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It was mid-June in the long, hot summer of 1989 – still the best summer of my life. Fresh from completing my GCSEs earlier in the month, I went with my Dad to see a concert at the old Wembley Stadium called The Event. The stadium itself was packed out. It seemed to take forever to get from the tube station at Wembley Park to the standing area on the pitch. For the next two-and-a-half hours, we were treated to some of the greats from the previous 30 years of pop. Hosted by Cliff Richard, The Event was a celebration of Cliff’s (then) three decades in the industry, so we had catalogue of songs from the Peter Pan of Pophimself. Also on stage that day were Aswad, Gerry Marsden, the Shadows, Jet Harris, and the Kalin Twins. I have only ever been to two pop concerts held in stadiums in my entire life, and both were memorably fantastic experiences. The second time was in 2001, when Bon Jovi held a concert as part of their UK tour at Huddersfield’s Galpharm Stadium.
I guess the major difference between those years and today is the fact that the world was formerly a much saner place. Back then, universities and government bodies hadn’t had the bandwith or the opportunity to poison minds into obsessive frenzies, which were subsequently hijacked by talentless parvenus for their own economic ends. That’s why it was possible to attend The Event without hearing so much as one political message. That’s why is was enjoyable to attend a concert by an American band with known Democrat-supporting members without hearing diatribes against President George W Bush, or invective against the Grand Old Party. Until the arrival of these sad, sad years, entertainers tended to employ the philosophy of the old Metro Goldwyn Mayer studios: ars gratiā artis (art for the sake of art).
I have very little time for contemporary so-called music. In fact, I happen to think the golden age of music started in the late fifties and went on till the very early nineties. I am much more in my comfort zone listening to Anthony Newley than I am having my ear canals assaulted by Andre Nickatina. I count three modern solo singers I credit with having some stand-out talent: George Ezra, James Blunt and Ed Sheeran. I don’t regard any of them to be in the ranks of the true singing and songwriting greats, but I do acknowledge they all have talents sorely lacking in most of their pop peer group. If I wanted to go and see any of these guys, I’d want a showcase of their performing skills, not a political lecture on events happening thousands of miles away. When normal people used to visit pop concerts, that’s what we expected. It seems our normalcy is being well and truly spurned by armies of Gen Z, Left-wing orcs that seem to make up ever greater audiences these days.
A few weeks ago we had the tragic suicide of Professor Jason Arday. It’s always a body blow when we hear that someone has decided to end it all. Although I disagreed with the online abuse and harassment this guy endured from faceless internet trolls, it has to be said he was a serial fraud who was found out by a media he had courted for his own ends over many years. The story had barely broken before the usual suspects – complete with their social media hashtags and banners – had gone apoplectic with the same histrionic rage we consistently get from the Left. Within a few days, crowds from the Be Kind brigade had gathered in Trafalgar Square telling us Professor Arday was a victim of the “cruel, imperial Britain with all its traits of black oppression, institutional racism and white privilege”. We must treat everyone a bit nicer, they told us. Turn the other cheek and love thy neighbour, they cried.
OK, so where are all these niceties when it comes to Ed Sheeran? I don’t like this guy’s politics, but I do happen to think he’s a decent performer with some catchy songs on his CV. He certainly hasn’t got to where he is now by plagiarism or pretending he’s something that he’s not. He hasn’t even come on stage dressed in the uniform of an IDF soldier or proclaimed “Am Yisrael Chai!” His unforgivable transgression, in the eyes of lunatic Lefties, was not to allow his tour to become another Free Palestine Nuremberg-type gathering replete with anti-Semitic poison, Israel hatred and pro-Hamas sentiment. For that’s they world these people want the rest of us to live in and suck up. If it’s not Pride, it’s trans. If it’s not trans, it’s Net Zero. If it’s not Net Zero, it’s Palestine. We’re expected to just live like this with our heads down, lest we get a bullet in our necks like Charlie Kirk did just over a year ago.
Enter stage left some mush called Macklemore (no, I’ve never heard of him, either!), who, after being dropped from Sheeran’s tour, has pledged to hold a series of Free Palestine gigs starting in Dublin – capital city of the West’s most anti-Semitic country – next month. He’ll then move on to the Islamically-captured, Woke, Third World cesspits of Paris and London. That should be fun. With this guy being a rap artist, I guess we’ll hear lyrics referencing drug abuse, alleged police brutality and derogatory fraternal words for black people interspersed among the usual drivel that forms the basis of most of this genre’s songs. Oh, and the occasional “Free Palestine!” thrown in for good measure. As for Sheeran, he must now be relegated to the ranks of “Zionist stooge”, “an enabler of genocide“, “a coward” and “a lowlife” by the very same hypocritical scumbags who were telling us all to be so much lovelier only a couple of months ago.
When I went to see a pop concert, I went for the music. I didn’t go to be indoctrinated by idiots who play on their celebrity status by pretending they have all the answers to the world’s problems. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to listen to a bit of Wham, A-ha and Duran Duran. It allows me to immerse myself in the memories of a time when the human race was far less certifiable than it is now.
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