IAs Chris Martin points out, it’s been 25 years since Coldplay first appeared at Glastonbury Festival, and tonight they’re marking that anniversary with an unexpected acoustic performance of “Sparks” from their debut album, Parachutes. Perhaps more appropriately, this is the fifth time they’ve headlined the festival, and they’re so on point it feels increasingly like that’s what this quartet was born to do.
Since their last appearance in 2016, they’ve made a complete 180-degree turn from earnest stadium ballad singers to relentless, all-out, more-than-ever visual over-purveyors: Their live shows are effectively a 21st-century version of U2’s Zoo TV show, albeit without any of the latter’s theories about the relationship between media and art and commerce.
The show comes in the middle of her spectacular ongoing Music of the Spheres tour, and everything that seemed like 11 when I saw it two years ago is now multiplied by 12. As a result, Dua Lipa’s performance on Friday night was The last cli Shyly modest.
Fireworks and confetti cannons are used not as special effects but as regular punctuation, to mark the arrival of the chorus rather than the climax of the show. Inflatables rolling over the crowd and equipping people with light-up wristbands are the best idea anyone’s come up with for a big gig since they figured out how to turn on big stageside screens. Not only are they visually dazzling, but they’re effective enough to turn even the fringe members of what’s likely to be the biggest crowd of the weekend into part of the performance.
It’s a shamelessly bold crowd-pleaser, from the sing-along anthems “Don’t Look Back In Anger” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” that precede their entrance, to the drones flying overhead broadcasting the vastness of the gathered crowd, to the level of flattery Chris Martin lavished on the festival and the crowd himself: “incredible people from everywhere… the greatest city on earth… the most important engine room in the world.”
Still, it takes a pretty extraordinary level of irreverence to stand in the middle of the crowd and not get swept up in the aftermath. Any valid objections you might have to Coldplay seem to vanish in the face of this cartoonish fun. At a festival where, in theory, there’s always something else going on to distract you, it’s a clever idea to constantly give the audience something to look at, and the setlist is relentlessly packed with smash hits like Yellow, Clocks, Adventure of a Lifetime, The Scientist, Paradise, Viva La Vida and Higher Power.
So relentless, in fact, that the middle section, where special guests begin to appear, feels like a lull, if only because the songs they feature are from the album. Lola Mvula sings “Violet Hill” from Viva la Vida, Coldplay’s only truly angry anti-war protest song; Little Simz raps on “And So We Pray” from the upcoming Moon Music; and Femi Kuti and Palestinian-Chilean singer Elianna appear on a powerful version of “Arabesque,” a highlight of 2019’s decidedly eclectic Everyday Life album.
The final stretch of the show, in an attempt to find more room to escape, occasionally becomes a little cheesy and silly, as Chris Martin turns the camera on each person in the audience and makes up songs about them on the spot, and asks everyone to send a message of love to the world (complete with more fireworks).
Still, he manages to charm the audience. For the finale, he unexpectedly brings out Michael J. Fox to perform Fix You, a song that’s perhaps the most modest of Coldplay’s big songs, but clearly more voluminous when sung by the crowd against a backdrop of warm orange glowing trademark wristbands. Onstage, the camera focuses briefly on drummer Will Champion, who looks rather endearingly on the verge of tears. Even if you don’t end up in tears, Coldplay’s performance is more memorable than any of their Glastonbury sets in the near future.
