Chris Martin is the music industry’s very own golden retriever: curly-haired, indefatigable, eager to please. The Coldplay frontman gambols around the stage at Hull’s Craven Park as though it’s his first time off the leash. But stadiums are, in fact, his natural habitat and have been for over a decade – tonight, he and the rest of his band prove exactly why that is. “This is our 212th concert out of 360,” he tells the crowd, flirting shamelessly: “Which to me basically means that we’ve had 211 rehearsals for Hull.”
Thankfully, this is the only flirting taking place on the big screen tonight. “Thank you for coming here after that debacle,” Martin jokes with one fan waving a sign that says they were in Boston last month – when a CEO was seemingly rumbled on the band’s “kiss cam” while in a clinch with his company’s HR officer. “We don’t want any more viral moments,” Martin later pleads.
Coldplay are one of the few acts today that can rival Taylor Swift and her globe-trotting Eras tour. This is the first show (technically an underplay, just 20,000 of their closest fans) of the British pop band’s UK 2025 leg before they continue on a run of stadiums, including a record-breaking 10 nights at Wembley. It is genuinely staggering, when you remember that this tour has already passed through the UK on three occasions since 2022, including for their fifth Glastonbury headline slot in 2024. In that time, they’ve also released another album: Moon Music, to which The Independent’s Louis Chilton handed one star for what he described as “psychedelia as imagined by a man whose drug of choice is vanilla extract”.
The band have not released a truly great album since 2008’s Brian Eno-produced Viva la Vida. Records such as Mylo Xyloto and Ghost Stories were admirable in intention but not in execution, often falling short lyrically and flailing between wildly different sounds. A Head Full of Dreams contained some great songs (the stirring “Adventure of a Lifetime” and “Hymn for the Weekend”) but also some very bad ones (the cloying “Everglow” and “Amazing Day”). As for the album Coldplay’s current tour is named after? Let’s just say Martin should be banned from using emojis ever again.
Live, though, it’s all a very different story. Coldplay ace it every time because Martin is a consummate frontman, and because their Music of the Spheres tour set the bar, then raises it some more with each gig. Their famous wristbands light up in a kaleidoscopic rainbow display for “Adventure of a Lifetime” then bathe everyone in a golden glow for a tear-stricken singalong to “Yellow”. It’s a full-on rave for their 2017 Chainsmokers collaboration, “Something Just Like This”; the band throw in lasers and a dancing alien security guard for good measure.
Half the time, you’re trying to work out if Martin is trying to emulate a cult leader or your dorky but lovable geography teacher. “We’re on the highway to Hull,” he cracks at one point, before some more shameless crowd pandering: “I don’t think any crowd has been as good in all of history.” Anyone uncomfortable with being in the spotlight themselves, stay the Hull away: Martin singles out fans (“my brothers and my sisters”) on their now-notorious jumbotron and composes songs about them on the spot. A German fan sporting a chicken hat is invited onstage to sing “Gravity” with him at the keyboard.
If that sounds eclectic, it is. Sometimes it’s too much. While the undulating melody on “Clocks”, from 2002’s A Rush of Blood to the Head, is affecting as ever, and “The Scientist” still carries plenty of emotional heft, their vast catalogue makes for a hodgepodge setlist. “People of the Pride” – Martin’s attempt to comment on political strife – feels bizarrely out of place, like Muse performing “Uprising” at a school sports day. The abominably cheesy “We Pray” strays into Imagine Dragons territory, saved only by a dazzling, dextrous rap from local opening act Chiedu Oraka.
Elsewhere, Coldplay humanise themselves where other stadium acts might seem untouchable by hopping over to a smaller stage for an intimate acoustic set. It’s wonderful, like watching them play the tiny pubs and clubs in which they started out. Martin’s warm, characterful baritone is as acrobatic as ever for the spectacular “A Sky Full of Stars”, as he eggs the crowd into yet another rave. He’s endearing as he fumbles his thanks to Hull’s football club for the use of their stadium (it’s a rugby club). His karaoke pub singalong of “All My Love” as fans at the back of the venue start to make their dash for the bus might be overblown, but it’s fun – and harmless. Depending on who your plus one is.
