Coldplay at Wembley Stadium: “A night that will be remembered by 80,000 people for years to come”

In a decade when bands and albums have lost their appeal, Coldplay have somehow found a way to stay relevant and attract new audiences each time they release a record. This move comes at a price, their last albums a far cry from the unique, coherent works of songwriting they used to be, now rather a collection of attempts to make a hit.

In fact, the band’s most recent release, Music of the Spheres, is produced by Max Martin, one of the world’s best if you can’t write a song but still wish to top the charts. This collaboration had “recipe for disaster” written all over it. And while it turned out to be, by far, Coldplay’s worst-selling album, there were a few good songs on it; the lead singles did well, and a new generation of people are now fans of the group.

Live, however, Chris Martin, Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman and Will Champion are still the best act out there. And this is primarily due to Martin being the most energy-driven, heart-warming and galvanising frontman of any band.

Today Coldplay take up a six-night residency at Wembley Stadium, which is the longest in the history of the venue for a rock act, tying the record of the Stones in 1990. They kick off the show with a high-octane series of hits: Higher Power, Adventure of a Lifetime and Paradise. It impresses how 80,000 know the lyrics of nearly every song, which makes for a life-affirming experience.

As the sun goes down, the trademark interactive LED wristbands that each member of the audience wears comes to life. The explosive Charlie Brown – the first of a number of fan favourites – best expresses this stadium-wide burst of sparkling colours. Since their introduction in 2012, the wearable lights have evolved into a more complex system that can also display images such as huge hearts or waves of moving lights.

There are instances when Wembley really come together as one in the most emotional way, first on The Scientist – “we are essentially in the same band today, this is your concert, our concert. We can sing it together,” the singer tells the crowd  – then, later in the set, on Fix You, with the whole stadium in a candlelit atmosphere thanks to the LEDs.

Viva la Vida is another moment where you just realise no other band in the world can offer a spectacle like this, the “oh-oh-oh-oh-oh” chant echoing in the arena as well as in the mind for hours after the end of the show.

An all-time favourite of your writer, Politik is Coldplay’s most incredible song. It opens A Rush of Blood to the Head and was a watershed for the four-piece – and for band music in general. It’s the most emblematic of the magnitude of their sound. In an era where rock acts were all playing in the field of Oasis and U2, Coldplay just hit it out of the park, bringing the piano to centre stage in a rock context. The song and the album showed they had the alt-rock flair of Radiohead and the epic reach of Bono’s band.

On top of running, dancing and jumping around the various stages as if it was his last day on earth, Martin knows a thing or two about interacting with a crowd of this size. Just before the chorus of A Sky Full of Stars, he interrupts the performance to ask everyone to put their phones in their pockets for one song and live the moment in full, singing and jumping all together. He also adds that just a few days before, when they did this in Berlin, the local authority registered an earthquake. What follows is quite spectacular.

The number of hits Coldplay have put together during the years is impressive, with classics like Yellow, In My Place, Clocks and Spotify sensations Something Just Like This and My Universe played in a matter of minutes. During the acoustic section of the show, at the back of the stadium, the band invite Craig David to join them on stage for a duet. They sing Live in the Moment and early hit Fill Me In, the latter showcasing the impressive, fast-yet-emotive delivery of the R&B singer.

As we reach the encore, it’s clear that Coloratura, hands down the best song from Music of the Spheres, is not going to be performed. It’s a ten-minute piece which probably wouldn’t work for the entire crowd, but it’s a risk they should have taken.

Coldplay return to the stage to play the uplifting Humankind ­– “from another planet still they call us humankind”, referring to the kindness people are capable of –  and the tear-inducing, 2005 masterpiece Fix You. What a great finale – if it only was the finale. The concert is actually closed by the sweet and hugely anticlimactic Biutyful, a duet with the fictitious singer of alien puppet band “the Weirdos”. However, this little lapse of judgement doesn’t really affect a night that will be remembered by 80,000 people for years to come.

Filippo L’Astorina, the Editor
Photo: Luke Dyson

For further information and future events visit Coldplay’s website here.

Watch Coldplay live at Wembley in full here: