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West Australian Premier Roger Cook claims Coldplay’s sold-out Optus Stadium concerts at the weekend were so incredible Perth is the talk of the town in Sydney, as the band announces another run of shows on the east coast for 2024.

Such major events were a key part of the WA government’s events strategy, Cook said, giving 40,000 people a reason to travel west.

Chris Martin wrote a new song just for WA.Credit: Paul Kane, Getty Images

“There’s a huge buzz in the air,” Cook said on Sunday.

“And some of the people that attended last night were saying Perth, Western Australia, is the talk of the town in Sydney because everyone is just so captivated by this incredible concert.”

Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin did his bit for the state’s tourism strategy, penning and performing an original song dedicated to WA and what he called the “emerald city”.

WA Tourism Minister Rita Saffioti joked that she would start negotiations for the state’s new song with the band as soon as possible.

Saffioti said her events strategy aimed to see an attraction that gave people reason to travel to WA be held every month in every season.

But she would not reveal the cost to the government of bringing Coldplay to Perth.

“But we do do a return on investment to ensure that the expenditure from government is outweighed by the economic activity. And this has a very strong return on investment,” Saffioti said.

“We’ll be able to release those final figures once a weekend is passed and the calculations are done.”

New Coldplay song dedicated to WA

We’ve been around the world, we’ve been everywhere

You think of a place and … probably been there

My life would have been a total failure

If I hadn’t seen Western Australia.

It’s far from the neighbours?, far away from it all

If you’ve never been in love then, oh you’re going to fall

It’s hot, and it’s tough, and it’s … incredibly pretty

In the land of Oz, it’s like … Emerald City.

It’s so wild out there, man, they got snakes in the parks

And the surfers are so hardcore they go surfing with the sharks

There’s nothing too cuddly, you won’t see a koala

But you might just see one tame animal, that’s a Tame Impala.

We’ve been around the world, oh, we’ve been everywhere

You think of a place and, we’ve probably been there

But my life would have been a total failure

If I’d never seen Western Australia

If I’d never been to Western Australia.

You’ve got two great teams who play in the AFL

And they raised up the man who sang Highway to Hell

You’ve got Justin Langer, oh, now it’s just getting silly

Am I forgettin’ anybody else? Oh yeah, Dennis Lillee

Now we love your whole country. The whole country is blessed

But you got to start somewhere beautiful

So we started, in the West.

Saffioti said West Australians had been used to missing out on big acts in the past.

“We know sometimes we miss out to the other states.

“So when we get these events, WA turns up, we absolutely support it.

“And I think the whole town, the whole state, whether they’ve been able to attend or not absolutely are excited that Coldplay’s here in WA.”

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