Coldplay
Croke Park, Dublin
★★★★☆
Given the speed with which this four-night run in Jones’ Road sold out, Coldplay are just as much “the people’s band” as Oasis, who dominated the news this week, albeit perhaps containing a very different set of people. The Gallaghers and certain rock snobs might find Coldplay’s open-hearted approach gauche but Chris Martin does not waste time worrying about what’s “cool”. He’s far too busy putting on a show that does everything bar set fire to Croke Park to connect with the ecstatic audience, and it very nearly does that as well.
The sensory onslaught that hits for the first section is almost too much to take in. The sustainable LED wristbands given out to each audience member flash and change color in time to the music and light every corner of the stadium, making each member of the crowd a part of the show. It’s a bit like dancing in the centre of the Milky Way or through an explosion in a power station.
If that wasn’t enough, huge balloons are released as Croker loses its collective mind to choruses purpose-built for this kind of night out. Higher Power, Adventures Of A Lifetime, Paradise, and a marvellous version of The Scientist which, right from the familiar opening piano chords, had the faithful swooning.
Coldplay in Croke Park review: Croker loses its collective mind to choruses purpose-built for this kind of night out
Will WRC ruling on fiddler in band spark a rush of cases from the gig economy?
‘We are travelling everywhere we can’: Coldplay superfans descend on Dublin for sold-out Croke Park shows
When the ‘scariest Gallagher’ was ‘the nicest man in showbusiness’: Irish Oasis fans share memories
Martin gives it a bit of admirable Irish – “céad míle fáilte, conas atá tú?” – before returning to his native tongue to profess it “one of the great privileges of our life to perform here.”
The band move to the extended B Stage for a pounding Viva La Vida led by drummer Will Champion and it all goes up another gear for Hymn For The Weekend with Martin sprinting about like an Olympian as the confetti guns explode. “We played 160 shows before today and I thought I was experienced but I really don’t know how to handle a crowd this wonderful,” Martin gushes, and you can see where he’s coming from.
He brings some visiting Italian fans from the crowd up on stage to serenade them from the piano, paying tribute to their late father Vincenzo, dedicating the same song to Sinéad O’Connor, Dolores O’Riordan and Shane MacGowan. While we’re still trying to take that in, Martin has us all bouncing to a robust Charlie Brown (or the theme to the Pat Kenny radio show, as it’s also known) and the joyous sight of a stadium with 80,000 pinpricks of light is phenomenal. And then they beat that again with Yellow where Martin is drowned out by the throng, especially when he takes a chorus with just him and his guitar.
The Olé, Olé, Olé chant when it starts is absolutely deafening. The familiar piano and bass rumble of perhaps Coldplay’s greatest song, Clocks, has them using the stadium almost as another instrument and is a highlight among many.
The new single We Pray, complete with its full video cast including Little Simz, which brought Grafton Street to a standstill on Wednesday evening, just isn’t much of a song despite its message of inclusion. But Coldplay can really do no wrong now whether they’re prancing about in day-glo and cartoon alien masks (really) for Something Just Like this, which goes down like free money, or turning Croker into a rave before leading us all through My Universe. It’s such a powerful performance, the song’s shortcomings are forgotten each time the chorus comes around.
Martin interrupts a superb Sky Full Of Stars to joke that Bono wants Croke Park back and we should enjoy Oasis, but either act would have to work very hard indeed to match tonight. When the fireworks explode at the song’s end, it’s only to be expected but no less spectacular for that.
[ Coldplay in Dublin: Croke Park ticket information, setlist, stage times and moreOpens in new window ]
The Henry Purcell-like strings of Sunrise with Louis Armstrong’s spoken intro from What A Wonderful World is the soundtrack as the band make their way to the another even smaller C-stage (another good trick for shrinking a stadium) for a charming acoustic version of Sparks. Martin gives a long list of thanks during the song, including one to the Irish people for, he says, leading the way and “being so kind to people around the world”.
The Jumbotron Song, where Martin ad libs based on audience members he can see on the screen as the camera spins around, is charming and properly funny rather than cringey, however it might sound on paper.
However overfamiliar it might be, their weepie anthem Fix You becomes a quasi-religious singalong offering succour and connection, which is what Coldplay are all about tonight. It’s very hard to stay cynical when presented with the sights and sounds of a stadium lost in music, illuminated by those wristbands, and warmed by the unadulterated joy of thousands. Tonight’s show is an inventive triumph of staging, dynamics, pacing, and – that word again – connection. Soul was the last thing I expected.
