Coldplay live in London: A dazzling stadium spectacle

For a stadium show as wildly ambitious and joyous as Coldplay‘s Music of the Spheres tour, you wouldn’t necessarily expect nerves and an understated sense of anticipation when the cameras turn on the 80,000 fans gathered inside Wembley Stadium.

But after cheating Astronomer CEO Andy Byron was caught cavorting with a HR Exec at a Coldplay show in the US earlier this year – sparking global headlines – there’s a sense that anything could happen. At the first of ten nights at Wembley, happily, it’s a proposal that proves to be the main moment of the aforementioned ‘Jumbotron Song’ routine.

“Now listen my brother. I need you to nod as I do some very basic security checks ok? Is this person your partner, yes?” Chris Martin quips before the fan gets down on one knee. “No-one else’s partner?”

It’s a joyous moment during a late portion of a show which proved why this tour, having flogged 12 million tickets, is now the highest attended in rock history.

Arriving just before 8.30pm at the crest of a Bank Holiday weekend, they kick off with a huge 45 minutes which plays straight into a crowd who are duly up for a party. ‘The Scientist’ acts as a tear-jerker just four songs on and runs straight into ‘Viva La Vida’ – a song so perfect for stadium gigs like these that you’d swear it was cooked up in a lab. It’s followed by ‘Trouble’, which sees Chris Martin joined by an autistic fan called AJ Murphy who specifically requested the song. It’s a lovely moment for the rest of us, but for AJ – as he told the BBC – it’s a case of life made.

And for all the customary theatrics of the LED wristbands – still one of the most impressive sights in live music – there’s still other brilliant moments that catch you off guard. ‘People of the Pride’ shows off an industrial side which feels indebted to Depeche Mode, while the flames which back it are the closest thing that the band will ever get to Rammstein.

There’s more understated moments of flourish which hit with the same impact too. On a C-stage, the early cut ‘Don’t Panic’ sees the band united in a circle as Martin recalls how the band would take the same formation to play in guitarist Jonny Buckland’s Camden flat in their early days, gathered “around his s***** sofa”.

They’re a million miles away from said sofa now, but the magic and unity of this band clearly remains just as intact as it did then.With a break on the horizon after these Wembley shows, it’s time for long time devotees and first-timers to beg, steal or borrow for a ticket. Just watch out for those cameras…