Concert Watch: Metallica Tix on Sale at 2pm Today; Coldplay to Play Beijing in April?

Metallica tickets are due to go on sale today (Nov 17) at en.damai.cn, and if you want any chance in hell of scoring a ticket without paying scalpers inflated prices for this sure-to-be-sold-out show, you best buy asap as the last time they played China (in namby-pamby Shanghai), two shows sold out in hours.

Tickets, set to go on sale at 2pm today, are now listed on Damai and are priced at RMB 480, 680, 980, 1,480, and 2,280.

In other concert news, is everyone's favorite love-to-hate band Coldplay (move over U2) going to announce a Beijing gig soon?

Confirmed Asia gigs announced yesterday leaves a suspicious eight-day window between gigs in the Philippines (Apr 4) and in Taiwan (Apr 12), which leaves them the perfect opportunity to hop on over to the mainland for a show or two.

Given that the rest of their world tour dates rarely have a gap that large, it seems likely they are at least considering a China gig.

This sort of situation is not unusual, and in fact is kind of how the sausage gets made with China dates on Asian concert tours – often the bureaucracy in China results in more difficulty announcing shows here, and this is precisely what happened with the Metallica shows.

As one of the world's most successful bands, there's no doubt Coldplay has a large fanbase in China, though it remains to be seen exactly how much the band knows about the Middle Kingdom. An embarassingly innacurate portrayal of Chinese culture in their video for their single "Princess of China" got them in a bit of hot water in 2012, but perhaps all was forgiven when Beijing-born star Zhang Ziyi co-starred in their video "Magic" in 2014.

Should shows get booked, Coldplay would be making their mainland China debut. Though they've performed multiple times in Japan and Singapore, the closest they've gotten to the PRC has been shows in Hong Kong in 2006 and 2009.

However, not much is known about how China feels about Coldplay leader Chris Martin's outspoken politics, an issue that has prevented more than a few Western acts from getting the clearance they need from the Ministry of Culture to play gigs here. One local promoter reached for comment rates the chances of Coldplay performing here at close to zero.

We'll keep you posted as we hear anything new ... and stay tuned yourself via Coldplay's website or concert promoter LiveNation's online presence.

Images: Coldplay, Xinhua