U.K. superstars Ed Sheeran and Coldplay joined forces Tuesday night (Oct. 12) to perform each other’s hits at the band’s new album launch event.
Held at London’s O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, the British rock band celebrated the upcoming release of their Max Martin-produced ninth studio album Music of the Spheres, due Friday via Parlophone/Atlantic Records. They enlisted the help of the English pop singer to sing their 2005 hit “Fix You,” which peaked at No. 18 on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Airplay chart.
Later, Chris Martin & co. returned the favor by strumming along to Sheeran’s 2017 smash “Shape of You,” which ruled the Billboard Hot 100 for 12 nonconsecutive weeks and remains the most-streamed song on Spotify with nearly 3 billion streams.
Both acts have recently scored Hot 100 No. 1s with K-pop supergroup BTS. Sheeran co-penned “Permission to Dance,”which was released on the same CD as the band’s other leader “Butter,” which debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in July. Meanwhile, Coldplay and BTS took the throne last week when their out-of-this-world collaboration “My Universe” landed at No. 1, earning Coldplay its second chart-topper and BTS its sixth. “My Universe” was released as the second single from Music of the Spheres, which the band has been teasing with mysterious lyric billboards in London’s Westfield Shepherd’s Bush shopping center that spelled out its eighth track “Biutyful.”
In promotion of the album, Coldplay and Amazon Music also hosted an immersive two-day event starting last Friday called “The Atmospheres,” which, according to a press release, was a “custom-built installation [where] fans will be transported to The Spheres – the distant solar system that plays host to the band’s latest album, where each of the twelve tracks is twinned with a different planet.” The sensory experience was held at four venues in London, New York, Berlin and Tokyo.
Watch their Sheeran and Coldplay’s performances of “Fix You” and “Shape of You” below.