Crowds gather at Buckingham Palace for Platinum Jubilee
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Buckingham Palace and the BBC are putting on a star-studded show for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee party today, featuring performances from legends such as Sir Elton John and Sir Rod Stewart. The BBC’s Platinum Party At The Palace will be a two-and-a-half-hour bonanza filled with live and pre-recorded acts to mark the monarch’s historic 70 years on the throne. Among the other musicians set to give it their all include Queen+Adam Lambert, as well as Duran Duran, Alicia Keys, Nile Rodgers and Andrea Bocelli, Bond composer Hans Zimmer, Ella Eyre, Craig David, Mabel, Elbow, and George Ezra.
Many of the musicians have long histories with the Royal Family, like Duran Duran, whose music curried favour with Diana, Princess of Wales, back in the Eighties and Nineties.
Diana in fact went on to meet the band a handful of times, and attended a string of their live performances.
While the events would have been a moment of reprieve and a chance to forget about the outside world, back in 2015, drummer Roger Taylor revealed the moment he found out how close to danger he and his band, as well as Diana and Prince Charles, once were.
Describing it as the “scariest moment” of his life, Taylor spoke out for the first time about the London charity gig they were headlining that was targeted by the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
The terrorist organisation were reportedly planning the strike on a show that Duran Duran and Dire Straits — another favourite of Diana’s — were starring in at London’s Dominion Theatre in July 1983, but the man due to install the gelignite bomb was actually a police informant.
Despite managing to find a spot for the 25 pound bomb in the all of a bathroom close to the Royal Box, the informant never planted it.
The attack had been planned as a response to the death of Bobby Sands and nine other hunger strikes.
Details of the plot first emerged in the Nineties but no member of Duran Duran had addressed them.
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But, speaking to the Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine, Taylor said: They wanted to kill Diana and Charles and everybody in the room.
“It was so shocking. We were only made aware of it years later, but it was very frightening.”
In 2015, the Mail cited quotes from the informant, Sean O’Callaghan’s book ‘The Informer’, that read: “It was a brilliant but horrific plan.
“The IRA leadership was still desperate to strike at the heart of the British Establishment in revenge for the death of Bobby Sands and nine other hunger strikers.
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“If Charles and Diana were murdered by the IRA, Anglo-Irish relations would sink to a new low.
“The fallout for the Irish community, particularly in London, can only be guessed at – something the IRA leadership would have regarded as a bonus.”
Simon Le Bon, Duran Duran’s lead singer, told the publication that he spoke to Diana on a number of occasions, and explained: “She was a very real, very ordinary person going through something extraordinary.”
Meanwhile, other performers at the BBC’s Platinum Party At The Palace concert include Jax Jones, Celeste, Sigala, Britain’s Got Talent winners Diversity, and Eurovision runner-up Sam Ryder, while Sir Elton will provide a pre-recorded set.
Brian May, Queen’s guitarist, will also lead an exciting show — his first after 20 years when he performed God Save The Queen on Buckingham Palace’s roof during a show marking the Golden Jubilee in 2002.
Speaking ahead of the concert, May said: “Twenty years after playing the Queen’s glorious Golden Jubilee we’re very happy to be invited again.
“Then there was a moment when I wondered.. after Buckingham Palace roof where can you go? Well… you will see.”
It is not only musicians who will have the spotlight thrust on them, as sports figures and presenting legends — as well as stars of the stage — will also have a chance to flaunt their talents.
This includes Sir David Attenborough, Emma Raducanu, David Beckham, Stephen Fry, Dame Julie Andrews, The Royal Ballet and Paralympian swimmer Ellie Simmonds.
Some 22,000 people are expected to turn out for the show, including 10,000 tickets allocated in a public ballot and 7,500 given to key workers, members of the Armed Forces, volunteers and charities.
Coverage of the Platinum Party At The Palace will begin on BBC One from 7:30pm
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