Photo: Getty Images AsiaPac
Coldplay performed an historic show in Melbourne on Wednesday night (October 30) when their bassist Guy Berryman fell ill and wasn't able to play. It marked "the first time in [the] band's history" that the full lineup wasn't onstage.
“We waited until the last minute to tell you that our beautiful bass player Guy is very, very sick," Chris Martin told the crowd before revealing that Berryman would not be playing. "So we'll have a slightly different show."
“We’ll do our best to make it amazing – and I know that it will be amazing, because we’re in Melbourne with all of you beautiful people," the frontman added. “If you see some mistakes, and some problems, it’s because we don’t have our bass player. And we only had about an hour to figure it out. But we have figured it out, and we have a strange, alien, weird friend character playing bass – or looking like he’s playing bass.
"So you’ll hear Guy, but you just won’t see him," Martin concluded while holding back a chuckle. "Because he’s vomiting.”
Although it was a "shame" Berryman couldn't play, Martin still promised "the best concert ever without a great bass player" and urged fans to help them make it feel like "one big band."
The band’s co-producer and engineer, Bill Rahko, stepped in for Berryman and disguised himself with an astronaut helmet Coldplay's been using for stage production. After the concert, the band took to Instagram to speak more about the situation. “Thank you Melbourne. Tonight was the first time in our band’s history that we’ve played a show without all four members onstage," they wrote. "Guy was taken ill unexpectedly just before the show. Thank you for carrying us through it.”
Berryman returned to the lineup on Thursday (October 31). “We would like to welcome you to the first concert since our band reformed today with our original [line-up]," Martin quipped during the show before suggesting the bassist suffered from food poisoning, warning fans to not "eat bacon and eggs if the eggs aren’t quite cooked.”
“There is no Coldplay without Guy, me, Will [Champion, drummer] and Jonny [Buckland, guitarist]," he added. "And thank you to Bill for yesterday who was just amazing.”
Coldplay is currently on the Australian and New Zealand leg of their massive Music of the Spheres world tour. Earlier this month, they released their 10th studio album Moon Music and announced another run of North American dates next year. See footage from the Melbourne shows below.