Last night, Coldplay performed on stage without their bassist Guy Berryman “for the first time in the band’s history”.
The band took to the stage in Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium, for the first of four shows, as part of their Australian and New Zealand leg of their ‘Music Of The Spheres’ world tour.
This show also marked the first gig that Coldplay has played without all four original bandmembers, after bassist Guy Berryman missed out due to illness.
Lead singer Chris Martin had said that Berryman had been suffering with a form of food poisoning.
“Don’t eat bacon and eggs if the eggs aren’t quite cooked,” he warned the crowd, before adding: “There is no Coldplay without Guy, me, Will [Champion, drummer] and Jonny [Buckland, guitarist]. And thank you to Bill for yesterday who was just amazing”.
“do our best to make it amazing”
In footage which was shared online, Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin can be heard explaining Berryman’s absence to the crowd.
The singer told the crowd that Berryman was “very very sick” and would “not be able to play” the show, before adding: “So we’ll have a slightly different show”.
He continued: “We’ll do our best to make it amazing – and I know that it will be amazing, because we’re in Melbourne with all of you beautiful people”.
“If you see some mistakes, and some problems, it’s because we don’t have our bass player. And we only had about an hour to figure it out”.
“But we have figured it out, and we have a strange, alien, weird friend character playing bass – or looking like he’s playing bass. So you’ll hear Guy, but you just won’t see him. Because he’s vomiting”.
Martin added that it was a “shame”, but promised fans “the best concert ever without a great bass player”.
“Thank you Melbourne”
Following this performance, Coldplay shared a message on social media.
“Thank you Melbourne. Tonight was the first time in our band’s history that we’ve played a show without all four members onstage”, they wrote. “Guy was taken ill unexpectedly just before the show. Thank you for carrying us through it”.
Guy Berryman was replaced on the night by co-producer and engineer Bill Rahko, who disguised himself by wearing one of the space helmets from the band’s current stage production.
“We would like to welcome you to the first concert since our band reformed today with our original [line-up]”, Martin had joked.
Earlier this month, Coldplay had released their latest album, Moon Music. More on this here.
