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Written by Charlene Arsenault
Wednesday, 30 July 2008

By Charlene Arsenault

• Handpicked by Coldplay: They won’t be going by the name The Cockroaches and it isn’t a secret, but local band The Luxury is playing a warm-up show at The Lucky Dog this Saturday night. They’re warming up to open for the big Coldplay show at TD Banknorth Garden in Boston Monday. Here’s how they got there: Capitol Records ran contests in Boston, Hartford, Philly, D.C. and San Jose. Bands were required to submit a video to YouTube, all of them judged by local radio stations. In Boston, that station was WFNX. The DJs picked 15 semi-finalists out of close to 400 entries. The 15 bands were put to an online vote lasting 10 days. Those five finalists were submitted to Coldplay. Coldplay picked The Luxury. “It’s very cool to know that we were actually handpicked by those guys,” says bassist Justin “Pez” Day, who joins drummer/singer Stephen Foster, lead guitarist/singer Daanen Krouth, lead singer/guitarist Jason Dunn and keyboardist Steven Borek in The Luxury. The original band was a conglomeration of two Boston bands: Baby Strange and The Halogens. After a complete overhaul, and then unsteady membership in the band, this lineup has been together for a year. “None of us are really nervous about playing in front of that many people,” says Day. “It’s actually a lot easier to play in front of a whole sea of faces than it is to play in front of a small handful. I only get nervous when it’s like, ‘Hey, there’s Bobby from my 7th grade homeroom. Geez, I hope he doesn’t think we suck.’ But I am a little nervous about being out of our comfort zone, on a stage that size — just having to be a lot farther away from my band mates than I’m used to. Usually, Foster is like four feet away from me, tops. So knowing he won’t be right next to me is a little nerve-wracking.”

Want tickets? Well, the Coldplay show is sold out. Work your connections.