Coldplay at Wembley Stadium review: ‘an overarching message of togetherness’

As the E.T. flying theme blared out, searchlights strafed the stands and Martin kissed his cosmic-patterned stage like a psychedelic pop Pope, though, the only shock of this closing night of the tour’s first, three-year leg – its week of tube strike delay spent guzzling steroids to make the show better, Martin swears – was to the retina. Within the first seconds of the Top Gun-worthy “Higher Power” the air was confetti, the sky mostly firework, the stadium a vast dot matrix screen of 90,000 wristbands lit up in sweeping, twinkling reds, greens and inevitable yellows, and Coldplay still the most dazzling and joy-inducing spectacle in (self-styled “soft”) rock.