Honoring a legend.
Coldplay was in Nashville last night, and of course the cheating CEO jokes were flying. I honestly don’t even think I would have known about the show at Nissan Stadium if the British rock band hadn’t gone viral last week for inadvertently exposing a CEO’s affair with his tech company’s HR lady on the jumbotron during their show at Gillette Stadium.
But now, Coldplay is suddenly back in the public consciousness, if only because people are hoping to see another viral moment like that from one of their shows. (I mean, it can’t be for their music, can it?)
Anyway, because of that viral video, I knew that Coldplay was in Music City last night. And of course when you come to Nashville you have to bring out a special guest, right?
That’s just what Chris Martin and the band did last night when they welcomed country music superstar Keith Urban to the stage near the end of their set. But rather than playing one of his own songs, Keith was there to help honor country music legend Johnny Cash.
As it turns out, Coldplay had actually written a song called “Til Kingdom Come” that was set to be recorded by Cash. But unfortunately, Cash passed away back in 2003, before he could get the song in the studio. So last night in Nashville, it was only fitting for Coldplay and Keith Urban to play the song in his honor.
@lizgoldschmidt
According to Martin:
“This is a song we wrote for Johnny Cash, and it was all ready for him to record, it was in his next batch of songs, then he passed on so we always sing it in his honor because Johnny Cash is one of the first musicians most of us fell in love with. I’m sure most of you too.”
@n.asfari Til Kingdom Come – Coldplay ft. Keith Urban 🎸 @coldplay #ColdplayNashville #Coldplay #KeithUrban #ChrisMartin
The song was included by Coldplay as a hidden track on their 2005 album X&Y. And while Johnny never got to record the song, his younger sister Joanne Cash joined up with the Australian Christian duo For King & Country a few years ago to record her own version of the song originally written for her older brother.
CEO Resigns After Coldplay Cheating Scandal
He gone.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen something grip the internet like the cheating CEO at a Coldplay concert has these past few days. (He also had a pretty tight grip on the HR lady, but that’s beside the point).
I’m sure you’ve seen the video by now of Andy Byron, the CEO of tech company Astronomer, getting caught (allegedly) cheating on his wife with the company’s HR director Kristin Cabot during a Coldplay concert.
The viral clip shows Byron and Cabot cuddled up at the concert before getting exposed by the jumbotron camera operator. They quickly separated and tried to hide their faces, but by then the damage was already done. (Honestly their reaction made it way worse…he hit the ground and she ran away, making it clear that something was up). And not only that, they also got called out by Coldplay frontman Chris Martin:
“Oh look at these two. Oh come on, you’re okay. What? Either they’re having an affair, or they’re just very shy.”
Well the video quickly went viral, and the jokes and memes quickly followed. Social media users found Byron’s wife and noticed that she removed her last name from her social media page before deactivating it altogether, and even several country artists like Morgan Wallen and Luke Bryan have made jokes about it during their own concerts:
@tcmyth @morganwallen is truly just one of the boys 😆🤟🏻 #morganwallen #glendaleaz #concerts #morganwallentiktok #fyp
So far the couple (or alleged couple) have remained silent, despite the fact that they’ve been the main characters on the internet for a week now.
But the company issued a statement last week on the incident, announcing that they’ve opened an investigation into the incident, while also putting to bed a rumor that the shocked woman beside them was another Astronomer employee:
“Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability.
The Board of Directors has initiated a formal investigation into this matter and we will have additional details to share very shortly.
Alyssa Stoddard was not at the event and no other employees were in the video. Andy Byron has not put out any statement, reports saying otherwise are all incorrect.”
And just a day later, Byron stepped down as CEO of the tech company.
In a statement, Astronomer says that their “standard was not met” and that Byron has tendered his resignation:
“As stated previously, Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met.
Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and the Board of Directors has accepted. The Board will begin a search for our next Chief Executive as Cofounder and Chief Product Officer Pete DeJoy continues to serve as interim CEO.
Before this week, we were known as a pioneer in the DataOps space, helping data teams power everything from modern analytics to production AI. While awareness of our company may have changed overnight, our product and our work for our customers have not.
We’re continuing to do what we do best: helping our customers with their toughest data and AI problems.”
I mean, it was really the only possible outcome. If he stayed on, not only would there be constant jokes and questions from employees about the boss sleeping with the HR lady, but the company would never escape being known as having the guy who cheated on his wife at a Coldplay concert as their CEO. Hard to do…whatever it is they do, with all that going on.
Let this be a lesson to everybody out there: Don’t listen to Coldplay.
