Viva La Vida!
Glowing iridescent hearts, throbbing rainbow lights floating in the sky, and audacious fireworks engulfing thousands of dancing souls. This is not the colorful finale of your local summer night country festival set in the nearby woods; this is British virtuosity at its finest. This is Coldplay.
Chris Martin of Coldplay performs during a concert at BBVA Bancomer Stadium on March 25, 2022 in Monterrey, Mexico. Medios y Media/GI via Billboard
We need to turn our clocks back to 1997 when a young Chris Martin and his mates used to meet up for jam sessions in college in a vibrant late-20th century London. Back then, the band went by the name Big Fat Noises—a title that, in hindsight, feels completely at odds with the soft, atmospheric sound they would later master. At that time, the band was nothing more than a silly project you’d conjure up in your buddies’ garage on a warm after-school.
Yet, after unanimously settling for Coldplay and releasing some independent material, their future was about to take a drastic turn. With the release of the album Parachutes, featuring massive hits such as Yellow, they received a Brit Award for British Album of the Year and also won a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album. Suddenly, Coldplay filled the portable CD players and the earphones of millions of school-goers in the early 2000s with stunning alternative rock/pop jams, joining other behemoths of the industry at the time, such as Linkin Park, Sum 41, The Black Eyed Peas, and so on.
Coldplay became the anthem of the early twenty-first century, gifting the world with one of the most iconic hymns to life ever produced in the music industry: Viva La Vida! However, Coldplay became more than just a hugely successful and one of the most awarded bands in history; they made it their mission to become heralds of unity, equality, and social justice, making it imperative to spread a positive message of love and charity at every venue they perform in. During the years, they stood out and became particularly known for their colorful and artistic live performances—a 360° musical experience out of the ordinary. Ranging from fireworks to interactive LED bracelets, to 3D glasses for looking at holograms, the fans are the absolute focal point of every show.
“I have always been an immense fan of the band since I was this big,” says a fan, after the live show in Munich, gesturing to show their height as a child. “But I had never been so lucky as to be able to attend one of their live concerts. I’m speechless. I’d never seen anything like that before. I mean, three-dimensional hearts through 3D glasses during Feels Like I’m Falling in Love? Come on!”
It might be the band’s unmatched creativity when it comes to performing, or it might also be Chris’s unbelievable stamina and on-stage presence, but there is no denying that there are very few artists who can boast both staggering tour revenues and a commitment to reducing CO2 emissions through their green initiatives while traveling around the globe. It would be safe to say—maybe—that Coldplay have reached a status just shy of legendary industrial metal band Rammstein, known for their insanely elaborate and creative expedients on stage like wearable phoenix wings that regurgitate fire. Coldplay has cemented themselves as what is commonly referred to by Gen Z as one of the “Big Three,” meaning themselves, Taylor Swift, and Adele; needless to say that the ticket guerrilla is a recurring theme every time the band announces a sale, prompting fans to resort to all sorts of subterfuges to get one in time.
“As soon as they announced the ticket sale, I set an alarm clock to remind myself to stop whatever I was doing to jump into the online queue. I remember forcing four of my friends to lay their phones down on the counter, all open to the waiting web page. We stayed up all night waiting, maybe three or four hours. It was absurd. Tickets were going up for 200 to 400 bucks for the worst spots. I got the best ones, of course. But still, that was straight-up crazy,” says a two-Michelin-star chef from Northern Italy, as he explains how much securing a seat at the concert meant to him. Coldplay has become a cultural symbol of good music, happy times, and shared emotions, reimagining what live performances can be. In an era where too little attention is given to the fans and too much is dedicated to streams and profits: viva el amor, viva la música y viva la vida!
