Review | Coldplay packs even the biggest cynic with butter and sugar in the Arena | show

With Coldplay growing into the biggest live band on the planet, cynicism about the group increased at the same sprinting pace. In the early days, the band was praised for its beautifully subdued guitar sound and introspective lyrics.

Now the musicians open the concert in the Johan Cruijff with the echoing electropop of Higher Power, immediately supported by purple-pink confetti and brightly lit bands of light around the wrists of all 60,000 visitors. And then the oversized balloons for the second song on the set list, Adventure of a Lifetime, have yet to be released.

For example, Chris Martin now seems to be the frontman of two different bands. The first is the formation that scours the latest charts for possible additions (EDM? K-pop? No problem) to their sound and take the superlative stadium tricks to the top step live. The second is the old Coldplay that can still stop a mega concert with a refined piano song like The Scientist.

That requires a certain schizophrenia in the stage persona, but Martin plays both roles with almost unbelievable sincerity. When he invites a brother and sister – the latter fully engaged in cancer treatments – behind the keys for the nice Up & Up from the audience, Martin is as sweet and cuddly as your favorite grandmother on your birthday.

Almost everyone would have to recover after that, but Martin conducts another full stadium to the back rows on the thumping Charlie Brown two minutes later. The question that hangs over the first of four concerts in Arena: will Coldplay finally connect all the extremes? In the end, the answer can be nothing more than a resounding ‘yes!’ are.

The setup of the Music of the Spheres may be quite megalomaniac – something with a parallel universe where all songs form new solar systems like planets – it’s almost impossible not to be captivated by the ride on the runaway pop steamroller that Coldplay offers. The band now has almost 25 years of hits to draw from and is easily qualified as the one band that every member of the family wants to go to. A pop act that knows how to connect generations and even the Johan Cruijff Arena soon becomes too small.

Much has already been said about the wristbands with pre-programmed LED lighting that Coldplay first introduced on this scale. That they would rob the concert experience of its spontaneity, for example. There is something in it, but anyone who sees the sea of ​​lights change color in the darkening evening sky during A Sky Full of Stars must be made of stone not to be impressed.

Sure, Coldplay has some pretty monstrous hits in its repertoire. The Eurodance of Something Just Like This, for example. And, completely an attack on tooth enamel, the virtual duet My Universe with boy band BTS. But almost everything else works phenomenally as a stadium sing-a-long, with the still brilliant Fix You as an emotional highlight. In between, Martin has gone into a duet with a doll, he has put on a Martian mask and has said in Dutch that it is ‘cosy here’.

It’s all possible in Coldplay’s grand, childishly happy, sometimes moving, connecting and, above all, good humor-guaranteing spectacle show. Martin & co pack even the biggest cynic with butter and sugar and make sure that one sourpuss is still humming that melody from Viva la Vida on his pillow late at night.

The Coldplay show can still be seen in the Johan Cruijff Arena on July 16, 18 and 19, 2023.