Two Little Boys

Sixty years on the throne, no not a serious bowel problem but something the Queen of England managed to achieve in June 2012. To mark the event London threw a party and not just any party but a 4-day no expense spared knees up. It started with a trip to Ascot races and ended with a fly past and a balcony appearance. But in between was a fancy day down on the river and a few people around to the house for a good old sing song.

It is that right royal sing along that I feel needs some comment, firstly there was a very impressive and sometimes unusual line up of guests, for example I am not quiet sure how somebody from America with a name like Will.I.Am managed to make it onto the line up. Okay he is the brain behind the Black Eye Peas, but what he proved here was that they are most certainly a studio band as opposed to a live band. Dressed a bit like a Beefeater crossed with Adam Ant and wearing some sort of glasses from the dawn of aviation, he managed to make a song that is iconic into something utterly diabolic.

We were told that the Royals had in fact picked some of the acts and the question is, who the hell picked Grace Jones? I suspect it was Prince Phillip and sadly he was not there to hear her live, which may not have been a bad thing. Actually that is unfair because compared to Will.I.Am she was good, just a surprise. Then there was Sir Cliff Richards, I guess we all would like to think that the Queen herself has requested his attendance, particular in view of the fact that Cliff took the time to point out he had had a hit in every decade of the Queens reign and then paused waiting for someone to say “how amazing you don’t look old enough” he shouldn’t have bothered not one person had that thought pass through their mind. But I think the fact that the Queen chose to be in Buckingham Palace recording her video message to the world at the exact time Cliff was on stage, suggests she did not pick him and furthermore had the good sense not to be around when he did his act.

Then there was Dame Elton John who had clearly over done the Botox injections as his top lip which was nice and smooth, but unfortunately also fixed rigid. A problem that manifested itself as soon as he started to sing as it became obvious he could not pronounce the letter S. Quiet why he chose to start his act with “I’m Till Tanding” I will never know, he should also have given the moving “Your Ong” a miss as well.

As the night moved on the Knights rolled on and off the stage, Sir Tom Jones was without doubt the best of them. His voice was still powerful and somehow timeless. But I think its full marks to him for producing a truly remarkable version of Deliah, Spanish in style and slowed down, but still very much the classic.

Rolf Harris did a pretty fair job of linking things together and when asked to fill in time he didn’t do a Ricky Gervaise and balls it up, he broke into a great unaccompanied rendition of two little boys. This got the crowd singing along and as the words rolled off his tongue, I am sure everyone saw firstly a link between the song and Prince William and Harry and then a link with the boys who have been killed and wounded fighting Americas wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was indeed a very magical moment, one of those unplanned events that totally nails it and bought everyone together. But sadly Rolf was cut short just as he was getting going, I am not sure who was responsible for that, but I hope if the Queen had any power left at all she ordered his head to be chopped off at dawn in the Tower of London. The night was bought to end by Sir Paul McCartney, who gave Elton a run for his money when it came to Botox. It was an okay performance, but lets face it Macca is more famous now for doggy marriages than his singing and that is perhaps about right. His act came to an end with a version of Obla De Obla Da, during which all the other performers joined him on stage. It was at this point that Sir Cliff produced his best performance of the night; dancing a Viennese Waltz with Dame Elton, although I am sure Len Goodman would have struggled to work out who was leading who and Craig Revel Horwood would have said it lacked something and he would be right, a bloke. What did the Queen think of all this, well in the words of Sir Tom Jones, “Sheeee stood there laughing”.EndFragment