Coldplay evaluate – after 12m tickets offered, this tour continues to be a mindblowing spectacle | Music

Fireworks explode, lasers shoot, big balls bounce and a sea of LED wristbands pulse in synchronicity as a rugby stadium in Hull is changed into an exploding sweet store of color. Now in its third 12 months and approaching a remaining 10 nights at Wembley Stadium – although it’s anticipated to return from 2027 – Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres tour is now the best attended in rock historical past with greater than 12m tickets offered.

It’s straightforward to see why. Over the Springsteen-esque shimmer of Higher Power, Chris Martin and co provide up a dizzying dose of Technicolor funk-pop with a stage of manufacturing that’s as spectacular as it’s overwhelming. At occasions it’s like being plugged right into a VR model of a “good vibes only” LSD journey, together with sections with the band dressed as cute aliens and the viewers carrying 3D glasses that flip every thing into lovehearts.

There’s no kiss-cam drama tonight and Martin is in effusive kind, gushing reward for Hull and the gang to virtually sycophantic ranges. It’s arguably futile to criticise the cloying earnestness and heavy-handed sentiment of Coldplay, given how baked into their DNA and enchantment it’s by now, however it’s laid on so thick it might really feel exhausting.

However, it’s lapped up thirstily. When Martin tells the viewers to “dance like nobody’s watching” over the EDM stomp of A Sky Full of Stars, to wave at somebody within the crowd as if they’re “a best friend you’ve not met yet” through the eruptive surge of Yellow, or to ship positivity to the individuals of Sudan via wiggling their fingers as pyrotechnics pop, they do exactly that.

Fix You is changed into an virtually candlelit mass-type singalong because the viewers’s wristbands flip right into a heat yellow glow, and from a pounding model of Clocks to the mild acoustic hum of Sparks, the band command, management and personal each inch of the huge house as they transfer round it.

An try at a karaoke-style singalong with the gang to All My Love as a finale falls flat however it issues little. Fireworks are quickly exploding once more, bookending a night that’s pure visible extravaganza and intoxicating spectacle – like a rush of sugar to the top.