Ariana plans charity gig for Manchester

Pop star Ariana Grande promised on Friday to return to Manchester to play a charity concert following a suicide attack at her show, as she urged fans to respond to the tragedy with love.

In her first substantive comments since Monday’s tragedy, the singer said she felt “uplift” by seeing fans’ compassion after the blast which killed 22 people. The 23-year-old, who suspended her tour and returned to her Florida home to rest, said she planned a concert as “an expression of love for Manchester.”

She said that the concert would raise money for the victims of the attack and their families. The date is yet to be set. “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,” she said in an essay posted on her social media accounts.

We won’t divide

“We won’t let this divide us. We won’t let hate win,” she said. Grande, whose fan base is dominated by girls and young women, said she had seen a “beautiful, diverse, pure, happy crowd.” She said that she viewed her concerts as places for her fans “to escape, to celebrate, to heal, to feel safe and to be themselves.”

“This will not change,” she said. Grande wrote that her concert, by bringing people from varied backgrounds into the 21,000-capacity Manchester Arena, showed the power of music to unite.

“Music is something that everyone on Earth can share,” she wrote.

“Music is meant to heal us, to bring us together, to make us happy,” she said.

The singer plans to resume her Dangerous Woman tour in Paris on June 7. Despite the name of her tour and accompanying album, the former television child star turned bubblegum pop singer has rarely triggered controversy.

She has only occasionally shared personal views, includ- ing criticizing double-standards for women in entertainment, voicing support for gay rights and advocating a vegan diet to prevent animal cruelty.

Grande is not the only artist who plans a charity gig. Liam Gallagher, a Manchester native, said he will perform his first-ever solo show on Tuesday to support a Red Crossbacked appeal.