Olivia PowellColdplay will not be touring with their new album on hold, due to concerns over the environmental impact of concerts.
The band have said that they will not consider touring again until they have come up with a way that their tours can not only be carbon-neutral, but actively beneficial to the environment.
Coldplay’s new album Everyday Life is released on 22 November. Their plan is to play two gigs in Jordan, which will be broadcast globally for free to a global audience on YouTube, rather than taking the album on tour.
The concerts will take place in Amman on 22 November at sunrise and sunset respectively, in order to mirror ‘two sides’ of their album. The band reportedly chose Jordan as they wanted to play somewhere that they don’t usually get to perform.
The last tour the UK band did was their A Head Full of Dreams Tour, which saw them perform 122 shows across five continents from 2016-2017.
Frontman Chris Martin has expressed that the band would be disappointed if their next tour is not at least carbon neutral.
The band have reportedly looked into opens like no single use plastic, as well as solar power.
Head of climate change from the WWF, Gareth Redmond-King, welcomed Coldplay’s initiative, said: “It is fantastic to see world-famous artists stepping up to protect the planet. We all have a responsibility to lead by example in the face of this climate and nature crisis – inaction is not an option if we are to preserve our planet for future generations.”
Coldplay will also perform a one-off concert for fans at the Natural History Museum in London on 25 November. All proceeds from the show will be donated to an environmental charity.