Stephen Halpin recently boasting that the 2012 festival features a “great bunch of international acts – including a couple that have never toured Australia before” it seems quite possible that The Maccabees could be the second band to leak the news of their place on the lineup.

In other tour news rapper Azealia Banks – who managed to win more hype than Lana Del Rey in the final weeks of 2011 and who hasn’t yet disgraced herself with a mediocre performance on Saturday Night Live – has revealed that she’ll also be paying us a visit at some stage this year.

According to her excited tweets the coolest musician of 2011 (according to NME) will be “Playing so many international dates this year! More UK dates, Australia, Japan, Scandinavia.. So many exciting things happening this year. !!!! I reaaaaally can’t wait for australia !! I wanna go on a safari! It’s like another world!”