It was a long, eight-hour wait for thousands of fans at the Bandra Kurla Complex’s MMRDA grounds for British rock band Coldplay’s performance in Mumbai. But it was a wait well worth the time.
Frontman Chris Martin and his band stole the show with their all-time hits Viva La Vida, A Sky Full of Stars, Scientist, Yellow, Fix You and Hymn for the Weekend.
“You have waited for us to come and perform in India for 16 years. You’ve been patient and beautiful,” said Chris Martin, frontman, Coldplay, at the band’s first-ever performance in India.
AR Rahman made an appearance and got Martin to sing along to his popular Maa Tujhe Salaam. And PM Narendra Modi’s cameo with a light-hearted speech kept the crowds happy over the more than 90-minute act.
The band’s instruments were decorated with flowers, there were fireworks, confetti, sparklers and balloons — the stage looked like Paradise. In Martin’s own words — the production was “better than the best”.
A couple of minutes before Coldplay’s act, the PM addressed the crowd through video conference with CM Devendra Fadnavis, industrialist Ratan Tata and cricketer Sachin Tendulkar on stage. Modi asked the “young” audience to enjoy themselves and said, “I know I stand between you and Coldplay, so this is going to be brief. My schedule didn’t permit me to come, but I couldn’t miss this as it is happening in India.” He said he was happy he was only asked to speak and not sing, or the audience would have asked for a refund, “that too in Rs 100 notes”.
The show began at 1:30 pm, with a group of children from underprivileged backgrounds taking the stage to sing John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’.
Parineeti Chopra and Arjun Kapoor introduced the festival, followed by performance by Sonakshi Sinha, Ananya Birla, Shraddha Kapoor, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Farhan Akhtar and Ranveer Singh. Amitabh Bachchan read out a poem. The crowd was managed decently well. Ample water was available for free across the grounds and the police were on their feet.
