Coldplay played a whole new song during BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend in tribute to Luton Town FC to avoid one of their biggest hits. The annual music event took place at Stockwood Park, Luton this weekend with performances from Sabrina Carpenter , Olly Alexander , AJ Tracey, Chase and Status, Raye, Rudimental, Charli XCX , and many more. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin , 47, had referenced fears that the band would play their song Yellow – the colour worn by the Hatters’ arch-rivals Watford.

A campaign was launched by Luton fans to change the lyrics to reference orange instead, but the band went one further and played a whole new song celebrating the local club. Martin told the crowd they could ‘relax’, before saying he had been reading the ‘papers’, which was unusual for him as they are ‘not a reliable source’ about his life. ‘It reached me a while ago.

.. that there were some people in Luton who were worried or disgruntled and maybe even angry about the concept of our band coming here and singing a song called Yellow, and because.

.. of the Hatters and Kenilworth Road and the Luton Town Football Club,’ he continued.

when in Luton, you sing Orange 🧡 #bigweekend @coldplay pic.twitter.com/5l1AGOoKtK ‘So they said, “There’s a campaign, they want to kill you and you’re never going to make it out of Luton alive”, and I said, “That would be a great way to go, and that would cement our legacy forever and that would be a great movie”.

And so I’.