On Wednesday (Jan. 15), a select number of SiriusXM subscribers had the opportunity to meet Coldplay at their broadcasting facility.

The Garage, SiriusXM’s new performance space in Los Angeles, hosted a few SiriusXM subscribers on Wednesday (Jan. 15). Coldplay usually performs in large stadiums and arenas.  

The lucky 50-person crowd span generations, race, and gender, demonstrating the band’s decades-long reach. After an hour-long Q&A with Chris Martin, Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman, and Will Champion, Coldplay performed oldies and songs from their latest album, Everyday Life. 

Champion launched the event with “Orphans,” a humanitarian hymn “about displaced people” and “young people who really only just want to be with their friends and grow up as one should.”

“All of us, after seeing humans labeled migrants or refugees or whatever,” Martin said. “That was a major consideration…How can we have a song about everyone’s humanity? So all those things came together and the song just emerged.”

No Coldplay gig would be complete without the frontman’s hilarious stories, such as realizing too late that “Orphans” begins like “Here Comes the Bride.” “My son was singing it the other day and I was like, ‘I think that’s ‘Here Comes the Bride,’ the first bit,’” he laughed. So if it’s together, it’s stolen from weddings.

The band performed their hit songs “Viva La Vida” and “Daddy,” dubbed “the emotional heart of the album,” before discussing their inspirations, including stars, literature on humanity, and…Future revisited.

After performing “Cry Cry Cry,” Champion said the swinging song is a “homage” to Marty McFly’s school dance scene with the band in 1985. Champion laughed and dubbed “Earth Angel” “one of the greatest songs ever written,” saying the Everyday Life track was a “attempt to emulate that.”

Martin discussed his recent tattoo honoring Bruce Springsteen, one of his favorite artists. “It’s not an obvious Bruce song, but it’s ‘Working on a Dream,’ a recent Bruce song,” he said. That was my introduction to Bruce. Working on a dream is what we do every day.” 

“Of course, Bruce could fart in my face and I’d think it’s amazing, so I’m a bit biased,” Martin joked.

The Coldplay frontman’s praise for Justin Bieber’s new track, “Yummy,” was a surprise.

“I think it’s brilliant,” he said spontaneously. “New songs sometimes make you feel like everything we’ve done is terrible, but they inspire you again. He recently done that to me with his new song, ‘Yummy.’”

Before closing the night with “Champion of the World” off the new album, the band was asked for advice to their younger selves. “We’ve been a band long enough to find our early publicity photo charming. However, they seemed dreadful for a time because we lived on chocolate milk and gas station food, Martin joked. “My advice would probably be to eat more greens, and we might have done better commercially.”