Coldplay will kick off its 2005 world tour with the biggest headlining shows it has ever played in its native United Kingdom. The group will play London’s Crystal Palace Athletics Stadium on June 27-28, Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park on July 1 and Bolton’s Reebok Stadium on July 4-5; each venue holds around 30,000 people.
As first reported here, the band will in June release the long-awaited follow-up to its 2002 breakthrough album, “A Rush of Blood to the Head.” Some new material is nearly guaranteed to be debuted when the band plays a March 12 benefit show for Los Angeles-area radio station KCRW at the Universal Amphitheatre.
Sources say the group is expected to begin rehearsing for the performance in Los Angeles in the coming days. “We’ve spent a long time in the studio and haven’t played a gig for eighteen months, so we can’t wait to get out on tour and play our new songs live,” guitarist Jonny Buckland says in a statement.
Tickets for the U.K. shows go on sale to Coldplay.com subscribers on Thursday (March 3); with the general public on-sale set for Saturday.
