Grande to headline star-studded benefit gi
MANCHESTER: United States pop star Ariana Grande announced on Tuesday that she would return here to headline a star-studded benefit concert for the victims of the deadly attack on her show last week.
Justin Bieber, Coldplay, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Pharrell Williams, Usher and Take That will join her for Sunday’s concert in memory of the 22 people who died, seven of them children.
“Our response to this violence must be to come closer together, to help each other, to love more, to sing louder and to live more kindly and generously than we did before,” Grande said.
The 23-year-old said she was “broken” and suspended her world tour after the bomb went off near an exit of the Manchester Arena venue at the finale of her show on May 22.
Fans who attended that show will be offered free tickets to the benefit concert at the Old Trafford cricket ground, which has a 50,000 capacity for concerts, with the rest sold to raise money for the affected families.
Grande is a favourite of pre-teens and as well as the children killed, a number of the victims were parents who came to pick up their daughters.
Manchester-born Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher made his solo debut on Tuesday with a sell-out concert in aid of the bombing victims.
Like Grande’s, it raised money for the “We Love Manchester Emergency Fund” set up by the local council and the British Red Cross, to help the grieving families and victims.
As life in Britain’s third largest city resumed a semblance of normality, the train station next to the attack site reopened earlier on Tuesday.
Troops were deployed at key public sites last week as Britain’s national terror threat was raised to maximum, and police hu suspected accomplices Salman Abedi.
The 22-year-old, who w Manchester to Libyan killed in the attack, which by the Islamic State.
Britain’s threat level back from “critical” to “se urday, and the army has down. AFP