
Stevie Wonder closes off Love, Light and Song tour in heatwave Hyde Park
Wearing a white tunic embroidered with the faces of John Lennon and Marvin Gaye, he welcomed the crowd with a London-accented 'hello'.
Wonder celebrated the technology that has made music more accessible for people and expressed his hope that more musicians will use their platform to help others, adding: 'Because every single person who is blind should be able to see in their own way.'
Signed, sealed, delivered! Thank you, @StevieWonder ❤️#BSTHydePark #StevieWonder pic.twitter.com/EtQYG6qWKr
— BST Hyde Park (@BSTHydePark) July 12, 2025
He added: 'And if you don't believe me, you don't agree, meet in the dark and let's see what happens.'
Wonder also gestured at the embroidered faces on his tunic, saying the names but pointing to the wrong face.
As he did so, he said: 'Sorry y'all, I'm blind you know.'
The first song, Love's In Need of Love Today, was followed by a tribute to John Lennon's Imagine.
After soloing on the harmonica, Wonder launched into Master Blaster (Jammin') and said: 'Now that we've made our point perfectly, clear, let's get to this.'
At 75 years old, Wonder has not lost any of his vocal power. His saxophone-like voice glided through each song as he tilted his body left to right.
It was his first UK performance since he last played BST in 2019 and people from the crowd kept shouting: 'Yes Stevie, we love you!' To which Wonder replied: 'I love y'all too.'
Underneath his black leather beret and behind his dark, sparkly sunglasses, Wonder also paid tribute to the funk-rock star Sly Stone who died last month.
He was joined by around 20 musicians on stage, including two other keyboard players, a brass section and backing vocalists that included his daughter Aisha Morris.
As the sun set over heatwave-baked Hyde Park, the stage lit up as a jukebox showing many of Wonder's hits over his six-decade career.
He dedicated the song Happy Birthday to his daughter Sophia saying it was her birthday on July 13, inviting her to the front of the stage mid-song.
The band then flew into I Wish and Isn't She Lovely, with another harmonica solo that sent whoops and cheers through the densely-packed crowd.
Wonder's penultimate song started with him tapping one key with one finger, saying 'we've got to do this one', before the famous-funky riff of Superstition filled the darkening arena.
The band continued playing past the official cut off time of 10pm with Wonder egging on the crowd, singing: 'I know we've got to go but we're gonna keep this party going.'
He then finished with Another Star, with many of the guest singers joining him at the front of the stage.
As the band continued playing, Wonder lined up with his family and bowed to the audience.
His last comment before leaving the stage was: 'I love you with my deepest heart and there's nothing you can do about it.'
Wonder was supported by Ezra Collective, Thee Sacred Souls, Elmiene and Corinne Bailey Rae, among others.
It was the last of five shows in Wonder's Love, Light and Song UK tour, where he also played in Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff and Lytham.
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Times
an hour ago
- Times
They're famous, American — and over here
Notable Americans have always come to the UK, from TS Eliot to Taylor Swift, Jimi Hendrix to a werewolf in Eighties London, but the trickle of celebrity immigration is turning into a Thames. Among those to have relocated in recent years are the musician Courtney Love, due to become a British citizen in September; the talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, who has set up home in the Cotswolds; and the actor Josh Hartnett, who is shacked up in Hampshire with his wife, the British actress Tamsin Egerton, and their children. Lena Dunham, the creator of the seminal 2010s comedy Girls, is another American who has 'pulled a geographic', as she put it in an interview with The Sunday Times Style. Dunham has lived in London for four years and has written and directed a sparky new series, Too Much, based on her experiences. She joins Tom Cruise and George Clooney, who spend much of their time here, and their fellow actor John Lithgow, who is about to move to London for eight years while he plays Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter TV series. They are not just crossing the Atlantic from the US either, from the Barbadian Rihanna, who quietly lived in London from 2018 to 2020 and was outed only when she was papped with a Sainsbury's bag, to the Canadian actor Ryan Gosling, who was recently spotted house-hunting in the capital. Then there's Olivia Rodrigo, who is not yet a UK resident but, with her British actor boyfriend, Louis Partridge, and her borderline-scary anglophilia, don't be surprised if that changes. 'I f***ing love England,' the Californian singer gushed during her set at Glastonbury last month. 'I love how nobody judges you for having a pint at noon. I love English sweets — I've had three sticky toffee puddings since I arrived.' Later she put on sparkling Union Jack hotpants and was joined on stage by Robert Smith of the Cure. Short of whistling Colonel Bogey she couldn't have done more to demonstrate her allegiance. Dunham is equally affectionate in Too Much, which stars Megan Stalter, the chaotic personal assistant in Hacks, as a young New Yorker called Jessica who moves to London and falls for a British musician, Felix (Will Sharpe from The White Lotus). Co-stars include the professional Englishmen Richard E Grant and Stephen Fry. The parallels with Dunham's life are shameless — like Jessica, she fell for a London-based indie boy, her husband, Luis Attawalpa Felber, who created the show with her. Felber, who records under the name Attawalpa, also wrote the wistful songs that Felix sings, some of which are on his new album, Experience. Dunham left behind a messy break-up in New York from Jack Antonoff, the musician and producer, to whom Jessica's ex, Zev, bears a suspicious resemblance, and Jessica is obsessed with Zev's gorgeous influencer fiancée, Wendy, who has a touch of Antonoff's wife, the actress Margaret Qualley. Felber denies that the series is autobiographical, making the not entirely convincing point that the leads 'are called Jessica and Felix — it would be autobiographical if they were called Lena and Luis'. He does admit that his and Dunham's 'love story' was 'the germ in the petri dish that created Too Much '. What a romantic. While Jessica meets Felix at one of his gigs in a pub, Dunham and Felber, both 39, were set up on a blind date by friends in London, after she had moved to the UK to direct the first episode of Industry, the BBC/HBO finance drama. They got married just eight months later, in September 2021, in a Jewish ceremony at the Union Club in Soho in central London. 'We knew straight away,' Felber says. For dramatic purposes Jessica and Felix's story has more jeopardy, although they fall for each other with similar speed. 'When you fall in love you feel invincible, you feel safe, which worked so well with the fish-out-of-water thing,' Felber says. There are some excellent lingo gags in the ten-part show, notably when Felix asks Jessica if she was bollocked by her boss and she gasps, 'I would never let my boss f*** me.' Dunham has wrestled with the slang too. 'Pants and trousers always gets her,' Felber says, who advised the show on language and locations. 'I wanted Jessica and Felix to meet at the Ivy House pub in Peckham, for him to play at Dash the Henge [a record shop] in Camberwell, for her place to be in Hackney Road just off where we [Felber and his band] rehearse in Premises Studios.' • 11 of the best things to do in London when it's hot Felber has loved showing his wife around London. 'She sees everything in such an interesting way and it rubs off on you.' Dunham has sung the praises of the Sir John Soane's Museum, builder's tea and crumpets, the ladies' pond on Hampstead Heath and roasts at the Albion pub in Islington, near where she and Felber live in an ivy-covered townhouse. He was particularly pleased to introduce her to Afghan Kitchen, a restaurant down the road in Angel. 'She doesn't like spicy food as much as I do but she loves the dall and the pumpkin.' Having bonded over the comedy of Chris Morris, the main thing they differ on is reality TV — as with Jessica and Felix, she loves it and he can't stand it. Dunham and Felber are far from the only Anglo-American couple in town. 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Jessica in the show moons over Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, and Swift led the way in the real world, dating Harry Styles, Calvin Harris, Tom Hiddleston, Joe Alwyn and Matty Healy in a Brit-packed period from 2012 to 2023. 'He laughs at all my jokes / And he says I'm so American,' Rodrigo sings in So American. 'Oh, God, I'm gonna marry him / If he keeps this shit up.' It's a wittier, less cringeworthy song than Swift's London Boy, an ode to Alwyn that strained a bit too hard for colloquialisms ('Took me back to Highgate, met all of his best mates'). Let's be frank, though, love is often not the prime mover in these transatlantic reshuffles. When I ask Felber about the number of Americans moving to the UK, he laughs and says, 'I wonder why.' Yes, the top reason for many is living in the White House. 'Donald Dashers' include Minnie Driver, the British actress who recently returned to the UK from Los Angeles having said that she 'couldn't' stay in the US if Trump was re-elected; and Love, who told an audience at the couldn't-be-more-British Royal Geographical Society: 'Emperor-core is going on at Mar-a-Lago. It's frightening now.' Providing a counterpoint to the liberal evangelising is Lionel Shriver, the American author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, who lived in the UK for 36 years. 'Democrats tend to have a rosy view of Europe as some kind of liberal Valhalla, where there's justice and recycling for all,' Shriver says. 'Even back to the Bush administration there were waves of people threatening to move to Europe without any realism regarding how much trouble it is or how high the tax rates are. 'This wave of Americans, especially in the entertainment industry, haven't necessarily been keeping close tabs on what's happening in the UK. It's not in a good way. 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Privacy is another reason some American celebrities prefer the UK . Hartnett told the Guardian that in New York and Los Angeles, 'people only want to talk about your career', whereas here 'nobody cares'. They might care, you suspect, but they would never admit it in public. Does Shriver agree that you are left alone more in the UK? 'If you've got a country that no longer believes in free speech I don't think that's a formula for being left alone,' she says. 'Even Democrats think they can say whatever they want — no they can't, not in Britain.' Some would differ on that point but few would argue about another facet of British life: the capricious weather. It's amazing that we've got this far without mentioning it. Still, there are fewer wildfires than in California and drizzle can have a certain mystique. As Dunham has put it: 'Standing under a bridge waiting for the rain to end in front of a kebab shop is romance in London.' She's caught on quick.


The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
Love Island revives conversation about racial bias and misogynoir in dating
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Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Bob Geldof, Midge Ure and Brian May join other A-listers at star-studded Live Aid 40th Anniversary Gala
The Live Aid 40th Anniversary Gala took place this weekend - with the likes of Midge Ure, Sir Bob Geldof and Sir Brian May in attendance. The original benefit, which lasted for 16 epic hours on July 13 1985, was organised by Bob and Midge to raise relief funds for Ethiopia as the East African country battled a devastating famine that would claim hundreds of thousands of lives in just two years. Almost 40 years after 72,000 fans converged on London's Wembley Stadium for an epic string of performances from some of the biggest stars of the 1980s, the duo were seen at the Just For One Day: The Live Aid Musical on Sunday. Midge and Bob both looked smart as they turned up in shirts and blazers at The Shaftesbury Theatre. The 71-year-old Scottish singer seemed in good spirits as he stood on stage during the curtain call. Meanwhile, Irish icon Bob put on a performance for the crowd, wearing a black T-shirt and suede jacket. Queen legend Brian May, 77, was seen hugging Bob, 73, as the pair appeared to get emotional. Brian looked suave in a purple palm printed blazer as they embraced on the stage. In May, Bob and Midge were back on familiar ground as they reunited to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Live Aid. Echoing that hot summer's day in 1985, when stars such as David Bowie and Queen mesmerised fans across the world, the sun beat down as Bob and Midge took a trip down memory lane. Just seven-months after the 1984 release of Band Aid charity single Do They Know It's Christmas?, Geldof and Ure brought together some of the biggest musical artists of the 1980s for two huge concerts at Wembley Stadium and Philadelphia's John F. Kennedy Stadium. David Bowie, Sir Paul McCartney, Status Quo, Sir Elton John and Queen led a lengthy roster of performers in London, while Black Sabbath, Joan Baez, Run D.M.C and The Beach Boys joined a host of stars in Philadelphia. Watched by an estimated 1.9billion people across the world, the two concerts raised an astonishing £150 million in total for famine relief. BBC Two and BBC iPlayer announced plans to broadcast Live Aid at 40, revealing the behind-the-scenes story of the 1985 concert that brought the idea of charity to a new generation. During an appearance at the ground, Bob quipped to The Sun: 'It doesn't look that sort of different. I expect it to be mega and new and it just looks as crappy as before. I'm blue in the face listening to f***ing Freddie Mercury.' Reflecting on the musical, Midge added: 'I went in as a jaded rock star expecting cheese. But during the show this jaded rock star had a lump in his throat. 'One song jumped out in particular for me and I was never a big Bob Dylan fan. Blowing In The Wind, the interpretation that they've done on that was phenomenal.' Archive of the performances and back stage of the record and the concert feature Paula Yates, Boy George, Status Quo and George Michael whilst interviews with Nile Rodgers, Lenny Henry, Phil Collins, Lionel Richie, Patti LaBelle, Roger Taylor and Brian May are set against the memories of the Ethiopian politicians at the heart of the relief effort, Dawit Giorgis and Berhane Deressa.