British band Coldplay kicked off their first world tour since 2017 in Costa Rica on Friday night in front of a cheering crowd of 40,000 at the National Stadium in San Jose. Coldplay explained on social networks that it chose Costa Rica as the first stop on its new tour, because of its image as a “green” country and its electric model, which is 99.98% renewable, according to the Costa Rican Tourism Institute. (ICT).
Chris Martin and his family announced it last October when they released their latest album. Music of the Spheres : the group would lead to defend this record a world tour of the stadiums “sustainable and low carbon“.
On the menu: floor producing energy when spectators jump, bicycles generating electricity to power the stage, show battery to store energy, and the promise to donate a tree for each ticket sold. Coldplay has also promised to donate 10% of its revenue to an aid fund for environmental causes.
Friday evening the British started the show with High Powerbefore playing some 26 songs for two hours, including hits like Yellow, The Scientist, Fix you, Viva La Vida, A Sky Full of Starsand even a traditional Costa Rican song, Costa Rican Patriotic.
Singer and frontman Chris Martin asked the audience – in Spanish – to put away cell phones so they could “enjoy an intimate moment“.
The group had suspended its tours in 2017, the time to find a way to reduce its carbon footprint. “We are very aware that the planet is facing a climate crisis,” the band said in a statement last October. “So we’ve spent the last two years consulting with environmental experts to make this tour as sustainable as possible and, just as importantly, harness the potential of the tour to get things done. Not everything will be perfect, but we are committed to doing all we can and sharing what we learn.”
After Costa Rica, the world tour – which has 57 dates in total – will continue in particular in Latin America and the United States, before arriving in Europe. Coldplay will be performing in France on July 16, 17, 19 and 20 at the Stade de France.