Coldplay’s Chris Martin hailed his Indian audience on Saturday for “forgiving” the British, as the band’s tour began in Mumbai.
The band’s Asia leg of the Music of Spheres world tour included a performance in Mumbai’s DY Patil Stadium in front of around 75,000 people. Coldplay’s first performance in India since 2016 at the Global Citizen Festival in Mumbai.
Despite the fact that India was once under British colonial authority, band frontman Martin, 47, expressed gratitude to fans for their warm welcome.
“This is our fourth visit to India, and the second time we’ve played. We played our first extended gig, and we couldn’t have asked for a greater audience. “Thank you for coming today, everyone!” he remarked.
“Thank you for welcoming us even though we are from Great Britain,” he told us. “Thanks for forgiving us for everything Great Britain did.”
Fans reacted with gratitude and a series of jokes, with one commenting on an Instagram video of Martin’s address, “Pls free concert next time as reparations.”
A few other enthusiasts saw this as an opportunity to request the repatriation of the Kohinoor diamond, which is now part of the British Crown Jewels.
“CEO of fixing what he didn’t break,” one fan remarked, while another added, “Chris healing intergenerational trauma with a mic, stage, and some tunes.”
Coldplay will perform in Mumbai on January 21 and 22, followed by performances in Ahmedabad on January 25 and 26, both of which will be live broadcast on Disney+ Hotstar.
The band had planned to perform two gigs in Mumbai, but due to high demand, they added another.
The tour caused controversy in India due to high demand for tickets, technical difficulties with the ticketing system, and price gouging.
The ticketing service BookMyShow failed seconds before the sale was scheduled to begin in September, unable to handle the volume from over 700,000 people. Fans complained about having to wait in huge digital lineups, which reportedly reached 11 million.
Shortly after the sale ended, tickets became available on other websites for multiple times the price. Scammers also appeared all over social media, offering tickets as part of a lucky draw for those who shared their post.
Coldplay will also play in Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, and Seoul, in addition to their India dates. They will be returning to Hong Kong for the first time since 2009, having previously played in Abu Dhabi in 2016 and Seoul in 2017.
Last year, Martin announced that Coldplay will retire once they hit a specific milestone.
“We are only going to do 12 proper albums, and that’s real,” the frontman told Zane Lowe in an Apple Music interview.
Martin stated that having this limit will assure the same quality control as Coldplay’s past albums, including 2000’s Parachutes, 2008’s Viva la Vida, or Death and All His Friends, 2015’s A Head Full of Dreams, and 2021’s Music of the Spheres.
“Where we could be kind of coasting, we’re trying to improve,” he told me.
