Coldplay Singer Gets Coldcocked

AUGUST 10--A Washington man's karaoke performance of a Coldplay song apparently triggered a female bar patron to attack him early yesterday at a Seattle bar.

According to a Seattle Police Department report, a copy of which you'll find here, Lindsey Lawrence, 21, assaulted the unnamed victim while he was performing with "two other subjects" at Changes Tavern, where patrons sing karaoke Wednesday and Thursday night from 9 PM until 1 AM.

When the assault victim launched into Coldplay's "Yellow," Lawrence allegedly told the man that his "singing sucked" and that the song "fucking sucked." She then grabbed at the man's microphone and "pushed him and punched him in order to get him to stop singing," cops reported.

When employees escorted Lawrence from the bar, she "became very violent" and struck several other people (and was hostile towards police and fire department medics who responded to the scene). Lawrence was booked into the Seattle Correctional Facility, where she is currently being held on an investigation of assault rap.

It is unclear why Coldplay's music apparently made Lawrence snap, though a famous June 2005 New York Times appraisal by Jon Pareles may offer an insight. The critic called the British group "the most insufferable band of the decade," adding that, "the lyrics can make me wish I didn't understand English." (3 pages)