When in Seattle it's always good to recognise the local heroes - and for Chris Martin and Coldplay that's Pearl Jam.
This is not Adele singing Make You Feel My Love. That's not what you're about to see
"Because w're here in Seattle we wanted to pay tribute to all of the bands we fell in love with when we were just young teenagers in the '90s," Martin told the crowd last night (22 October) at the Climate Pledge Arena as an introduction. "So this is a cover version, this song. But maybe don't upload it to YouTube because it's not going to be the best cover version, it's really just a tribute. You know what I mean?
"This is not Adele singing [Bob Dylan's] Make You Feel My Love. That's not what you're about to see," Martin warned. "This is a 44-year-old man remembering how much he fell in love with Pearl Jam in 1991. And if you told that kid he would be here singing this song, that kid would have said, 'Are you sure that's a good idea?' I would have said, 'Maybe not' but we're doing it."
Martin's humility aside, choosing to cover Nothingman from Pearl Jam's 1994 third album Vitalogy suited the Coldplay man well. And the footage did get uploaded to Youtube, and it was professionally filmed.
Coldplay drummer Will Champion joined in on piano, having learned the track only "25 minutes ago" for the stripped down rendition.
But this isn't the first time Martin has played the song. Indeed, the last time was in 2016 with no less than Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder on vocals at the Global Citizen event.
The duo also played Crowded House and Patti Smith classics together…
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I'm the Guitars Editor for MusicRadar, handling news, reviews, features, tuition, advice for the strings side of the site and everything in between. Before MusicRadar I worked on guitar magazines for 15 years, including Editor of Total Guitar in the UK. When I'm not rejigging pedalboards I'm usually thinking about rejigging pedalboards.
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