Coldplay sings ‘Fly Eagles Fly’ in concert
The British band played to its audience at Wednesday night’s show at the Linc.
Crowd-pleasing doesn’t go quite far enough when it comes to describing a Coldplay concert. Combining an aw-shucks charm with a taste for ridiculously overblown spectacle and maniacally singable choruses, the band comes on like a cute cat video, a roller coaster ride and a marching band on parade all rolled into one.
Not to mention: a little audience pandering.
At one point, the band strode to the third stage near the back of the stadium, a small in-the-round set-up where the performed a pared-down, spectacle-free version of “Sparks” from their 2000 debut Parachutes.
Promising a new ending that would have made the song a hit had it originally been released that way, Martin appended “Fly, Eagles, Fly” as the final verse, leading the stadium in a familiar “E-A-G-L-E-S” chant.
As his bandmates returned to the main stage Martin improvised a brief ditty about spending Wednesday night in Philly in the rain, name-dropping Jill Scott, The Roots and Rocky Balboa while defying the weather with that arena-scale charm.