Coldplay to Stop Touring Until Concerts Are “Environmentally Beneficial”

The band will livestream two shows from Jordan instead

Coldplay
(L-R) Jonny Buckland, Chris Martin, Will Champion and Guy Berryman of Coldplay perform onstage during the Pepsi Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California. (Christopher Polk/Getty Images)
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Coldplay’s new album, Everyday Life, is out Friday, but the band won’t be touring behind it. In a new interview with BBC News, frontman Chris Martin revealed that the group won’t be hitting the road until doing so is “actively beneficial” to the environment.

“We’re taking time over the next year or two, to work out how our tour can not only be sustainable [but] how can it be actively beneficial,” Martin said. “All of us have to work out the best way of doing our job.”

Instead of touring, Coldplay will perform two shows in Amman, Jordan — one at sunrise and one at sunset — that will be broadcast live worldwide on YouTube. “We wanted to pick somewhere in the middle of the world where we normally don’t get to play,” Martin explained.

The band last toured in 2016 and 2017 on its A Head Full of Dreams Tour, something Martin hopes to be able to replicate in an eco-friendly way eventually. “Our next tour will be the best possible version of a tour like that environmentally,” he said. “We would be disappointed if it’s not carbon neutral. The hardest thing is the flying side of things. But, for example, our dream is to have a show with no single use plastic, to have it largely solar powered. We’ve done a lot of big tours at this point. How do we turn it around so it’s no so much taking as giving?”

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