Concert for Diana

Concert for Diana

Location(s)	Wembley Stadium, London, England
Years active	2007
Founded by	The Duke of Cambridge Prince Harry
Date(s)	1 July 2007
Genre	Concert
Website	www.concertfordiana.com

Concert for Diana was a concert held at the then new Wembley Stadium in London, England, United Kingdom in honour of Diana, Princess of Wales, on 1 July 2007, which would have been her 46th birthday; 31 August that year brought the 10th anniversary of her death. The concert was hosted by Diana's sons, Princes William and Harry, who helped to organize many of the world's most famous entertainers and singers to perform at the concert.

The concert was broadcast in 140 different countries across the world^[1] with an estimated potential audience of 500 million.^[2][3] In December 2006, 22,500 tickets were made available for purchase for the concert, selling out in just 17 minutes,^[1] while 63,000 people turned out to Wembley Stadium to watch the performances to commemorate Diana.^[1][4][5] At the end of the performances, a video montage of Diana as a child was presented, accompanied by the Queen song "These Are the Days of Our Lives".^[6]

The concert started at 16:00 BST and finished at approximately 22:15 BST – there were two short intermissions during the concert.

A 2-Disc DVD set of the full concert was released on 5 November 2007. A Blu-ray high definition release of the full concert and documentary was released in November 2008.

Performers and speakers

Order of performances

Take That performing

Elton John's second performance

1. Sir Elton John (first performance) – "Your Song"
2. Duran Duran – "(Reach Up for the) Sunrise", "Wild Boys" and "Rio"
3. James Morrison – "You Give Me Something" and "Wonderful World"
4. Lily Allen – "LDN" and "Smile"
5. Fergie – "Glamorous" and "Big Girls Don't Cry"
6. The Feeling – "Fill My Little World" and "Love It When You Call"
7. Pharrell – "Drop It Like It's Hot" and "She Wants To Move (Remix)"
8. Nelly Furtado – "Say It Right", "I'm Like a Bird" and "Maneater"
9. English National Ballet – "Swan Lake" (Act IV)
10. Status Quo – "Rockin' All Over the World"
11. Joss Stone – "You Had Me" and "Under Pressure"
12. Roger Hodgson – Supertramp Medley ("Dreamer", "The Logical Song" and "Breakfast in America") and "Give a Little Bit"
13. Orson – "Happiness" and "No Tomorrow"
14. Sir Tom Jones and Joe Perry – "Kiss", "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" and "Ain't That A Lot of Love?" (with Joss Stone)
15. Will Young – "Switch It On"
16. Natasha Bedingfield – "Unwritten"
17. Bryan Ferry – "Slave to Love", "Make You Feel My Love" and "Let's Stick Together (Extended)"
18. Anastacia – "Superstar" from Jesus Christ Superstar
19. Connie Fisher and Andrea Ross – "Memory" from Cats
20. Andrea Bocelli – "The Music of the Night" from The Phantom of the Opera
21. Josh Groban and Sarah Brightman – "All I Ask of You" from The Phantom of the Opera
22. Donny Osmond, Jason Donovan and Lee Mead featuring the Chicken Shed Theatre Company – "Any Dream Will Do" from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
23. Rod Stewart – "Maggie May", "Baby Jane" and "Sailing"
24. Kanye West – "Gold Digger", " Touch the Sky", "Stronger", "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" and "Jesus Walks"
25. P. Diddy – "I'll Be Missing You"
26. Take That – "Shine", "Patience" and "Back for Good"
27. Ricky Gervais – "Freelove Freeway" (featuring Mackenzie Crook), "Chubby Little Loser" (sung unplanned due to Ricky having to unexpectedly fill time)
28. Sir Elton John (second performance) – "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting" "Tiny Dancer" "Are You Ready For Love"

Order of speakers

1. Princes William and Harry
2. Sienna Miller and Dennis Hopper
3. Kiefer Sutherland
4. Ryan Seacrest, Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson
5. Natasha Kaplinsky
6. Dennis Hopper
7. Fearne Cotton
8. Gillian Anderson
9. Boris Becker and John McEnroe
10. Cat Deeley
11. Patsy Kensit
12. Jamie Oliver
13. David Beckham
14. Ben Stiller (pre-recorded message)
15. Prince William and Prince Harry of Wales
16. Ricky Gervais
17. Nelson Mandela (pre-recorded message)
18. Bill Clinton (pre-recorded message)
19. Tony Blair (pre-recorded message)

Attendees

• Prince William
• Prince Harry
• Princess Beatrice of York
• Zara Phillips
• Peter Phillips
• Sarah, Duchess of York
• Princess Eugenie of York
• Members of the Spencer family
• Catherine Middleton with parents Carole and Michael Middleton and her younger brother, James and younger sister Philippa
• Chelsy Davy
• Kiefer Sutherland
• Jason Donovan
• P. Diddy
• David Furnish
• Mike Tindall
• Autumn Kelly
• Peaches Geldof
• Nina Harte
• Malcolm Harte
• Adam Worthington

The Prince of Wales was not among the spectators. Together with Elizabeth II, Gordon Brown, and Tony Blair he was among the guests at the Diana, Princess of Wales memorial service on 31 August 2007 in the Guards Chapel.

Planning

• Footballer, David Beckham attended the concert to introduce Take That.
• In pre-concert interview Prince William listed Michael Jackson as one of Diana's most favourite music acts but the performer did not appear on the show. In 1997 Jackson cancelled his world tour concert in Belgium due to the emotional shock of Diana's death, attended an LA memorial service dedicated to her, granted his Gone Too Soon song to the Tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales album, and gave his memories on being friends with Diana to Barbara Walters in an internationally televised interview.
• In one of the many tabloid stories that surfaced relating to the concert and the following week's Live Earth event it was alleged Madonna, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Keane, and other acts were set to play at the concert but were lost to the upcoming Live Earth show. The concert organisers were apparently trying to secure their top acts, and are also being pressured into rethinking their lineup to appeal to younger people, and compare to Live Earth.^[7]
• Catherine Middleton, now Prince William's wife, and Chelsy Davy, the girlfriend of Prince Harry, attended the concert. It has been rumoured that they were involved in helping to plan the event.^[8]
• Queen guitarist Brian May, expected to perform alongside Joss Stone in her version of Under Pressure, pulled out of accompanying Stone after finding the new arrangement of his band's song "different... from the original".^[9]
• According to certain sources, Bryan Adams was barred by the Princes because they did not want any controversy to surround the event. This controversy would stem from rumours that Adams and Diana were romantically involved.^[10] Adams, however, was playing in Budapest, Hungary the night before, and would have found it difficult to appear in the Diana show even if he had been asked.
• The Spice Girls were set to perform at the concert, but did not appear as Emma Bunton was heavily pregnant and due to give birth.
• Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall decided not to attend the Concert nor the Memorial Service on 31 August 2007, at the Guards Chapel out of respect for the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales. Had Camilla attended it could have caused great public embarrassment.^[11]

Broadcasting

The concert was broadcast in 140 countries. Jamie Theakston, Fearne Cotton and Claudia Winkleman interviewed acts backstage for the BBC and many other television channels across the world. In the United States, VH1's coverage was helmed by Aamer Haleem and Kate Thornton with Dave Berry interviewing performers backstage.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom the concert was broadcast on BBC One, BBC HD and BBC Radio 2 (from 3:30 pm BST).

The concert was watched by an average of 8.9 million viewers, and peaked with 14.8 million. Over the 8 hour period it had a 44% viewing share.^[12] It received considerably more viewers than the Live Earth concert which was broadcast a week later.^[13]

Italy

Differentely by others international events, Concert for Diana hasn't been aired by the State TV RAI, in any one of its channels. The Live-broadcasting has been aired by satellitar TV Sky Italia in channel Sky Vivo (today SkyUNO). The Concert were aired from 17:00 (+1.00 DST Italian Time) to 23:00. The concert was also aired by Radio RTL 102.5.

United States

In the US Palladia (then known as MHD), VH1 and VH1.com broadcast the concert live from 11 am (EDT) The concert drew near double the viewing figures for the 2005 Live 8 concert with 1.4 million average over the 8 hours.^[14]

NBC broadcast a highlights show between 8 pm-11 pm EDT. The NBC showing was the US most watched programme, averaging 8.7 million viewers.^[15]

Canada

In Canada, the concert was broadcast live on CTV with a two hour primetime special highlighting the best performances. The concert reached 2.8 million viewers and the primetime recap peaked at nearly 1 million viewers.^[16]

Australia

Foxtel on FOX8 in Australia, which was hosted by Molly Meldrum (with a highlights package broadcast by the Nine Network)

Other countries

VH1 Latin America broadcast the concert in Latin America, the Caribbean and Central America.

DStv carried it in Africa buy showing it on a dedicated channel for the event. Prior to the concert there were television specials on the channel. Star TV throughout Asia, except Japan where it was shown by WOWOW.

A number of broadcasters showed the concert in Europe. Some countries saw the entire show live, others had only highlights. In Germany the broadcaster RTL II showed the highlights from 8.15 pm- 12.15 am CEST

Video On Demand

VH1's site for the Concert For Diana has videos of all the performances from the concert (except Fergie's "Glamorous" which lost her lead vocal during the live broadcast) on their VSPOT video on demand service in the United States

CTV's Concert For Diana mini-site has VOD for the performances for Canadian viewers.

The BBC's site, Concert For Diana, also had VOD for seven days, which showed the concert in three parts for viewers in the UK.

Virgin Media has over 4 and a half hours of the Concert for Diana on its "Catchup TV On Demand" service.

Ricky Gervais

As with many live televised events, the Concert for Diana had a few technical problems, the most obvious of which occurred during comedian Ricky Gervais's stand up routine, before Elton John's musical finale. As a planned seven minute routine became twelve minutes, viewers saw Gervais play to the sympathies of the crowd as a stagehand held up signs saying 'two minutes', 'then 'one minute'. The stand-up comic delivered a rendition of a song that David Bowie performed on his show Extras before finally being told to 'throw to the BBC' (he could not perform jokes from his stand-up tour 'Fame' due to legal circumstances), before handing back to Claudia Winkleman and Jamie Theakston. During the extended piece, by popular demand from the crowd, he performed his famous "dance" from The Office.

It is thought that the delay led Elton John to drop his hit "Crocodile Rock" from his set.^[17]

Charities

All net proceeds from the Concert will go to the charities chosen by Princes William and Harry."^[18] These charities include Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, Centrepoint and Sentebale, a charity founded in April 2006, by Prince Harry and Lesotho's Prince Seeiso. It helps vulnerable children and young people in Lesotho – particularly those orphaned as a result of AIDS.^[19]

During the airing of the concert, Diana, Princess of Wales, was hailed for her generous charity work with the Chain of Hope, Luton Indoor Bowling Club, and British Deaf Association charities. She was also celebrated for her work with the British Red Cross in helping get the word out on land mines in Angola.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Kanye West, Rod Stewart to perform at Diana concert". ABC News. Retrieved 1 July 2007.
2. ^ "Pop stars pay tribute to Princess Diana". Yahoo News. Retrieved 1 July 2007.
3. ^ "Chelsy and Harry get close at the Diana concert ... but Kate and William keep their distance". Daily Mail. Retrieved 1 July 2007.
4. ^ "Sir Elton launches Diana concert". BBC News. Retrieved 1 July 2007.
5. ^ "The sons & the stars". The Telegraph. Retrieved 1 July 2007.
6. ^ Old and new stars celebrate Diana BBC. Retrieved 16 July 2011
7. ^ "Princess Diana Concert loses top acts to Live Earth". Starpulse blog
8. ^ "William Invites Kate To The Concert For Diana". The Royal List.
9. ^ "Brian May turns down Concert for Diana". brianmay.com.
10. ^ http://www.bryanadams.nu/news/ – 22 April 2007
11. ^ http://www.iowastatedaily.com/news/article_fb6a770c-b3f5-5789-80cd-0d9f8a39714d.html - Iowa State Daily
12. ^ "Live Earth no match for Diana or Venus". Digital Spy. Retrieved 10 July 2007.
13. ^ "The Earth didn't move for BBC1". Broadcast Now. Retrieved 9 July 2007.
14. ^ "Diana Boosts VH1 ratings". Yahoo!. Retrieved 10 July 2007.
15. ^ "Diana Concert attracts most viewers". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 10 July 2007.
16. ^ "Concert for Diana reaches 3million Canadians". Channel Canada. Retrieved 10 July 2007.
17. ^ "This Is London". This Is London.
18. ^ "Charity". Charity.
19. ^ "Sentebale". Sentebale.

External links

• Concert for Diana official news and information site