This leaves us with last night. Shoreline Amphitheatre, just outside of San Fran to be precise. I'll be honest with you folks, the only thing that mattered to me tonight was the presence of one Steve Jobs. I'm a confirmed Apple devotee and I really cannot imagine doing the job I do now (or even having got into this line of work) without my Macbook Pro (and all the Powerbooks that went before it). Creating these tools and putting them into the hands of folks like me was the vision of this man.

I spot Steve chatting with the band's manager, Dave Holmes, outside the dressing room and suddenly feel like a star-struck teenager. In order to get the gall up to speak to the guy, I down a double espresso. The mixture of caffeine buzz and feeling like a cheesy little fanboy means that all I can manage to say to him is "Thank you so much". I realise that I'm quite simply making a tit of myself and so excuse myself as fast as I appeared.

While we know that Steve Jobs is officially back at Apple for a "few days a week" after his liver transplant, it is good to know that he feels well enough to do the Coldplay groupie thing.

Jobs' health was rapidly declining at the end of 2008, with a Gizmodo source reporting that he may not reach summer 2009. After much ruckus, Apple's CEO had to admit that the situation was much worse than previously admitted—although the SEC is still suspicious about the disclosure process. As a result, he had to leave his post "temporarily." Recently, we learnt the situation was indeed so dangerous that he needed a liver transplant.

However, what matters is that he managed to survive his health problems and he's back, probably humming "See You Soon" backstage. [Coldplay's Blog via Gawker]

This little nugget of Apple envy was pointed out by TechCrunch, and I will have to agree that the similarities are pretty obvious. What's more striking is U2's willingness to play the corporate field. Bono is a founder of Elevation Partners, a company with a major stake in Palm. U2 has also been heavily involved with Apple in the past and their new concert tour is sponsored by RIM. Three major rivals...I hope they all wore protection. [TechCrunch]

Playing live is what we love. This album is a thank you to our fans - the people who give us a reason to do it and make it happen.

However, instead of adopting Nine Inch Nails' position on free music, Coldplay is saying that they are doing this as a thank you to fans in this time of economic recession. I'm not going to argue with their reasons. It's free and I like Chris Martin. Although not in the way Jason Chen likes Chris Martin. OK, maybe a little.

Check the band's tour dates at their web site, and go there on May 15 to get the album. [Coldplay]

The track list also includes a Thin White Duke remix of Viva La Vida that you won't find on iTunes. That's great and everything, but I'll stick with the NIN version so that I can stay awake during the game. [iTunes]

There have been attempts to robotize music before but since up until right now robots didn't have souls, none of them have made a lasting impact. Ham, Wiggy, Swamp and Fifi (yeah, they have names), who I would gladly pay upwards of $4 to see, have a show booked for the 21st of June in their native Hamilton, NZ for any interested Kiwis.
[MySpace via Make]

"It was one of those things where we were in the position of everyone asking us what we were going to do," Yorke told the Hollywood Reporter." I don't think it would have the same significance now anyway, if we chose to give something away again. It was a moment in time."

Yorke and Co. have remained tight-lipped about whether they think the move was a success or not, but the freebie method has been adopted by other artists, notably Nine Inch Nails. The latest group to jump on the freebie bandwagon is Coldplay, aka Radiohead Lite, who announced on Monday that their new single, Violet Hill, would be available for free, and promptly b0rked the interweb* with their selfless gesture. [Reuters]

*The band's official website crashed.

*At this point, I would like to out myself as a music fan whose taste runs to GWAR, the Tygers of Pan-Tang, Yanni, Tony Orlando and the Singing Nun. I thangyew. [eBay via Music Thing]