Last night, I made a concession to the coronation weekend by watching the Coronation Concert on BBC1 and, given the absence of genuine superstars, I enjoyed some of it while cringing through the rest. The drone show was unarguably fantastic, some of the performers were very good and some less so. I got as much enjoyment, and indeed amusement, by watching the VIP stand high up in the gods.
First, the positives. The great Steve Winwood performed his hit Higher Love rather better than I feared, given that he was pushed front and centre instead of nearer the side of the stage behind his keyboards where he usually is. In fact, even in his mid seventies, his voice is very much intact and unlike many of his vintage he hasn’t dropped an octave. And Katy Perry glided through her two songs as if she really meant it. Take That did as Take That do, ending with a storming version of Never Forget, but I was as disappointed that Jason Orange couldn’t be persuaded to turn up as I was pleased that Robbie Williams hadn’t, too.
I will take with me the astonishing performance of 13 year old blind pianist Lucy Illingworth. I had no idea who she was but it was deeply moving, although my viewing was somewhat hampered by some grit that appeared to get into my eyes. That, I’m afraid, was as good as it got for me.
Lionel Ritchie whooped and hollered his way through a strange version of the sad break-up song Easy which certainly woke up many in the crowd, especially Mike Tindall and Zara Phillips, who seem to know how to have a good time even when the entertainment isn’t quite what you might expect for an apparently major concert.
Take That were joined by someone called Calum Scott who I did not recognise but I soon learned he was a Britain’s Got Talent runner up. He seemed a nice enough chap with a decent voice but I struggled to see the point of his presence, as I did with his fellow BGT runner up the modestly talented Olly Murs, who was performing before royalty but in no way can be regarded as pop royalty. His fake Elton John/Rod Stewart American accent was cringeworthy. We were close to barrel scraping, something which was confirmed when Nicole Shitsinger – I think that’s how she spells her name: she should – performed a song I didn’t know, emphasising each word as if it was the final one. It sounded to my admittedly damaged ears that she was performing vocal gymnastics on a song with no tune.
The absolute lowlight musically for me was the performance of Bryn Terfel and Andrea Bocelli as they murdered You’ll Never Walk Alone. Perhaps it was an act of revenge after Liverpool fans booed their way through God Save The Queen at Anfield on Saturday but either way it was terrible. I am no fan of opera singers at the best of times, although when Pavarotti did briefly turn my head during Italia ’90. Terfel and Bocelli I know by name, but little else, and I would be quite happy to keep it that way.
Yet despite the disappointment of Terfel and Bocelli’s performance, I can’t help but thinking the whole thing might have been better, at least for people who like this kind of thing, to have stuck with Royal Opera, Royal Ballet, Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal College of Music and Royal College of Art. As Alexis Petridis put it in the Guardian, “It was hard not to wish they’d stuck with that kind of thing, and left pop alone.” I wouldn’t have watched a second of it but you sense that Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles would have preferred it to Lionel Ritchie and Olly Murs.
The assorted royals and politicians did their best to appear to be enjoying themselves, particularly Rishi Sunak whose eyes were darting all over the place to see of the TV cameras were on him, whereupon he switched on his enormous grin and danced for what appeared to be the first time in his life.
If Terfel and Bocelli was disappointing, that was nothing compared to that when Hugh Bonneville did a comic turn, if that’s what you call it, with Muppets Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog. I say this as a very old person who think it actually matters who is doing the voiceovers. Frank Oz clearly doesn’t do Miss Piggy anymore and given that Jim Henson died a very long time ago he can’t do Kermit. Quite apart from the clichéd nature of the sketch, I couldn’t help but feeling this didn’t feel right. But then, I feel the same way about Basil Brush.
I perked up only briefly when someone mentioned McCartney and I wondered if Macca might come on stage and bang out a few verses of Hey Jude, but it turned out the best the promoters could do was bring out his daughter Stella who uttered some King-pleasing words about climate change. To be honest, Miss Piggy or Kermit could have done that.
The Coronation Concert wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t very good. Perhaps, the organisers chose a safety first line up so no one would be offended? I felt it was more a case of the bland leading the bland, a largely average and instantly forgettable occasion that couldn’t rise above the fact that no global superstars were available. Having seen the show, you have to wonder if they felt justified by their absences. I rather think they would have.
