If anyone went to the Coldplay gigs at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium back in 2017 they’ll remember the special moment when Gavin & Stacey star Rob Brydon popped up midway to sing the Welsh national anthem with the band.
During his celebrity interview podcast, Brydon & Me on Spotify, the Welshman says he and lead singer Chris Martin first met at a charity gig at the O2 and he invited the comic to see the band at their Head Full of Dreams tour in Wembley.
The comedian and singer, who is also a brilliant impressionist, then went on to explain how the guest appearance at the Cardiff date came about – and that he initially refused to sing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau.
Read more : Coldplay at the Principality Stadium left us with A Head Full of Excitement and awe
Brydon says to Martin: “You were going to play Cardiff and we were going to go and I thought ‘shall I email Chris’ but thought, no, wherever they go they get emails from every Tom, Dick and Harry. So we booked seats.
“With a few days to go you emailed and said, much to my surprise ‘will you come on and sing the Welsh national anthem,”
Martin interjected: “That was Will’s idea, the anthem, you were my idea.”
Brydon added: “And my initial reaction was ‘no’ because I don’t speak Welsh and there are a lot of words. I told my wife and she said ‘WHAT? You said no? What is wrong with you? Learn the damn thing’.”
The pair bonded over Blue Peter badges and Barry Gibb impressions and Martin told the host that the rendition of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau was second only to one other moment in his musical life.
Chris and Rob have a mutual adoration
(Image: YouTube/Rob Brydon &)
“There were two moments on that tour that had an extra ‘zing’ and one was that in Cardiff when you came and sang,” said the Coldplay frontman, who despite not eating dairy, joked that every now and then hankers after two Weetabix with double cream.
“It becomes more about the collective oneness rather than about the band or someone famous, that’s all by-the-by. “
He said the other brilliant musical moment of his life was in Argentina when Coldplay performed (a song by) local artist, Soda Stereo, saying it was his favourite, to which Brydon pretended to be gutted that he wasn’t top.
Rob Brydon pretends to be miffed that he’s not top of Chris’ ‘best moments’ list
(Image: YouTube/Rob Brydon &)
“Better than the one with me?” he said.
“You were a close silver,” Martin laughed. “You were pretty great, Rob. You were gracious and sweet and it was nice to have a proper tenor on stage.”
Other than having to nail Mae Hen Wlad Fyn Nhadau ahead of the 2017 gig, Brydon said he had extra nerves thanks to Martin’s enthusiastic build-up to his introduction.
“I was wearing these in-ear monitors you gave me and there was only a feed of the band, and to my dismay, none of the crowd.
“And you gave me the biggest introduction, you were so generous about my voice that everybody must have thought it was Tom Jones,” added Brydon, who is due to go out on tour this year when he will sing.
“You said ‘he’s a Welshman, he’s got the best voice’ and I came out and I heard nothing. I thought ‘oh god no!’ By two lines in you looked down you could see [the crowd] it was absolutely astonishing.”
You can hear the full podcast with Chris at Brydon & on Spotify.
Were you at the 2017 Cardiff Coldplay gigs? What was your favourite moment of the concerts? Tell us in the comments
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