“The most peace-loving, love-making, fun-giving, accepting, non-judgmental, wonderful, talented group of brilliant humans that can sing in tune,” was the official epitaph Coldplay’s Chris Martin bestowed onto the Glastonbury crowd during the band’s Saturday night headline set. He would know better than most. The British pop-rockers have become the go-to top billing for the festival, making headlines here this weekend by striding to the top of the Pyramid Stage for a record fifth time.
Amid the chatter for a potentially underwhelming trio of headliners this weekend, criticism for Coldplay’s selection didn’t centre so much on status as it did a lack of something new. What more could they possibly have to say after four previous stints at the top? It fed into the critique that has long cast its spell over the band as safe and samey; or, as the old Peep Show adage goes, “People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can’t trust people.”
But here, experience was the order of the day, with a band playing with complete assurance and reflecting all the values of Glastonbury itself: peace-loving, love-making, and so forth. For one thing, Coldplay have become the standard-bearers of an eco-friendly approach to touring, with their current Music Of The Spheres Tour going to extreme lengths to be as low-carbon as possible (planting up to five million trees and powered by 100% renewable energy, for instance).
And if Mike Skinner, just a short while before on The Other Stage, was the devil on the shoulder, goading Glastonbury-goers to rave until 5am, Chris Martin was the clean-cut angel, creating a wholesome thrill for all. Anticipation for the show had begun earlier in the weekend, when stewards dished out LED wristbands — made from plant-based material, of course — which would light up at points throughout the show. (I was told Martin had walked up to one unsuspecting volunteer earlier on Friday, asking for a wristband from someone who didn’t recognise him — perhaps suggesting something of his unflashy persona).
Beginning with ‘Yellow’, you could feel from the get-go this would be a set replete with Coldplay classics. There was no marketing ploy to push new material here (their last LP, Music Of The Spheres, arrived in 2021), but a panoply of hits. Such was the band’s altruism that they gave space for artists of all kinds to join them, first opening up the floor to Victoria Canal, who has never let her disability get in the way of her piano-playing (she was born without her right forearm due to amniotic band syndrome), and who joined Martin onstage for ‘Paradise’.
And for all the talk of Coldplay being bland, their world is almost entirely technicolour, as matched by the on-screen visuals during ‘Paradise’, the confetti fired during ‘Charlie Brown’ and their collaborative track with Korean giants BTS, ‘MY UNIVERSE’, in which the Pyramid Stage itself became a multicoloured beacon with members of the K-pop phenomenon flashing on its sides.
The most star-studded accompanying force onstage came via Little Simz, who had wrapped-up her set on the same stage just an hour before Coldplay’s, and made a compelling case that it’s only a matter of time until she tops the bill here. She helped give new song ‘We Pray’ (another collaborative track also featuring Burna Boy), its live debut. She in turn would be followed by Femi Kuti — a legend in his own right and the son of Afrobeats pioneer Felt Kuti — and Palestinian-Chilean singer Elyanna for a jazzy segment on the track ‘Arabesque’.
As if this vibrant assortment of supporting cast wasn’t enough, Laura Mvula would follow on with the backing of a beautifully harmonising choir for ‘Violet Hill’. This feature-heavy period of the setlist showed that the benefit of Coldplay’s record-breaking Pyramid Stage appearance was they could use their slot to open up the stage to others — including a security guard, made to wear an alien mask, given his place in the spotlight to dance during a cover of The Chainsmokers’ ‘Something Just Like This’.
You felt Martin could go on for several hours, barely breaking a sweat, despite running back and forth from a B-Stage for a rendition of early Coldplay number ‘Sparks’, and reminiscing over the band’s apparently dreadful first Glastonbury sets. Now a seasoned pro, Martin played the role of conductor for the crowd’s emotions — instructing people to put their phones away for ‘A Sky Full Of Stars’ — to repeatedly unite the approximate 100,000-strong crowd with loving affirmations, and give a nod to the rest of the world watching on television too.
One nifty segment saw him ad-lib a few ditties to random audience members, before the camera turned to festival founder Michael Eavis, “a real living legend”. Despite Eavis’ somewhat distant gaze (a stare that’s seen it all over the decades), this moment was a love-in for Glastonbury itself and got to the nub of why Coldplay have become the poster boys for the Pyramid Stage: the values they embody, their capacity to unite and cut through generations, are a true reflection of Worthy Farm’s founding spirit.
After the camera cuts to Michael J. Fox, who suffers from a debilitating Parkinson’s disease, the Back To The Future Star would join the band onstage for ‘Humankind’, alongside a reappearance of earlier guests. It was a sight to behold: a place where nothing was holding people back. Closing with recent release ‘feelslikeimfallinginlove’ — one of the few new offerings among a catalogue of classics — Martin said it reflected what performing to crowds such as this means to them as a band. The fact is, they might be easily derided as a band for anodyne sensibilities, but they’re record-breaking Glasto headliners for a reason.
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