Not one, not two, not three but four Stade de France gigs for Coldplay. In this scorching mid-July, the London pop group is re-writing the Stade de France record books. Not even French icon Johnny Hallyday, who played sets of three gigs on three occasions, managed to perform to 300,000 spectators in such a lineup of tour dates. It's a feat that is sure to annoy this group's detractors. Coldplay was born from the ashes of Britpop at the end of the 1990s and became the most popular band of the 21st century in this genre of music. The aforementioned haters continue to wonder how music so devoid of any edginess could conquer such a venue.
Coldplay already knows the Stade de France well, having played there twice, in 2012 and in 2017. After singing an encore of "Sparks" – a melancholic, Radiohead-style ballad from the first album Parachutes (2000) – singer Chris Martin, speaking on Saturday 16 July, reminisced about their first concert in Paris: "There was nobody" in May 2000, in the small room of La Maroquinerie. Mr. Martin also remembered the omen of a journalist: "He told us that we were too depressing and that we would not make a career. So we changed. Thanks to him!"
A modest, luminous globe adorned the cover of Parachutes. Coldplay's ninth album, Music of the Spheres, released in the fall of 2021, has a more glittering visual: a system of nine planets and three satellites. For the production, the quartet called on the Swede Max Martin, the greatest hitmaker of his time (for artists such as Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Maroon 5, Taylor Swift and The Weeknd). It was clear that we would not escape the duets, whether with Selena Gomez for the mawkish "Let Somebody Go" (at the Stade de France, the former Disney princess is replaced by the American R'n'B singer H.E.R., invited to open the show) or with the Korean boy band BTS for "My Universe," a dance-pop track as elegant as those by David Guetta, who of course has remixed it.
Synthetic pop made for stadiums
In the end, it's synthetic pop made for stadiums, as if the tour had to define the musical style. With the help of programmed sounds, the bouncy single "Higher Power" opened the evening, after a stage entrance worthy of a television broadcast of the Champions League. Their image appeared on the screens as they made their way from the locker rooms – sorry, the dressing rooms – to the pitch. They crossed it to take their place on one of the three stages, not the main one, but a second one, set up in the heart of the pit.
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