Last night’s One Love Manchester concert was nothing short of a triumph.
Ariana Grande returned to the city just two weeks after her gig at the Manchester Arena was attacked, and she brought a league of the world’s biggest stars with her.
The likes of Robbie Williams, Take That, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber and Liam Gallagher all took the stage in support of Ariana and the victims of that brutal terrorist attack, raising more than £2 million in three hours through text and online donations.
All of the most touching moments included Ariana – her duet with boyfriend Mac Miller was nothing short of adorable, she launched into ‘Side to Side’ after revealing that in a conversation with the mother of Olivia Campbell – a 15-year-old girl killed at the Manchester Arena – she was told that Olivia would have wanted to “hear the hits”, and then at the end she brought everyone back out on stage to perform ‘One Last Time’ – a song that’s now become synonymous with the attack and its victims.
It was a night filled with perfect moments, and one of those moments just happened to be caught in the crowd by the BBC cameras. It’s probably fitting that it involved a policeman, since the police were heroes not just in the wake of the attack on Manchester, but in their response to what happened at London Bridge on Saturday night too.
While Justin Bieber was up on stage, the cameras panned to the audience, where we saw a policeman linking hands with a group of young children and adults, dancing ‘Ring a Ring O’ Roses’.
Unsurprisingly, Twitter went mad for it.
Between this and Ariana belting out a perfect rendition ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ to close the show, there wasn’t a dry eye left in the house – or on the sofas at home – by the end of the night.
To donate in the United Kingdom, you can text ‘LOVE’ to 70507 to give £5, or you can donate online via this dedicated British Red Cross page.
