Coldplay had a special surprise in store for fans on Sunday (May 26) during their headlining set closing out BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend Festival. While preparing to perform the Ghost Stories favorite “Magic,” singer Chris Martin alluded to the fact that his band has been a staple of the event for the past decade.
“We’ve been playing this, one Big Weekend since we were basically children,” Martin said. “And the reason we play one Big Weekend is because without Radio 1, we would never have kept our jobs.” Then, the singer self-deprecatingly introduced one of the festival’s other performers, Sabrina Carpenter, telling the crowd, “What we’d like to do, to say thank you to you for being so wonderful for the whole three days is bring on a singer who’s much younger, more beautiful, more successful, better in every way, and sing a song of ours that is okay but make it really good.”
With the crowd properly hyped, Martin added, “Welcome, from America, U.S.A., Sabrina Carpenter, let’s go!” Carpenter seemed as jazzed as the audience, responding, “Give it up for Coldplay! What the hell?”
The band — who have frequently invited guest stars up to join them during the epic two-year Music of the Spheres road trip — leaned into the song’s spare intro, as Martin and Carpenter harmonized, “Call it magic/ Call it true/ I call it magic/ When I’m with you,” while a graphic of a man trapped inside a top hat struggling to hold on to a woman blowing away from him screened behind them.
It wasn’t the only time during the Coldplay set that the 25-year-old singer/actress made her way into their repertoire. While playing their beloved ballad “Fix You,” a few songs earlier, Martin playfully slipped in a shot of Carpenter’s hit “Espresso” into the song to the crowd’s delight, as he sang, “That’s that me, espresso.”
Watch Carpenter join Coldplay for “Magic” below.
