A Head Full of Dreams Tour

A Head Full of Dreams Tour was the seventh concert tour undertaken by British rock band Coldplay. It was first 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. With exception of "Fun" and hidden track "X Marks the Spot", all songs from the album were played. The band combined laser lights and pyrotechnics with raw, acoustic segments between stages, complementing the performances with a new version of the Xylobands developed for the Mylo Xyloto Tour (2011–2012).

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 (2009–2010). Billboard noted that Coldplay earned $523 million from 5.38 million tickets across 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.

Following the release of Coldplay's sixth album, Ghost Stories (2014), the band announced they would not be making a usual tour for it, limiting themselves to one-off concerts at smaller venues around the world. On 6 November 2015, "Adventure of a Lifetime" was made available as the lead single for A Head Full of Dreams. 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. During an interview for The Late Late Show with James Corden, the band mentioned they would also be visiting Asia and North America. In April 2016, Coldplay announced 12 new arena shows in the United States. Months later, they teased new dates for Singapore, Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan on social media. In 2017, the tour's namesake album was further promoted with Kaleidoscope EP, a companion piece including four new songs and a live version of "Something Just Like This" recorded at Tokyo Dome.

Before starting the tour, Coldplay performed at the Super Bowl 50 halftime show, which included appearances from Beyoncé, Bruno Mars, Mark Ronson and the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles. They achieved the highest audience in history for a group at the event, drawing 115.5 million viewers. The band later appeared in multiple festivals, including the BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend in Exeter. Lead singer Chris Martin said he lived "the first few years of my life less than 500 yards from where we'll be performing so this couldn't be more of a homecoming for me". In February 2016, they were announced as Glastonbury Festival headliners for the fourth time, becoming the first act to reach the milestone. Months later, the band appeared at Global Citizen Festival in Mumbai and played "Maa Tujhe Salaam" with A. R. Rahman. Martin has curated the event since 2015 and plans to fulfil the role for 15 years. He later invited Colombian singer Shakira to the Hamburg edition. In September 2017, Coldplay took part in the iHeartRadio Music Festival.

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. She noted being a fan of Coldplay for many years and grew up listening to them. Canadian singer Alessia Cara supported the first European and North American runs as well, which additionally included Foxes and Birdy. 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, while Radwimps played at the Tokyo Dome on 9 April 2016. Remaining dates for the Asian leg were supported by Jess Kent, who also participated in the concerts held in Australia and New Zealand.

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). The local acts invited for Hannover, Gothenburg and Cardiff were German singer Femme Schmidt, Danish group Mew and English band Embrace, respectively. Meanwhile, the second leg in North America featured singers Izzy Bizu and Alina Baraz. In November 2017, Coldplay finished the tour with shows in Brazil and Argentina, which were opened by Jon Hopkins and Dua Lipa. The former has been a collaborator of the band since their fourth album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (2008), while Martin co-wrote the song "Homesick" for the latter's debut album. 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.

Coldplay at Wembley Stadium in 2016. The band also had an additional small stage where they performed an acoustic set.

Similar to the Mylo Xyloto Tour (2011–2012), the band combined routines that used laser light and pyrotechnic visuals at the main stage with intimate sets at the B-stage and C-stage. During the latter segment, songs were played strictly in acoustic renditions. 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". Before the tour began, Martin said Coldplay would "finally have a set list where we feel good about it from start to finish". He joked about being "at the point in our career where we can get through a concert without playing anything shit" as well.

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. 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". The band also performed Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" in selected shows. Coldplay originally wrote "Til Kingdom Come" as a collaboration with the singer, but he died before being able to record it. 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".

Fans who pre-ordered A Head Full of Dreams (2015) on Amazon were given early access to tickets for the United Kingdom shows on 26 November, while general sales for the whole leg happened over the ensuing week. Due to high demand, Coldplay scheduled additional performances in Mexico City, Barcelona, Manchester, Zurich, London, Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Pollstar reported that the concerts at Wembley Stadium (303,985), Stade de France (235,611) and Foro Sol (195,192) achieved the greatest attendance numbers of the group's career at the time. Sales in Abu Dhabi and Singapore were concluded in record time. More than 900,000 people tried to buy tickets in Seoul, which led to multiple website outages. In December 2016, Billboard ranked the band at number three on the list of most successful live entertainers of the year, earning $221.1 million from 2.43 million entries. They achieved the feat once again in December 2017, with $278.1 million from 2.7 million admissions. Following the last shows in Latin America, it was revealed that Coldplay had grossed $523 million and drawn 5.38 million attendees across their 114 reported dates, securing the third-highest-grossing tour of all time.

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". He stated large venues were a "natural home" for Coldplay and where their "uplifting platitudes make most sense". 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 created a "continuously satisfying pop show that has elements of U2 and Taylor Swift, Springsteen and Kylie, but somehow retains a sliver of modesty". In a five-star piece for the Evening Standard at Wembley Stadium, David Smyth attested "Coldplay are 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". Entertainment Weekly ranked the tour among the best of 2016. The Observer's Kitty Empire rated their Croke Park performance with four stars out of five, mentioning that the band were tireless during an "eye-popping" spectacle.

After the tour was finished, Coldplay released Live in Buenos Aires (2018), their fifth live album. 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, and Coldplay: A Head Full of Dreams, a documentary featuring previously unseen behind-the-scenes footage. 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. Both projects were directed by Mat Whitecross, a long-time collaborator of the band. Sam Sodomsky from Pitchfork wrote that Live in Buenos Aires made "a strong case for the legacy of one of the 21st century's most enduring live acts", while Live in São Paulo was nominated for a UK Music Video Award.

This set list was taken from the 15 November 2017 concert in La Plata, Argentina. It does not represent all shows throughout the tour.

• "God Put a Smile upon Your Face" was replaced by "Birds" on select dates.
• "Heroes", "Ring of Fire" and "Johnny B. Goode" were separately covered on select dates.
• "In My Place" featured Will Champion's main vocals on select dates.
• "Something Just Like This" was added to the set list starting from Singapore.
• "Life Is Beautiful" was added to the setlist starting from San Diego.

The band performed covers, received guests and improvised songs specifically for the occasion on numerous dates, skipping to the rest of the show otherwise.

Covers

Guests

Improvisations

Credits adapted from the band's official tour book, which was sold exclusively on merchandise booths and their online store.

• List of Coldplay live performances
• List of highest-grossing live music artists
• List of most-attended concert tours
• List of most-attended concert series at a single venue

Cities

Others

• Coldplay Official Website
• A Head Full of Dreams Tour Lighting Gear
• A Head Full of Dreams Tour Sound Gear