Coldplay couldn’t play Houston because of Harvey, so they wrote the city a song

The band Coldplay was forced to cancel its show in Houston last week because of Hurricane Harvey — but wrote a new song for fans there that it premiered Monday night in Miami.

The band had planned to play in Texas on Friday but announced that afternoon it had to postpone the concert for attendees’ safety. On Monday night, in a place that is no stranger to hurricanes, frontman Chris Martin told a packed crowd at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium about an hour and a half into the show that the band had a gift for the fans in Texas who had hoped to hear them play a few days before.

“We all grew up loving country music, and of course that’s kind of what we think of when we go to Texas,” Martin said from the end of the stage. “So, if you’ll bear with us, this is a new song and we’ll never play this again. It’s a once-off and it’s called ‘Houston.’ ”

He encouraged people to pull out their phones: “We’re gonna sing it in Miami for everybody here, and we’re gonna send it over there to everyone who missed the show.”

"I'm dreaming of when I get back to Houston, I'm dreaming of that very special place,” he sang. “I'm dreamin' of when Houston has no problems, in that city where they send you into space.”

“I'm dreamin' of when I get back to Texas, Corpus Christi, Harris County, Galveston,” he continued. “There's a harmony that bonds down there in Houston, oh Houston, you got to keep on keeping on.

“From Miami, we are sending love to Houston, we're praying that you make it through the rain, I know nothing's gonna break the will of Houston, oh, how we can't wait to go down there again.”

Posted on YouTube by the band’s official account on Tuesday, video of the song shot up the trending section of the website, garnering tens of thousands of views in a few hours.

This story was originally published August 29, 2017 at 12:04 PM with the headline "Coldplay couldn’t play Houston because of Harvey, so they wrote the city a song."