Coldplay in Miami 

I may not have mentioned this before but I have two man crushes, and they have always vied for top spot, but after last night Chris Martin may have just pipped Johnnie Jackson after the Coldplay front man lit up the Miami Dolphins stadium into a technicolour frenzy.

We made it through a massive downpour and awful traffic to get to the out of town Hard Rock Stadium with 50,000 others who were each given wristbands which were wirelessly co-ordinated to flash throughout the show like halos of colour. To that there was the regular burst of fireworks, explosions of confetti and hundreds of large candy coloured rubber balloons that bounced over head in spells of rain that often left the whole arena in a mist of hues.

I’m a sucker for a gentleman and Martin is such a nice bloke stopping after a massive cloud burst during ‘God Put a Smile Upon Your Face’ to check if “everyone was okay.” We were and the crowd noise amped up as everyone bounced to ‘Paradise.’

Martin regularly paused between running and crouching in trademark fashion to talk warmly to the audience, often in Spanish. At one point he had all the lights turned on so he could introduce the band to every part of the arena and then with real emotion sent the bands best wishes to the people in Texas struggling through floods at the moment. Coldplay were due to play in Houston last Friday, on the eve of Hurricane Harvey bearing down on it, but the concert was cancelled last minute due to obvious safety reasons. Martin vowed to return but said that over the weekend the band had written a country song with their Texan fans in mind. It was called ‘Houston’ and they played it to silence and awe.

Coldplay have become a real stadium band and their recent stuff brought the house down but still the most sung-along songs were those from the early days. The crowd went crazy for a surprising early showing of ‘Yellow’ then ‘Clocks’ as well as the later delicate and tear inducing (maybe that was just me) ‘Fix You,’ the ultimate fist pumping ‘Viva la Vida’ and then whilst seated at his piano in almost complete darkness the beautiful’The Scientist.’ 

It was quite a show, almost 2 hours of it, and pretty much perfect. Chris, please be mine.