If the remaining members of the Beastie Boys ever wanted to recreate the music video for “Intergalactic” surely Chris Martin wouldn’t mind stepping in for the late, great MCA.
I’m not sure when Coldplay became obsessed with the galaxy but the band has been doing this titanic, leave-the-world-behind super-pop thing for many years now. It’s run stale many times but when it hits, the impact is seismic, shifting the idea of what these once melancholic pop rockers can be and how they continue to exist in an industry as fickle and unforgiving as popular music.
Pop music is running increasingly stale these days, overly concerned with pandering to zeitgeisty trends, hitting that “golden snippet” for TikTok and, for whatever mind-numbing reason, giving Jack Anatoff a pass for being the most uninteresting person in music. And so it makes sense that a band as esteemed as Coldplay would abandon the safer, more familiar pop-rock sounds of albums like A Rush of Blood to the Head and X&Y to continually climb higher, slowly adding new styles to their repertoire as if it was a pre-requisite for them to leave their earthly bodies behind.
They’ve touched our hearts and minds. Now they want to touch the stars, and they’ll experiment with whatever gets them there the fastest. Shoegaze, dream pop, Afropop, world music, hip hop, R&B, soul, prog rock with a slight hint of grunge. But like an overly ambitious restaurant that tries to touch on every cuisine or an overstuffed streaming service giving you choice anxiety, Coldplay’s latter stages are pocked with both spectacular highs and ain’t-what-they-used-to-be lows.
And yet the band has deftly transcended debates about their relevancy. Yes, it’s true that Chris Martin isn’t the bulletproof artist we all thought he was once was. He can do wrong, and Moon Music’s weaker tracks are evidence. The reason for their omnipotence is that no one – really, no one – can put on a show like these London lads can.
With a retirement plan in sight, Coldplay rocked Sydney on the first of four nights at Accor Stadium. We are but a tiny speck in the galactic Music of the Spheres tour, which the band kicked off at Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica on 18th March 2022, but for two solid hours of past, present and future, Coldplay made Sydney feel like the centre of the universe.
It’s taken over two years for the band to reach this city, playing for the first time since they rocked Allianz Stadium in 2016. And their discography has swelled over the past 8 years, largely replacing the poignant pop that they’re virtually unrivalled in, with an almost overbearing message of unity, peace and community.
It’s a message the world sorely needed on that very night, just hours after it was declared that Donald Trump would be taking office again. Chris Martin only slightly referenced the US election results on one occasion, instead quickly switching the negativity into gratitude that we’re all here together, belting out the call of “Viva La Vida” with communal conviction.
Where Chris Martin is right now is painted on the support acts. Shone, from Zimbabwe, Iraq-born Emmanuel Kelly, and rising Afropop star Arya Starr from Nigeria. With Coldplay’s transition into more worldly endeavours (please read about the tour’s sustainability initiatives, they’re great), Martin seems to feel responsible for lifting artists of colour onto one of the most important platforms in modern music.
Supporting Coldplay must be a dream for three artists who’ve yet to make a sizable dent in the commercial world. Shone’s fluid, Afropop-like hip hop felt jarring for Coldplay’s music, but that’s not really the point here. The short, sweet performance was enough to mark him as one to most certainly watch, while Kelly seems primed for much bigger things with a beautiful, expressive voice and a mighty stage presence hiding a very inspirational and tragic backstory.
Arya Starr is the most recognised of the three, which is why she was on just minutes before Coldplay came out. With artists like Tems gaining popularity, Arya Starr’s slick, bouncy afropop successfully got the crowd in a joyful mood for what was to come.
Much like they always do, Coldplay split their set list into conceptual acts, most taking place up and down the catwalk-style main stage while some moved to a more intimate platform towards the back of the stadium floor.
A big part of it all was those LED wristbands that they had been experimenting with since 2012’s Mylo Xyloto tour. It’s a smart, easy way to get the crowd more involved, turning each and every attendee into literal stars. But it’s different this time. The wristbands are much more sophisticated and varied, turning the entire stadium into a rich and sumptuous light show far beyond what artists like Taylor Swift have achieved with their own blockbuster tours.
At times, it looked like the entire stadium was decked in Christmas lights.
The innovative wearable gadget helped build a remarkably immersive experience, calibrated to the style of each song. Then you’ve got an overengineered production with no less than four fireworks displays, endless streams of confetti so vivid they looked inspired by India’s Holi festival, and streams of fire.
Visually, Coldplay’s show could win over even the most weirdly pretentious Tool fan, but musically there were some misfires behind all that theatre. Moon Music cuts like “WE PRAY” and “GOOD FEELiINGS” are confused enough on record, but live they feel overwhelmed by the sheer size of the stadium. Even a classic like “Clocks” falls a bit flat, with the immortal piano riff drowned out by Will Champion’s energetic drumming.
But by “some misfires” I really mean “very few.” The way Coldplay works in improvisation is quite impressive, if not slightly contrived. “Green Eyes” was the night’s biggest surprise, stripped down while performed with two young fans who supposedly held a sign begging for the underrated love song. There’s also a smart interpolation of AC/DC and Kylie Minogue lyrics into personal favourite “God Put A Smile On Your Face.”
But the slick, highly rehearsed moments were the highlights. “Viva La Vida” wasn’t given the cinematic treatment it was when its namesake album was released, but it still sounded larger than life with 60,000 backing vocalists booming as loud as Will’s floor tom.
The song that started it all, “Yellow,” was smartly given a faithful performance while tender songs like “Sparks” and “Fix You” are similarly straightforward and penetrative. The latter, an expected highlight, is often the moment you look around and realise just how important some of these songs are to people.
And it makes sense. Coldplay’s more emotionally cathartic songs are coming-of-age staples that have (likely) soundtracked some incredibly dark, deep and personal moments for most in attendance. Looking around, watching everyone shout the lyrics with eyes closed and tears flowing, is the only kind of evangelical moment that works without stumbling into saccharine territory.
The only muted arrangement for a chart-topper was the blunt “Something Just Like This,” where the EDM-bro drop is flatter and less triumphant, strangely nixing the opportunity to work in more confetti-fireworks-streamers-pyro. Creature-like LED helmets and seemingly random dancing security guards replace the theatrics, which teeters the spectacle into something a bit too silly.
The Hulking performance sits on a level unseen by any touring artist or band right now. As for as highly polished, stratospheric live music experiences go, Coldplay’s current tour sits second only to seeing a show at the Las Vegas Sphere. It helps that the music is mostly good as well.
“I cried a bit. I was smiling the hardest I’ve ever smiled while having tears in my eyes during a couple of their songs. Best feeling I’ve ever had in my life” – Sk3tchyyy, Reddit.
FOUR AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Coldplay’s Music of the Sphere concert continues in Sydney this weekend, but all tickets are currently sold out. I attended the first concert on November 6th, 2024.
All photos by Bruce Baker with the full gallery here.
