Coldplay’s Chris Martin honoured his late friend Shane Warne with a heartfelt tribute during the band’s Melbourne concert, dedicating the song Sparks to the legendary cricketer.
The crowd fell silent as Martin shared a personal tribute, telling fans: “Let’s play this for Shane and his family. Our brother, we miss you.”
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Coldplay rocks Melbourne.
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“Every time we come to Melbourne, it used to be fun to hang out with Shane and all the Warne family,” Martin said.
Struggling with emotion, he added, “I don’t want to talk about it too much or I’ll start to cry.”
Martin dedicated the song Sparks to Warne, with poignant lyrics such as: “I promise you this, I’ll always look out for you.”
The touching tribute deeply resonated with fans, including Warne’s own family.
Warne’s daughter Brooke later took to Instagram, posting footage from the tribute: “Love you, Coldplay. Dad would have loved this.”
The concert also marked the band’s first performance without all four founding members.
Just before night one of their Music of the Spheres tour at Marvel Stadium, bassist Guy Berryman fell ill, leaving the iconic British group to carry on without him.
In an Instagram post after the show, the band said: “Tonight was the first time in our band’s history that we’ve played a show without all four members onstage.
“Guy was taken ill unexpectedly just before the show. Thank you for carrying us through it.”
Lead singer Chris Martin addressed the packed stadium, telling fans: “It’s a shame, but we waited until the last minute to tell you that our beautiful bass player Guy is very, very sick.”
“I’m sorry for those who were waiting to see him, he won’t be able to play today.
“But we’ll have a slightly different show, and we’ll do our best to make it amazing because we’re in Melbourne with all of you beautiful people.”
Filling in for Berryman was Bill Rahko, Coldplay’s co-producer and engineer, who donned one of the band’s signature space helmets and stepped in on bass.
Martin kept the crowd’s spirits high, joking, “If you notice mistakes, it’s because we only had about an hour to figure it out … and we have a strange, alien, weird friend character playing bass.
“So you’ll hear Guy, but you just won’t see him. Because he’s vomiting.”
The Music of the Spheres tour has been a massive success, grossing over $US1 ($A1.5) billion since its start nearly three years ago, Billboard reported.
Following their two-night run in Melbourne, Coldplay head to Sydney’s Accor Stadium for another two-night stint.
Coldplay’s Melbourne and Sydney dates come almost a year after they visited Australia and controversially only performed in Perth.
The band has not performed in Sydney or Melbourne since November 2016.
On that tour, the band performed five concerts in three states, NSW, Queensland and Victoria — with Western Australia missing out.
Coldplay’s Music Of The Spheres world tour has sold more than six million tickets since it launched early in 2022.