“I said when we released this album that we wanted to perform near Wales,” said Coldplay’s Chris Martin, standing beneath the skeleton of a blue whale called Hope.
While the Natural History Museum is a fairly unusual venue for one of the world’s biggest bands, Coldplay, pop’s own Balladosaurus Rex, have stated that they won’t tour arenas until they find a way to make their live show carbon-neutral.
Accordingly, all the proceeds from last night’s show went to environmental charity ClientEarth.
Many of these environmental concerns are aired on Coldplay’s latest album, Everyday Life, whose tracks dominated this 90-minute setlist. The double album, released last week, is something of a departure from its arena-sized predecessor from 2015, A Head Full Of Dreams. Alongside the mandatory ballads are excursions into gospel and doo-wop.
As you might imagine, not all of these genres are a natural fit for the band. Not even the presence of a gospel choir can save Broken from sounding toe-curlingly twee.
Equally, there are moments when this musical experimentation creates extraordinary results. Arabesque is a marauding, saxophone-filled juggernaut of a song that sounds like their very own Tusk, the Fleetwood Mac track.
Inevitably, the biggest reactions are saved for the best-known songs — the majestic chamber pop of 2008’s Viva La Vida being a particular highlight — but new track Orphans also seems like a favourite-in-waiting. Martin, however, may need some time to adjust to life away from the arenas.
“I shouldn’t have done that — that was a stadium move,” he said, after dancing at the top of the staircase and then appearing too out of breath to start the next number. “You’re welcome to a refund.”
That won’t be necessary. In fact, this new-look Coldplay gave us a whale of a time.
