This Tuesday, March 22, the British mega-band Coldplay performed in the Dominican Republic as part of their “Music of the Spheres” tour, where singer Chris Martin surprised the audience by singing Juan Luis Guerra’s well-known anthem “Bachata Rosa”, taking the audience to the stratosphere at the Félix Sánchez Olympic Stadium.
It is not the first time that the talented singer has given his audience a song in Spanish, being “De Música Ligera” by the legendary Argentine band Soda Stereo one of the most celebrated songs in this part of the continent.
A colorful staging, with projections, laser lights, pyrotechnics, flares and confetti provided the audience with endless stimuli parallel to the performance of Chris Martin and his band, who kicked off the concert with the title track of this tour, full of messages in favor of environmental protection.
The Olympic Stadium of the Dominican capital was a small universe full of stars, suggested by the LED bracelets worn by the audience, which changed color to the beat of hits from different eras of the group, such as “Viva la vida”, “Higher Power”, “Yelow” or “Clocks”.
Martin sweated it out, as devoted to the audience as the audience was to him. If the vocalist asked the audience to raise their hands, they raised them, if he asked them to jump, they jumped, and if he asked them to give up their cell phones for at least one song, the audience obediently put them away.
He also made an effort to address the crowd in Spanish until the group left the stage, at which point the audience, chanting the most played oh, oh, oh, oh in history (“Viva la vida”), made the band reappear to please the fans with several encores, but not in the expected place.
Keeping an eye on the main stage and the satellite structure connected to it by a catwalk along which Martin moved more than a model in a Fashion Week, it took some time for the audience to realize that the band’s leader was in another unexpected place.
In a third small structure, and after asking (this time in English) the audience to send their energy to a world going through a difficult time, he surprised the audience with a few verses of Juan Luis Guerra’s “Bachata rosa”, which he performed accompanied only by an acoustic guitar.
The song “Biutyful”, performed as a duet with a puppet, put an end (this time) to two hours of positive energy and some Martian moments, in what was Coldplay’s first performance in the Dominican Republic.
It was also their first “carbon neutral” concert in the Caribbean, as the band demanded that the organizers recycle any plastic, cardboard or other waste materials generated during their performance.
In fact, the band is making every effort to minimize polluting emissions on this tour, which began on March 18 in Costa Rica and will take them to Mexico, the United States, Germany, Poland, France, Belgium, Scotland, England and Brazil.
