“If you see some mistakes, and some problems, it’s because we don’t have our bass player”: Coldplay forced to play a show without one of their members for the first time in their history

Coldplay have chalked-up an unwanted first in their history due to bassist Guy Berryman being forced to pull out of a Melbourne Music Of The Spheres tour show due to illness.

Rolling Stone Australia reports that the news was broken by frontman Chris Martin, who addressed the crowd from the stage before Coldplay’s set began.

“It’s a shame but we waited for the last minute to tell you that our beautiful bass player Guy is very, very sick and will not be [playing] for the first time,” said Martin. “I’m sorry for you guys down here who are waiting to see Guy. He’s not going to be able to play today. We’ll have a slightly different show and we’ll do our best to make it amazing, and I know that it will be amazing because we’re in Melbourne with all of you beautiful people.

“If you see some mistakes, and some problems, it’s because we don’t have our bass player. And we only had about an hour to figure it out. And we have figured it out. We have a strange, alien, weird friend character playing bass, or looking like he’s playing bass. So you’ll hear Guy, but you just won’t see him. Because he’s vomiting.”

The implication is that the stand-in bassist - believed to be engineer Bill Rahko - would be performing to a backing track of Berryman’s playing. Presumably, Coldplay’s show runs to a click track, so, assuming they had one at their disposal, they could drop a bass track into the live mix.

It must have been a strange evening for Martin and fellow Coldplayers Will Champion and Jonny Buckland, though. It’s believed that this is the first time one of the band has missed a show since the line-up was established around 25 years ago, which is pretty remarkable.

Coldplay have further Melbourne shows scheduled for 31 October and 2 and 3 November, Whether Berryman will be well enough to play these remains to be seen.