The A Head Full of Dreams Tour was the seventh concert tour undertaken by British rock band Coldplay. It was announced on 27 November 2015 in support of their seventh studio album, A Head Full of Dreams, and marked a return to live performing at stadiums following the intimate shows from Ghost Stories Tour (2014), which saw the band playing in venues such as the Beacon Theatre and Royal Albert Hall.[3] With exception of "Fun" and hidden track "X Marks the Spot", all songs from the album were played.[4] The band combined extensive use of laser light and pyrotechnic special effects with raw, acoustic segments between stages, complementing performances with a new version of the Xylobands from Mylo Xyloto Tour (2011–12).[5]
The concert run consisted of 122 shows in eight legs across five continents, starting at Argentina's Estadio Ciudad de La Plata on 31 March 2016 and finishing at the same venue on 15 November 2017. It also marked their first solo shows in Latin America since Viva la Vida Tour (2009–10).[6] According to Billboard, Coldplay earned $523 million from 5.38 million tickets sold in 114 reported dates, making A Head Full of Dreams Tour the third-highest-grossing tour of all time upon conclusion. In 2018, Live in Buenos Aires was released to celebrate the concert run and promoted along with The Butterfly Package, a set which additionally contained Live in São Paulo and Coldplay: A Head Full of Dreams. The latter is a career-spanning documentary directed by Mat Whitecross.
Development
Background
Following the release of Coldplay's sixth album, Ghost Stories (2014), the band announced they would not be making a usual tour for it,[7] limiting themselves to one-off concerts at smaller venues around the world.[3] On 6 November 2015, "Adventure of a Lifetime" was made available as the lead single for A Head Full of Dreams.[8] The song was succeeded by the tour announcement on 27 November, which included numerous stadium dates spread across 14 countries in Europe and Latin America for the next year.[9] During an interview for The Late Late Show with James Corden, the band mentioned they would also be visiting Asia and North America.[10] In April 2016, Coldplay announced 12 new arena shows in the United States.[11] Months later, they published teasers on social media with dates for Singapore, Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.[12] In 2017, the band further promoted the tour's namesake album by releasing a companion piece named Kaleidoscope EP, which included four new songs and a live version of "Something Just Like This".[13]
Lianne La Havas (left) and Tove Lo (right) supported the band in Europe and North America, respectively.
Most of the tour included two supporting acts on each concert, with British singer Lianne La Havas opening all performances held during the first Latin American and European legs, marking the first stadium shows of her career.[23] She noted being a fan of Coldplay for many years and grew up listening to them.[23] Canadian singer Alessia Cara supported the first European and North American runs as well,[24] which additionally included Foxes and Birdy.[25] In select dates, local artists from their respective country were invited to serve as opening acts: Ximena Sariñana and Hana Ciliberti performed in the Mexico City shows,[26] while Radwimps played at the Tokyo Dome on 9 April 2016.[27] Remaining dates for the Asian leg were supported by Jess Kent, who also participated in the concerts held in Australia and New Zealand.[27]
For their second run in Europe, Coldplay included AlunaGeorge and Swedish singer Tove Lo, with whom they collaborated on the song "Fun", from A Head Full of Dreams (2015).[28] The local acts invited for Hannover, Gothenburg and Cardiff were German singer Femme Schmidt, Danish group Mew and English band Embrace, respectively.[28] Meanwhile, the second leg in North America featured singers Izzy Bizu and Alina Baraz.[28] In November 2017, Coldplay finished the tour with shows in Brazil and Argentina, which were opened by Jon Hopkins and Dua Lipa.[29] The former has been a collaborator of the band since their fourth album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (2008),[29] while Martin co-wrote the song "Homesick" for the latter's debut album.[30] After being asked about the experience, she commented it was "amazing" and "surreal to get to sit next to him on the piano and hear him perform so close to me" and thanked the singer for the opportunity, adding she learned a lot from him when they were on studio.[30]
Concert synopsis
Coldplay at Wembley Stadium in 2016. The band also had an additional small stage where they performed an acoustic set.[31]
Similar to Mylo Xyloto Tour (2011–12), the band combined performances including laser light and pyrotechnic visuals at the main stage with intimate sets at the B-stage and C-stage.[32] During the latter segment, songs were played strictly in acoustic renditions.[33] Shows usually featured between 22 and 25 tracks, which sometimes incorporated new intros and outros: "Paradise" started regularly but ended in its Tiësto remix version, while "Fix You" was performed with an additional instrumental background from "Midnight".[34] Before the tour began, Martin said Coldplay would "finally have a set list where we feel good about it from start to finish".[35] He joked about being "at the point in our career where we can get through a concert without playing anything shit" as well.[36]
Aside from their own catalogue, the band often covered songs from other artists, most notably "Heroes" by David Bowie during the first four legs of the tour.[35] According to Martin, they were good friends with Bowie, though he rejected a collaboration for "Lhuna", a charity single released with Australian singer Kylie Minogue in 2008, claiming the track was "not one of your best".[37] The band also performed Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" in selected shows.[38] Coldplay originally wrote "Til Kingdom Come" as a collaboration with the singer, but he died before being able to record it.[39] Additionally, the band had a "Fan Dedication Song" segment at the C-stage: "We'd ask people to give us a reason why they want us to play that song so there is a purpose behind why we play it".[35]
Reception
Commercial performance
Fans who pre-ordered A Head Full of Dreams (2015) from Amazon were given early access to buy tickets for the United Kingdom shows on 26 November 2015, while general public sales for the entire first European leg were opened on the following day.[9] Due to high demand, Coldplay added extra dates in Mexico City, Barcelona, Manchester, Zurich, London, Amsterdam and Copenhagen.[40] Over 900,000 people attempted to buy tickets for the concerts in Seoul, leading online servers to crash.[41] The performance at Foro Sol on 17 April 2016 saw the venue's biggest ever single-day attendance (67,451 tickets),[1] a record also broken at Bangkok's Rajamangala Stadium (62,068 tickets).[42] Additionally, the band later earned the highest-grossing boxscore report of Singapore's history ($12.4 million).[43] In Taiwan, they had the biggest ticket sales of all time for an international act, a record broken by Blackpink in 2023.[44] The concerts in London and Paris were the most prolific of their career both in attendance and gross according to Pollstar.[45] After the last show in La Plata, Billboard claimed the A Head Full of Dreams Tour was the third-highest-grossing tour of all time, earning $523,033,675 from 5,389,586 tickets sold in 114 dates.[46]
Critical reception
The tour was met with generally positive reviews from music critics, with Ludovic Hunter-Tilney from the Financial Times describing it as a "bubble of positivity making its way around a turbulent world".[47] He stated large venues were a "natural home" for Coldplay and where their "uplifting platitudes make most sense".[47] Writing for The Sydney Morning Herald, Bernard Zuel commented the concert was "very big, but just on the right side of huge. They get loud and in your face but never up your nose. They grab for audience participation but collegially rather than greedily", praising how they crafted a "continuously satisfying pop show that has elements of U2 and Taylor Swift, Springsteen and Kylie, but somehow retains a sliver of modesty".[48] In his five-star Wembley Stadium review for the Evening Standard, David Smyth stated Coldplay were "playing more stadium shows in London than anyone else this summer because no one else is doing this kind of thing better. Long may they shine".[49] Similarly, The Guardian'sKitty Empire rated their Croke Park performance with 4/5 stars and mentioned it felt "like the encore, the kind that sends you out into the night streets, hollering the chorus" even when the band were "just two songs in".[50]
Accolades
Awards and nominations for the A Head Full of Dreams Tour
After the tour was finished, Coldplay released Live in Buenos Aires (2018), their fifth live album.[72] It consisted of two CDs with songs played during their last show in La Plata. The record was marketed along with The Butterfly Package, a set which additionally contained Live in São Paulo, their first music film to include a concert in full,[73] and Coldplay: A Head Full of Dreams, a documentary featuring previously unseen behind-the-scenes footage.[74] A one-night-only premiere for the latter was held at selected cinemas across the world one month earlier, grossing $3.5 million from over 300,000 tickets sold and reaching number one at the box office of Netherlands; number two in Australia, Italy and United Kingdom; and number five in the United States.[75] Both projects were directed by Mat Whitecross, a long-time collaborator of the band.[74] Sam Sodomsky from Pitchfork stated Live in Buenos Aires made "a strong case for the legacy of one of the 21st century's most enduring live acts",[76] while Live in São Paulo was nominated for a UK Music Video Award.[77]
Set list
This set list was taken from the 15 November 2017 concert in La Plata, Argentina. It does not represent all shows throughout the tour.[34]
A segment named Fan Dedication Song was held every night at the C-stage. It featured the track most requested by fans on social media during each preceding day.[35]
"Life Is Beautiful" was performed in San Diego on 8 October 2017,[79] São Paulo on 7 and 8 November 2017,[79] and La Plata on 14 November 2017.[80]
Highlights
The band performed covers, invited guests and fans, wrote songs specifically for the occasion and made dedications in numerous dates, skipping to the rest of the show otherwise:
^The concert in Pasadena on 6 October 2017 had its proceeds donated to the relief efforts of the Puebla earthquake.[129]
^The concert in San Diego on 8 October 2017 was partially broadcast for Estamos Unidos Mexicanos, which raised funds for the relief efforts of the Puebla earthquake.[130]
^The concert in San Diego on 8 October 2017 had its proceeds donated to the relief efforts of the Puebla earthquake.[129]
^ abThe concerts in São Paulo on 7 and 8 November 2017 were recorded for Live in São Paulo.[79]
^ ab"Coldplay「夢過頭」巡演結束 共吸引539萬人朝聖" [Coldplay's Dream Over Tour Ends, Attracting 5.39 Million Pilgrims]. GQ Taiwan (in Chinese). 23 November 2017. Archived from the original on 29 June 2022. Retrieved 29 June 2022.
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