Coldplay made history last Saturday, becoming the first five-time Glastonbury Festival headliner to take to the iconic Pyramid stage.
The pop-sacred fields of Worthy Farm have formed a sly backdrop to their career; Glasto’s more of a basecamp than a festival for the band at this point, who’ve been routinely touching down between career highlights since 2002.
Following their longest absence from the Glastonbury Fest to date, Coldplay’s Saturday headline set came packed with special guests and legendary moments.
The iconic ballad, “Fix You” saw Glasto’s 100,000-person crowd choir sing in full force, joined by a force more iconic than the song itself. Michael J. Fox took to the stage with Coldplay near their set’s closure for a moment that’s now gone viral, collecting 1.5M+ views in just one day.
Playing a pink Fender Strat from his wheelchair, Michael, who suffers from Parkinson’s, took to Instagram to uncloud his perspective: “In case you were wondering…it was f****** mind blowing. There is a time for every band and a band for every time. This is @coldplay’s time.” Fans have been crazing over this clip, praising Michael’s evident strength and undying passion for music as he performs a tremendous leg kick in time to the epic crescendo of “Fix You.”
After a sensational final chorus, frontman Chris Martin (aged 47) took a moment to thank the living legend, noting, “The main reason why we’re in a band is because of watching Back to the Future. So thank you to our hero forever and one of the most amazing people on Earth, Mr. Michael J. Fox. Thank you so much, Michael, our hero.”
Their headline set saw a classic blend of career-defining early hits including “Clocks,” “The Scientist,” “Viva La Vida,” and “Sparks” interwoven with late-era singles such as “Higher Power,” “Adventure of a Lifetime,” and the aptly titled “Hymn for the Weekend.” Recent single “feelslikeimfallinginlove” also made its way onto the set list, released only the week before Glastonbury 2024 kicked off.
Coldplay’s most recent decade in the charts has come ornamented with collab singles. But while neither BTS nor The Chainsmokers joined the band on stage to immortalize their respective Coldplay collabs “My Universe” and “Something Just Like This,” the London band pulled some brand new tricks out of the hat instead.
Coldplay reeled out a line of stars: first Victoria Canal performing the band’s 2011 hit “Paradise,” followed by the live debut of the upcoming single “We Pray” with Little Simz, Burna Boy, and Palestinian-Chilean songstress Elyanna; “Violet Hill” alongside Laura Mvula; and lastly, a rendition of the 2019 single “Arabesque” with its recording horn player, Femi Kuti.
This history-making set also saw Chris Martin turn back the clocks in a social experiment, pausing the hit “A Sky Full of Stars” to ask the audience to put “Your phone in your pocket, your hands in the sky” — no cell phones or filming allowed, simply pure immersion in the hits which soundtracked an entire generation.
Coldplay made history last Saturday, becoming the first five-time Glastonbury Festival headliner to take to the iconic Pyramid stage. The pop-sacred fields of Worthy Farm have formed sly backdrop to their career; Glasto’s more of a basecamp than a festival for the band at this point, who’ve been routinely touching down between career highlights since 2002. Following their longest absence from the Glastonbury Fest to date, Coldplay’s Saturday headline set came packed with special guests and legendary moments. The iconic ballad, “Fix You” saw Glasto’s 100,000-person crowd choir sing in full force, joined by a force more iconic than the song itself. Michael J. Fox took to the stage with Coldplay near their set’s closure for a moment that’s now gone viral, collecting 1.5M+ views in just one day.
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