THE ROSE
OVO WEMBLEY ARENA
Being a mere Fifty-three years young, when a thirteen-year-old niece asks you to see a particular K-pop band, then sometimes you take a deep breath, open your wallet, close your eyes and just go for it. We arrived at the recently redeveloped and gentrified Wembley Park area to find a sea of burgundy and black The Rose hoodies. By four pm, the outside merchandise portacabin queue was snaking around twice while both the North and South Arena entrances had long lines of seated concert-goers eagerly awaiting the doors opening at six-thirty. After Angelina waited in line with said niece and purchased a fetching sixty-five-pound hoodie, we went in search of sustenance. The box park has a huge selection of food from around the globe, but after much consideration, we headed off to a pasta restaurant at the bottom of the famous Wembley Way. After a delicious tea, plus a quick restorative coffee and vegan waffle, the three of us took our place at the back of another huge queue. After twenty-five minutes, we were finally in and found our seats. By seven p.m., inside, the atmosphere was steadily building, and the standing floor area was rapidly filling with waves of mainly female Rose fans waving their forty-four-pound plastic Rose light sticks. Ok, so here’s the rub: my cynical middle-aged mind was doing the merch and ticket turnover maths and considering whether a Pepsi Max is good value at a Fiver a bottle or even worse, I found myself wondering about how long it would take us to get out of the Red (£16.50) car park and that, sadly, is just an age thing. All these thoughts were banished as, at eight p.m., the house lights dimmed, and the noise levels inside went utterly supersonic. The crowd were all wholeheartedly lost in the moment, singing, screaming, shouting each song word for word. It was side-swipingly beautiful to witness.
Those Rose glow sticks are all switched to red for the song ‘RED’, and as each band member gets a close-up on the giant video screens, his face is greeted by a cacophony of shrieks. The songs are a well-balanced cocktail of Coldplay and One-D garnished with a light brush of radio-friendly Rock music. The night is constantly punctuated by random, I’ve stood on a nail, yelps and squeals. Song-wise, the bouncing ‘Back To Me’ was my personal highlight, but my outstanding memory was the feelings of pre-mortgage, pre-grindstone innocence, fun and the tsunami of love in the room that crashed towards the four chiselled lookers on stage. ‘Sour’, ‘Yes’ and the emotive ‘Lifeline’ all have the perfect balance of Pop, heartbreak, redemption and hope to capture those fragile teenage souls. For the first time in a gig age, no one I saw was drunk, there were no fights, and women outnumbered everyone else ten to one; it was all about the band.
The night before, I sat transfixed as Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman slightly bummed us all out by outlining his belief that either WW3 or global warming would blow the planet up, and we’d all end up as digital slaves. Tonight, however, all I saw, heard and witnessed was love, acceptance and a life-affirming positivity that we all desperately need. In case you are worried, we exited the car park easily and made it home safe and sound before eleven thirty.