Coldplay have performed their only British concert of 2006, bringing the Isle of Wight Festival to a close.
The band played a crowd-pleasing set for almost 60,000 people, who had also been entertained by The Prodigy and the Foo Fighters during the weekend. The Download Festival, headlined by Guns n' Roses, also drew to a close. But rock band Korn played without their frontman Jonathan Davis on Saturday after he was taken to hospital.
The festival at Donnington Park, Leicestershire, said he was "unwell" and his place was taken by singers from other bands.Metallica and Tool were among the other rock stars on the Download line-up. Both events enjoyed scorching weather for the first big weekend of the UK's summer music festival calendar.
Coldplay received one of the best receptions of the weekend at the Isle of Wight, playing songs from their three albums plus a cover of Lou Reed's Perfect Day. Chris Martin told the crowd they would release a single called Do the Crouch if England did well at the World Cup - before performing Peter Crouch's robotic dance. He also invited a young blonde woman to sit on the stage and sip champagne for two songs as "crowd member of the year".
The band, who had the world's best-selling album of 2005, are about to embark on a tour of Australia and Japan. Richard Ashcroft, Lou Reed and Maximo Park also entertained crowds at the Isle of Wight on Sunday. The festival has been growing steadily since it re-started in 2002. But organiser John Giddings said it would not expand any further.
"I don't want to make it any bigger," he said. "I could make it bigger but I think that's just more aggravation. I just want to make it a really enjoyable event on the music calendar. We're not looking to compete with Glastonbury. I think we're the warm-up for Glastonbury. I don't want a huge event. I want something that's cool, nice, sophisticated, enjoyable. I don't want it too crowded."
On Sunday morning, a police spokesman said: "The crowd have been very well behaved with only a few arrests for minor offences. The majority of the crowd are a real cross-section of people, which makes it a very family orientated event which has been very well run and very well enjoyed by all."
Source: BBC
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