Manchester’s message of defiance
THE message onstage and in the crowd at “One Love Manchester”, a benefit concert for victims of the Manchester attack that was hosted by the pop star Ariana Grande, was one of defiance.
The event, at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground on Sunday evening, was Grande’s first appearance since a suicide bombing at her May 22 concert at the Manchester Arena killed 22 people, including children, and wounded dozens of others. It came less than 24 hours after another terrorist attack rocked the capital, London, about 320 kilometres away. Seven civilians died in the Saturday night attack, after a van screeched onto the sidewalk on London Bridge, slamming into pedestrians, before three assailants ran into a nearby open-air market area wielding large knives.
After Saturday night’s events in London, Lily Garner, 22, said she felt some trepidation about coming to Sunday’s concert, but that she ultimately overcame it. “It puts you on edge a bit, but you can’t let those things affect you, you can’t stop it from living your life, doing what you want to do,” she said.
Garner, who lives in central Manchester, added that she had felt a community spirit in Manchester since the bombing: “It’s just so strong. You just want to support everybody.”
Tyron Webster, another One Love Manchester attendee, said he and his friends decided to come to the concert on Sunday because it was their duty to carry on. “We’re not going to let one person’s cowardly act ruin our life,” Webster said. “We’re going to go to this concert, we’re going to have an amazing time, we’re going to enjoy life, we’re going to sing at the top of our voices.”
“And we’re going to just prove them wrong,” he added. “Like, who have you broken? Nobody. You’ve broken nobody. You’ve not.”
Grande, 23, announced the benefit concert last Monday on Twitter, a week after the blast at her concert, naming an A-list roster of guests who would join her, including Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Coldplay and Pharrell Williams.
Speaking onstage at the concert on Sunday, Grande’s manager, Scooter Braun, praised the crowd for its bravery. “Last night this nation was challenged, and all of you were challenged, and you had a decision to make if you were going to come out here tonight,” he said. “And this is so beautiful. You guys made that decision. You looked fear right in the face and you said, no, we are Manchester, and the world is watching.”
Williams told the crowd that he did not see or feel any fear in the audience, and Cyrus called for peace. Perry shouted, “We will not be silenced, Manchester!” and Grande thanked the crowed for being “strong and unified.”
“I think that the kind of love, the unity that you’re displaying is the medicine that the world really needs right now,” she said.
Perhaps the most emotional moment early in the evening came when Grande performed with a children’s chorus, after which she appeared to choke up. The audience crooned along in loud unison as Chris Martin of Coldplay sang a cover of Don’t Look Back in Anger by the Manchester band Oasis and reacted with large cheers when Oasis’ singer, Liam Gallagher, later took the stage as an unannounced performer.
Grande’s Dangerous Woman tour, which had been scheduled to continue in London several days after the bombing, was suspended days after the attack. The tour is currently set to resume on June 7 in Paris.
Standard-price tickets to the benefit concert – which were available for 40 pounds, or around $51, with the opportunity to make a major donation of 2,500 pounds – sold out in minutes on Thursday morning. Organisers tried to ensure that people who had attended the concert where the attack occurred could receive free tickets. Proceeds from the show will go to the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund.
On Friday, the Greater Manchester Police Department released a statement detailing increased security measures that would be in place around the venue on Sunday, including bag checks and police officers placed on surrounding streets and at public transportation stops. After Saturday’s attacks in London, they released another statement that said security would be increased. (Shortly before the concert, in a venue about a kilometre away, the city’s famed football team, Manchester United, was set to stage a major tribute match for one of its most celebrated players, Michael Carrick.)
Dozens of police officers patrolled the grounds outside the arena before the concert, and nearby roads were closed to car traffic. Large grey police vans were parked outside, and canine units sniffed the bags of concertgoers as they walked by.
The crowd included a broad mix of attendees of all ages, in- cluding many young women wearing variations on the signature bunny ears that Grande has lately sported in images.
The concert, which took place on the city’s southwest outskirts, about 5.6 kilometres away from the city centre Manchester Arena, where the bombing occurred, was broadcast live by BBC television and radio, aired on other radio stations and livestreamed online.
Outside the arena on Sunday, fans, some of whom had attended Grande’s Manchester Arena concert, offered mixed reasons for attending Sunday’s concert.
Becky Jones, 21, who was at Grande’s concert on May 22, said she heard the blast but knew something serious had gone wrong only when she smelled burning. “I knew I wanted to come,” she said of Sunday’s concert. “I wasn’t going to let it stop me,” she added, referring to the prospect of another terrorist attack, “because it’s something I love to do”.
A group of young men arrived at the venue in flamboyant outfits, with artful swishes of glitter painted onto their faces. One in the group, James Ockerby, 25, wore a shirt dedicated to his friend Martyn Hett, who died in the attack, and whom Ockerby described as “an icon”.
Ockerby, who was at the Manchester Arena concert, described sprinting from the arena and only later figuring out what had happened. “We don’t want to be scared,” he said of his decision to attend the benefit. “We want to forget what’s going on, we want to have a good time.”