Michael J. Fox plays surprise guitar with Coldplay at Glastonbury Festival

The “Back to the Future” star took the stage with the British rock band on Saturday night.

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Back to the Future star Michael J. Fox brought back fond memories for me at the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England, when he made a surprise appearance on stage with Coldplay.

Retired actor Michael J. Fox has been an avid Parkinson’s disease activist since he was diagnosed with the long-term neurodegenerative disease at the age of 29. Fox, who currently uses a wheelchair, played guitar on his lap during performances of “Humankind” and “Fix You.”

Foxx previously performed “Johnny B. Goode” with Coldplay after the band made a surprise appearance in New York in 2016.

Coldplay, headlining Glastonbury for the fifth time, told the audience on Saturday that Foxx’s role as teenager Marty McFly in the classic 1985 film inspired the formation of the British rock band. He revealed that he distributed food to her.

“The main reason we formed the band was because we saw ‘Back to the Future,'” frontman Chris Martin said during the performance. “Thank you to Michael J. Fox, an eternal hero and one of the greatest men on the planet.”

Martin sang the band’s 2005 hit, “Fix You,” with the crowd, including references to the film along the way.

“Go, Johnny, go, go, go,” Martin sang during the break. This is reminiscent of Fox’s McFly singing Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” at his parents’ high school dance.

Introducing him to the audience on Saturday, Martin, in a sing-song voice, described Foxx as “just a rock guy, with his Chuck Berry riffs and the way he takes down Biff, the main antagonist of the trilogy.”

Before retiring from acting in 2020, Foxx won five Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Grammy Award in a career that spanned decades.

He founded the Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2000 and his goal is to find a treatment and ultimately a cure for Parkinson’s disease.

Angela Yang

Angela Yang is a culture and trends reporter for NBC News.