Buckingham Palace, London
Partly upstaged by a magnificently bored prince and princess, it’s the tried and tested likes of Elbow and Rod Stewart that go down best at this jubilee pop bash
The last time the exterior of Buckingham Palace and the Mall was turned into a concert venue – for the Gary Barlow-curated diamond jubilee celebration in 2012 – the Queen arrived midway through: a canny bit of timing that meant she go there in time for Kylie, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney but missed Jessie J, as well as Gary Barlow and Cheryl Tweedy’s unprovoked assault on Lady Antebellum’s Need You Know.
This time, she gamely took part in a sketch with Paddington Bear, tapping out the rhythm of Queen’s We Will Rock You on a teacup before Queen themselves appeared – Brian May, clad in a jacket covered in drawings of badgers, performing on a hydraulic platform – but didn’t show up in person at all, which was a surprise: what apparently poorly 96-year-old wouldn’t want to spend an evening watching Jax Jones and Sigala? Not even a rare public appearance from disco’s most elusive superstar Nile Rodgers – this time guesting with Duran Duran – could tempt Her Majesty from the comfort of Windsor Castle.
