Coldplay’s eco-friendly world tour will harness fans’ dancing and bike-riding to power the show

Coldplay has devised a surprising plan to reduce their carbon footprint on their Music of the Spheres world tour.

Coldplay will harness the electricity of their fans to power their Music of the Sphere concerts.

Frontman Chris Martin told the BBC their 12-point plan to reduce the band’s carbon footprint of their world tour next year includes a “kinetic” dancefloor which will generate electricity when fans jump up and down.

“The more people move, the more they’re helping. You know when the frontman says, ‘We need you to jump up and down’?” Martin said.

“When I say that, I literally really need you to jump up and down. Because if you don’t, then the lights go out.”

Will Coldplay add an Australian leg to their “world” tour? Picture: Supplied

The band will launch the record, released today, with a global livestream concert which may be the only chance their Australian fans get to see them perform their new songs.

Coldplay announced their “World Tour” on the eve of the record’s release and it will kick off in April in Mexico next year, with 30 concerts through Central America, the US, Europe and UK between March and August next year.

But there is no hint of an Australian leg yet, two years after the band stated they wouldn’t tour again until they had devised a sustainable model.

Martin said the band expected backlash for the eco-friendly tour as they would continue to use private jets as transport.

Music of the Spheres is out now. Picture: Supplied

“And the people that give us backlash for that kind of thing, for flying, they’re right. So we don’t have any argument against that,” Martin said.

“We could stay at home and that may be better. But we want to tour and we want to meet people and connect with people – so try and do it in the cleanest way possible.”

Other initiatives include planting a tree for each ticket sold, kinetic bikes powered by fans with the energy stored in a mobile, rechargeable battery.

They will also urge fans to use low-carbon transport to travel to the gigs with an app offering venue discounts as rewards, and will provide free water to cut the waste of single-use plastic bottles.

The band launched their ninth record at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire earlier in the week, with Martin dedicating their No. 1 hit My Universe, with K-Pop kings BTS, to his longtime partner Dakota Johnson.

omg chris martin dedicated My Universe to dakota johnson and she cried 🥺 the way he pointed at her while singing “you, you’re my universe and i just want to put you first”
pic.twitter.com/US85Xrs4jG

— jimtober (@hrIykoo) October 13, 2021

“This is about my universe, and she’s here,” Martin gushed, pointing out Johnson dancing in a balcony above the stage.

Their new record, which is likely to debut at the top of the album charts worldwide, continues the superstar quartet’s pivot away from the anthemic indie rock sound which catapulted them onto the world stage 21 years ago with Yellow to full-tilt epic stadium pop.

They enlisted the world’s most successful hitmaker, Swedish pop professor Max Martin, to produce the record with BTS and Selena Gomez adding their considerable commercial power to the mix.

The record absolutely belts the cosmological theme into the stratosphere – but mostly fails to take off.

Coldplay’s new record was made with Swedish pop professor Max Martin. Picture: Supplied / James Marcus Haney

Martin insisted their My Universe collaboration with BTS was undertaken entirely because it would be unexpected and appear a mismatch on paper.

The fact the BTS Army propelled it to No. 1 on the Billboard charts, Coldplay’s first since Viva La Vida in 2008, would suggest the collaboration was a far more calculated device to restore the band’s chart supremacy after the lacklustre performance of their 2019 record Everyday Life.

Coldplay want to soothe the soul of a wounded world with Music of the Spheres with songs like Humankind, Human Heart, Biutyful and the single Higher Power all aspiring to celebrate those lofty pop themes of love and unity.

But the trite lyrics, movie soundtrack synths and the shoehorning of the universal Olé soccer chant into one song for that stadium crowd singalong moment leave you despairing that this is the same band who crafted such classic anthems as Fix You or Clocks or A Sky Full of Stars.

Their Music of the Spheres livestream will be the band’s first arena concert in five years from the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, the world’s first net-zero certified venue.

Australian fans can watch it from 1pm (AEDT) on October 23 via Amazon Music App, Amazon Music Twitch Channel and Amazon Prime Video.