A worthy charity event

It happens in all professions – I’m thinking of a put-upon hotel manager who has to deal with the wacky demands of some jumped-up celebrity diva, a lawyer representing a client who’s denying everything despite his fingerprints being all over the stolen silverware, a head waiter facing Rust food critic La Coldthard when she’s taken exception to a restaurant’s starter take upon a foie gras fritter, or even a long-suffering housekeeper on the minimum wage who has to clean-up a two-day teenagers’ party in a £20 million Hampstead mansion – but last night I took the proverbial ‘one for the team’ in my capacity as your music correspondent by watching all three hours of the Ariana Grande One Love (Tribute to Manchester) concert at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground, broadcast ‘live’ on BBC1.

I need to begin today’s report with the usual caveats, i.e. (1) I’m now in my mid-sixties and, like most of my generation, without any deliberate intention on my part to do so, effectively bailed out of trying to keep up with modern trends in popular music at least 25 years ago; and (2) what follows is my subjective view and in no way an attempt to provide an accurate report upon the proceedings – those who did not watch the concert can best direct themselves to their preferred media organs if they seek one of those.

Here’s my run-through of the performances as I remember them (I wasn’t taking notes):

Marcus Mumford

My personal knowledge of this cove is that he’s leader of the British folk-rock combo Mumford & Sons who broke America in about 2009 and thereby became phenomenally successful worldwide. I don’t know any of his/their songs. He played accomplished guitar whilst singing some rather undistinguished ditty.

Take That

This iconic UK band, fronted by singer-songwriter Gary Barlow, formed at the beginning of the 1990s and used to be a five piece but lost two of their number along the way (Robbie Williams and A.N. Other). In the past five years they’ve made a significant comeback presumably appealing to ladies in the 30-40 age range. They’ve never made it big in the USA. They write new stuff but these days are basically their own tribute band and still making good enough money that it’s presumably worth them keeping going. They sang three songs (presumably big hits once) but I didn’t know any of them.

Robbie Williams

[See Take That above]. Williams was the ‘bad boy’ in That That who quit to go solo and for about ten years was bigger than his old band. More recently his career has run out of steam. Now 43, he is what he is – a superannuated pop star who’s made enough cash never to need to work again – and it shows. Now a middle-aged has-been, looking a bit seedy and overweight, he sang two songs including his biggest-ever hit Angels and went down only passably well.

Pharrel Williams

A huge musical talent and top producer/arranger, he’s been involved in some of the biggest hits of the past ten years including Get Lucky and Happy, both of which he performed here. A low-key guy, he is happiest behind the control desk and though he got the audience singing along word-for-word his lack of ‘star’ charisma showed. Never mind that, he made the trip to be present and should get brownie points for it.

Miley Cyrus

A huge world star and undoubtedly talented, she began her music career as a young teenager and (between about 2001 and 2016) went through a ‘wild child’ phase whilst trying to grow up.

The only song of hers I know well is Wrecking Ball – largely because I used to watch the video a lot on YouTube because she spends most of it swinging across the screen naked upon a large (yes, wrecking ball) suspended from the ceiling by a chain. She has ‘presence’ and sang two songs during the evening, one of them a duet with Ariana Grande.

Niall Horan and Little Mix

I’ve lumped these two together because they’re both graduates of the Simon Cowell TV show The X-Factor and both came real-life stardom having started as solo performers who were then lumped together with others into a ‘band’ during the course of said show.

Horan became a member of One Direction (at one point ‘the biggest band in the world’) and Little Mix became … er, Little Mix – a girl group in the style of the Spice Girls, and a second division Spice Girls at that.

Horan is taking baby steps as a solo artiste (One Direction have split) and Little Mix do what they do, last night it was singing a forgettable song whilst dressed in sexualised outfits.

Black-Eyed Peas

At one time these guys were very successful, fronted by Will.i.am, who went on to become a major solo star as a rapper/producer/arranger/songwriter and entrepreneur. Last night they had Ariana Grande singing with them but seemed to be seriously depleted in number and rather ‘missed’ the mood of the evening. I even thought I heard Will.i.am call out “Hello London!” to the crowd as he came on stage! At one point they tried get the audience to call-and-respond but not many did.

Katy Perry

One of the highlights of the gig for me, this lady is another massive ballsy US female pop star. At one stage she was (briefly) married to UK ‘comedian’ Russell Brand. She radiates performer-charisma and held the audience in the palm of her hand. I even recognised one of the songs she sang (Roar) and found myself singing along with it – not something my fellow residents in my mansion block would have appreciated. I suspect she had opted to avoid airing her only other hit I know (Firework) because of the ‘explosions’ angle, in the context of this concert probably a wise decision.

Justin Beiber

This Canadian is currently a superstar heart-throb, another who started as a teen prodigy and went on to global adult success – albeit not without plenty of drugs and other issues (basically a period of acting likely a total spoiled prat) along the way.

Still only 23, he scored big on charisma and sang a couple of classy songs very well, accompanying himself only on acoustic guitar. He then blotted his copybook as far as I was concerned by making a somewhat over-the-top ‘luvvy’ speech about the power of love and music changing the world etc.

Coldplay

I’m not a particular fan of Coldplay – though I love what I think was their first ‘break through’ hit Yellow – and for many, including cool older generations like me, they’re a ‘Marmite’ band. However, they’re an accomplished stadium-filling act and, from that point of view alone, (along with Katie Perry) were probably the stand-out performers on the night. Certainly, from my perspective it must have been a bit of an eye-opener for the bulk of the audience who were there for Ariana Grande (i.e. the 10 to 20 year old females) to see how a monster rock-pop combo does it. They did three songs and raised the (non existent) roof.

Liam Gallagher

The ‘surprise’ Mancunian guest superstar of the night. His arrival was first hinted at when Ariana Grande came out at the end of Coldplay’s set and Chris Martin (their lead singer) plus the guitarist sang the Oasis hit Don’t Look Back in Anger to her – see here, and you may have to work to get it to play(!) – DON’T LOOK BACK IN ANGER

Then on Liam came to sing three not-particularly memorable songs (though I did recognise Live Forever). He’s another ‘Marmite’ figure who – as he did last night – can be relied upon to play up to the stereotypical ‘rock and roll superstar’ role by being unflinchingly surly, off-hand and ‘couldn’t give a flying [four-letter expletive deleted]’ in attitude.

Some people love it – I saw a concert review in the Telegraph earlier last week that was fawningly reverential towards him – but for me he’s not in the same league as the equivalents of my era … not by a long chalk. A disappointment.

Ariana Grande

I only know what little I do about Grande by reading her Wikipedia entry and prior to this didn’t know her music at all. She’s 24 later this month, first appeared in a Broadway musical nine years ago and has since built an enormous following, particularly amongst girls aged seven to twenty-seven. She’s another seriously-talented American kid (in the style of Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber … and going back to my day, the likes of Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson) who just ‘are’ – no need here for the likes of ‘talent discovery shows’ such as American Idol or its UK counterpart The X-Factor. Ariana is a pretty girl with an excellent voice who seems to specialise in vaguely Latin-American-tinged mainstream soul/R & B ditties to which her fans know all the words and therefore sing along with fervour. However, to a sad, world-weary oldie onlooker like myself, she sounds a bit like a modern, younger Gloria Estefan or similar.

Good luck to her. Her motivation for arranging last night’s concert – and indeed that of all those artistes who voluntered to join in – was (and is) beyond reproach. The atmosphere inside Old Trafford was plainly electric, emotional and intense, and in a good way. Even sitting at home, it was a memorable experience and it certainly presented Manchester to the world in a  life-enhancing positive, fashion.

Pity that it had to happen, though.