Featuring Katy Perry, the Muppets, Tom Cruise, and Lionel Richie, the festivities celebrating King Charles and Queen Camilla were downright bizarre.
WHEN I LEARNED that a Coronation Concert would be held at Windsor Palace to commemorate the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, my first thought was, “Wow, who would voluntarily perform at that?” Some international viewers may have expected to see the biggest stars the United Kingdom has to offer, such as Adele or even Elton John, Harry Styles, Dua Lipa, or Ed Sheeran. Instead, it appeared that the baton was passed primarily to people whose management had missed the memo that this was the most uncool job ever: Americans!
Yes, there is only one thing more despicable than British people who are completely obsessed with monarchy: hardcore American royalists.
People whose country was allegedly founded on diametrically opposed principles but who have nonetheless flown across the Atlantic to show fealty to our King.
When Katy Perry was announced as the headliner for this concert, the general consensus was, “Why?” Is her publicist against her? However, it appears that both Lionel Richie and Perry were part of a deal in exchange for the King and Queen appearing on American Idol. Of course, the British press is calling this a “surprise cameo,” because it’s an obviously pre-planned arrangement that feels like a bad deal for everyone.
Of course, there were some British people at Sunday’s Coronation Concert. Prince William took a break from the smear campaign against his brother and sister-in-law to give a moving speech in support of his father, which was admirable.
In terms of musicians, the majority of the British performers were artists who are far more well-known in the United Kingdom than anywhere else. Olly Murs, for example, is relatively unknown in the United States despite finishing second on the British talent show The X Factor in 2009. Murs, for those who are unfamiliar, is someone who was practically created in a lab to perform at royal events.
He creates the kind of music that people with “Live, Laugh, Love” signs on their walls play in the background at gender reveal parties. He caused a national panic in 2017 when he tweeted that there were “gunshots” inside a London department store when there were none. He now spends his time performing at events like this, looking a little greasy, having left behind the dramatic era.
Pussycat Dolls frontwoman Nicole Scherzinger was another performer on The X Factor. She is probably more well-known in the United Kingdom these days, thanks to her numerous appearances as a judge on Simon Cowell’s TV talent show. Scherzinger forces us to consider the possibility that high school theater nerds were both talented and extremely attractive. Her stunning rendition of “Reflection,” from the Mulan soundtrack, was one of the night’s highlights. As she walked out in a floor-length blue velvet gown and hit the highest of high notes, you could almost hear the collective gasp of gay men everywhere saying “Mother!”
Other attempts were made to make the concert feel more high-art and distinctly British by including performances from pretty much everything with “royal” in the title, such as the various ballet, Shakespeare, and opera societies patronized by the royals. The sketches and linking videos played in between acts, on the other hand, felt out of place: Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog joined host and Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville, who appeared to be held hostage at times during the event. One of the big-screen videos showed Tom Cruise in a jet telling His Majesty the King that he can be his “wingman” any day, which made me wonder if I’d accidentally taken a tab of acid
The royal propaganda — designed for the thoroughly King-pilled — was at its most intense during these pre-recorded segments. Saying it was “like North Korea” would be both lazy and inaccurate, because North Korea aspires to be on the same level as the United Kingdom. A recurring theme in these bizarre videos was “Did You Know?”, which featured a slew of celebrities lining up to tell us various complimentary “facts” about the new King, all of whom were clearly desperate to lick the boot hard enough to be made Knights and Dames. The most despicable was probably award-winning artist Tracey Emin, who sat with one of King Charles’ watercolor paintings and pretended it was some kind of artistic feat.
Following that, we moved on to the evening’s heavy musical hitters. Even the stony-faced royals (minus Prince Andrew, who must have been enjoying a sweat-free evening elsewhere) were on their feet dancing to Lionel Richie. Even Queen Camilla, who appeared bored and kept checking her watch every time the camera panned to her, appeared to be enjoying “All Night Long.”
Katy Perry, Richie’s American Idol co-star, took the stage next. Her appearance at Saturday’s Coronation ceremony, where she was seen dressed in head-to-toe pink and awkwardly looking for her seat through a giant hat, became the big meme of the day. I’d say at least half of my reason for watching the concert was to see whatever cultural faux pas Perry would undoubtedly make. But to my surprise, her appearance was smooth sailing.
Perry appeared on stage dressed in gleaming gold, presumably as the plastic bag from her hit “Firework.” There were polarized fan debates in the lead-up to the concert about which song Perry would sing, with fans divided into “Team Roar” and “Team Firework” — with a few chaos agents like me hoping for “The One That Got Away,” in memory of Princess Diana. Perry ended up performing both songs, and the royals were once again seen singing and dancing to “Roar.” Perry slayed in her own “Katy Perry” way, despite the occasional screeches of “Firework,” which she dedicated to the King. Give credit where credit is due — maybe her publicist doesn’t despise her after all.
Of course, the environment was a major focus of the Coronation Concert. King Charles is an avid environmentalist and an early adopter of climate change messaging. Drones creating images of endangered species in the sky were a non-singing highlight of the show. The blue whale floating in the night was undeniably beautiful, but it fell into the same pitfall as most royal things: hypocrisy. King Charles’ mother secretly lobbied for the royal family to be exempt from green energy laws. And the tabloids on which the royal institution has long relied for favorable coverage to ensure its survival pollute the public sphere with climate denial and misinformation.
As this strange and strangely entertaining concert came to a close, we were treated to a three-song medley by Take That, the Final Boss of royal events. Again, for the uninitiated: Take That was a five-piece British boy band that rose to prominence in the 1990s before staging a massive comeback in the mid-2000s. They now perform concert tours in front of screaming mothers and grandmothers, and they are wheeled out for every royal event, where they look and sound progressively worse. There were only three of them last night, so by the time Prince William’s coronation arrives, it’ll probably just be frontman Gary Barlow creaking and croaking around the stage.
Barlow, a Conservative Party supporter, apologized in 2014 for attempting to save millions through an “aggressive” tax avoidance scheme. I’m curious if that qualifies him to close a concert for a King whose vast wealth is supported in part by exemptions from tax laws that only apply to his subjects. Perhaps it does, because this concert, like the Coronation and Monarchy, was a bizarrely positive and costly celebration of the belief that we are not all born equal.
