“I gotta say, Prince William, Prince Harry — you have put on one heck of a show,” declared Simon Cowell prior to introducing Nelly Furtado. One second later came the unlikeliest of the many “surprises” we were promised. There in the royal enclosure was the sight of our future King looking awestruck as the man who helped bring us Gareth Gates and G4 gave him the thumbs up. Revealed in that exchange between two Princes and one permatanned industry mogul was much of the problem with this pop memorial.

The “Diana and Me” clips interspersed between acts may have been a credit to her memory. But there are probably some good reasons why Diana isn’t remembered for her record collection. And here was one of them — Duran Duran’s Simon Le Bon — conferring his porcine honk on his group’s recent comeback hit (Reach Out For The) Sunrise. Struggling to understand why he was being sold short by the Wembley acoustics, Le Bon asked his soundman to turn him up, and then down, when “off” would have been the correct setting.

Tom Jones — a man who covers other people’s songs in much the same way that bears cover other bears’ territory — told us that the Princess loved his version of Kiss. Sounding like a Blues Brother with bronchitis, he then flattened Arctic Monkeys’ I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor. Diana also loved the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber, which accounted for an embarrassment of Josephs — Jason Donovan, Donny Osmond and TV victor Lee Mead — singing Any Dream Will Do.

A Perrier with the Princess

Peter Stothard, former Editor of The Times, recalls a discussion with Diana about memos, mistresses and the media

Multimedia

• Interview on the latest revealing Diana biography

BACKGROUND

• Prince comes home with 'the People's Princess'

• The explosion of vileness that followed her death

• Why I could not mourn Diana

Related Internet Links

• Diana - 10 years on

Related Links

• Princes lead the way at Diana concert

• Thousands pack Wembley to remember Diana

Well, we weren’t expecting cutting edge, but there were 70,000 people hungry for someone who could work a crowd of that size. Kanye West obliged by cramming more hits into his slot than Queen did at Live Aid, although his ego will take a while to recover from the fade to another film which cut short his best song Jesus Walks. Relative new boys The Feeling elicited stadium-wide clapping with a life-affirming Love It When You Call, only for another of those blasted films to kill the ambience stone dead. Tony Blair was booed when he appeared on screen to give a taped tribute, although the cat calls turned to applause when the former Prime Minister said he knew the princes’ mother would have been proud of them.

If the work of bands with charisma was being undone on a regular basis, then forgettable turns from from James Morrison, Joss Stone and the cosmically pointless Orson didn’t do much to get it started again. Generally, the longer-established acts such as Status Quo, Bryan Ferry — even Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson — fared better. Take That benefited not just from the fact that people knew their songs, but from the fact that they were on for long enough to work up an atmosphere. Elton John wasted no time in locating the heart of the party with a seismic Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting. And princes and public alike raised their arms aloft as Rod Stewart and a gospel choir did a soul-stirring Sailing.

More troublingly, Wills and Harry also loved P Diddy. At their Chelsea toff-hole Boujis you suspect the regulars will be talking about Diddy’s Every Breath You Take for years — especially his shocking testimony: “She was so beautiful . . . so royal.” In another age, his presumptuousness in performing the song would have got him beheaded. But in the 21st century, this totem of tack got the princes dancing and clapping. As someone with far too much taste to perform here once said, the times they are a-changing.

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