Coldplay’s Chris Martin Livestreamed an Intimate Performance on Instagram Because of the Coronavirus

Being stuck inside is no fun. We’re being told to socially distance ourselves from loved ones and friends as the planet comes to grips with the realities of the coronavirus pandemic — so it’s wonderful to see musicians take the initiative to stage impromptu concerts via social media. Chris Martin of Coldplay did this on Monday afternoon, using the hashtag #TogetherAtHome, and it was pretty cathartic.

In addition to taking some requests from viewers in Coldplay’s Instagram Story, Martin played snippets of various Coldplay songs on the piano or acoustic guitar, spoke candidly and casually and clearly had a great time entertaining in what has become an increasingly stressful time for everybody.

View this post on Instagram

Chris played a mini gig at home earlier today on IG Live. @glblctzn @WHO @JohnLegend #TogetherAtHome

A post shared by Coldplay (@coldplay) on Mar 16, 2020 at 5:21pm PDT

John Legend popped up in the comment stream during Chris Martin’s performance, and Legend later posted this — indicating that he’s also staging a livestream on social media on Tuesday:

My friend Chris Martin did a lovely little concert from home today. I'll be doing one tomorrow at 1pm Pacific time. See you soon. We'll try to get through this together! #TogetherAtHome https://t.co/YZ8Y1W8esc

— John Legend (@johnlegend) March 16, 2020

Artists and musicians have been adopting this platform lately to help keep the music alive and entertain their fans, suddenly cooped up inside as fears surrounding the coronavirus has all but ground the entire music industry — and most other industries — to a sudden halt.

Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie also announced a daily acoustic performance that he will stream on Facebook and YouTube, while Dropkick Murphys’ annual St. Patrick’s Day gig from Boston will be streamed for free on Tuesday evening.

The list goes on — as long as the pandemic keeps us all inside, expect more and more of these off-the-cuff performances to show up on social media. We can definitely all use the entertainment, that’s for sure!