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A quick look at the BBC's coverage of the Last Night Of The Proms
every year confirms a worrying sense of nothing having moved forward -
the music remains the same, and so does the audience; predominately
white and middle-class, waving union jacks as if their lives depended
on it.
The BBC's Electric Proms initiative, basically a way of drawing
diverse acts to Camden for a five day televised jamboree, attempts to
readdress that balance with "new moments in music", although the line-up still leans towards the
predilections of the white middle classes.
Alongside the opening night's Africa Express - essentially
Live Aid with proper Africans - tonight's headliner Nitin Sawhney is
the most diverse celebration of musical talent the festival will see
this year, unless of course Liam Gallagher decides to mix-up
Oasis's slot on Sunday with a little Iraqi death metal.
Hailing
from Kent, but with influences that span jazz, drum n' bass, classical
Indian music and the odd bit of hip hop, Sawhney's audience is
reassuringly varied - a seething mass of black, white and Asian faces
all facing expectantly towards the Roundhouse's impressively
decked-out stage.
Sawhney's records have suffered, both critically and commercially,
since his MOBO-winning Prophesy in 2001. New album London Undersound,
one of the first in the UK to deal directly with the July 7 bombings,
has been hailed by many as a return to greatness, and of the four
songs he plays from the record it seems that there may be life in the
musical polymath yet.
Lead single Days of Fire is a particular highlight - Sawhney
inviting reggae singer Natty onstage to deliver a moving lament
on the bombings. With the backing of a full string orchestra, Natty's
subdued "Then it all went slow motion, everything slow motion/ First
the flash of light then the rise of emotion" takes on an almost
unbearable poignancy, a very personal view of an event ingrained in
the minds of everyone in the hall. The irony that the Roundhouse is a
former train shed is not lost on the performers - huge screens behind
the orchestra show pictures of faceless people moving about station
platforms.
Sawhney himself is an ingratiating, but extraordinarily humble
presence. Perched on a stool in the corner of the stage, his actions
are largely based around playing classical guitar and welcoming guest
vocalists to the stage - of which there are many. World music
superstar Natacha Atlas arrives onstage, despite suffering from
glandular fever, to deliver a haunting Moonrise, and Sawhney
graciously turned the stage over to Ravi Shankar's daughter
Anoushka Shankar for a couple of protracted sitar work outs - she squatting
lotus position-like on a giant Persian rug. There's no sign of recent album collaborator Paul McCartney though.
It is a mark of Sawhney's talent that the real highlights of this
concert - certainly for his fans - were the ones that he dispensed
with guest vocalists and went it alone. The Conference is a
stuttering, pounding song built around handclaps and muttered
conversations which sends the audience into raptures, while at he
other end of the scale, encore Prophesy sees a remarkable face off
between Sawhney's classical guitar and a tabla player.
The performance, like its audience, is a wonderful affirmation of
the breadth of British culture. At one point, in front of where we're is
sitting, a vast Indian family are pogoing gently to the bluesy Deadman.
In the middle, a lean, balding figure slaps his hands in time to the
music - it is artist Anthony Gormley, the man responsible for London Undersound's artwork.
If tonight has proved anything,
it is that the Proms may still have a future at the heart of British
culture, even if the future may be electric. Tonight, the audience is
waving lighters, not Union Jacks. And that is something to be proud
of.
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