MUSIC Coldplay | Music of the Spheres Wold Tour ★★★ Marvel Stadium, until November 3 More than anything else, a Coldplay concert is a spectacle. It has all the hallmarks of a big-bucks production: confetti, fireworks, streamers, flames, large balls bouncing across the crowd, light-up wristbands that pulse in sync to create a visual symphony. Coldplay scrambled to find a replacement bassist in the hour before their show.
Credit: Martin Philbey The music almost feels secondary to the extravagance on display, but even that is a long way from the British band’s stripped-back beginnings over 20 years ago – their more recent tunes have all the inspirational gravitas of a bumper sticker, but it’s all delivered with confidence by leader Chris Martin. This tour exclusively came to Perth last year, so it’s been a long time between drinks for east coast fans, who last saw Coldplay in 2016. In a career-first, the band is playing without its full line-up – Martin comes on stage before the show kicks off to explain that bassist Guy Berryman is unwell, and that a “strange, alien, weird friend character” will be taking his place.
The band’s co-producer and engineer Bill Rahko steps up to the plate, wearing a helmet for the whole show – and for a last-minute gig, he does remarkably well. Martin is a charming frontman with a dash of chaotic energy: he cracks jokes, tells zany anecdotes and has a huge grin on his face the entire night. Chris Martin is a charming frontman.