It was all white on the night the Manchester Arena arose | Helen Pidd

It was a truly triumphant night attended by around 14,000 people – but where was the city’s BAME community?At the Manchester Arena reopening on Saturday night there was a rumour Peter Kay would be appearing, but we knew neither how nor when. It became a guessing game. Surely Rick Astley wasn’t billed on merit, alongside local heroes Noel Gallagher, Blossoms and the Courteeners? Kay must be planning to duet with him, we decided, perhaps as Geraldine from Britain’s Got the Pop Factor. And yet Never Gonna Give You Up came and went, and there was still no sign of the Bolton comedian.It wasn’t until just before Gallagher’s closing set that Kay finally came on stage, wearing the yellow fleece of an Arena worker. I assumed he was in character. He wasn’t. He told the 14,000-strong crowd he had worked there for four years from its opening day, on 15 July 1995. He’d seen a lot of happiness in this hall, he said, both as a worker and a comic: “We can’t let terrorists win.” He went on: “We’ve got to remember the good times and let them outweigh the bad. The victims will never, ever been forgotten. But we have got to move forward with love, not hate, and that’s how we win.” Continue reading…
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