BBC Radio 2 in the Park, Stirling review: 'energy aplenty'

BBC Radio 2 In The Park, City Park, Stirling ★★★★

To get a grip on the first full day of the weekend-long BBC Radio 2 in the Park festival in Stirling, listening to some of the station’s DJs pressed into service as a stage-filling artist act was almost as instructive as the rest of line-up.

Flagship Radio 2 host Vernon Kay’s set occupied the second headline spot behind American soul diva Chaka Khan.

“Let me see your hands in the air,” implored Kay, deploying his finest tongue-in-cheek wedding DJ patter. “All you old school ravers know this one.”

To his credit, CeCe Peniston’s Finally followed. “Let’s go nuts for one song, this is where you try out your new hip!” His stress-test selection for the supposedly elderly was N-Trance’s Set You Free.

While the line-up was packed with amiable, mainstream pop artists from the 1970s to the early 2010s, playing for an audience ranging from pre-teens to older grandparents, Radio 2’s persona is in “Sounds of the ’90s” mode.

With seven live artists appearing on the hour, most delivering half-hour sets, there was just enough room for the hits.

Texas’s Sharleen Spiteri paused just long enough to admire Scotland’s now-ubiquitous traffic cone hats amid a short set which cut through the unnecessary with Black Eyed Boy, Halo, Summer Son, Mr Haze, Say What You Want and Inner Smile.

The ageless Lulu spoke more, which is fine when she has some well-rehearsed tales to tell about David Bowie (The Man Who Sold the World), James Bond (The Man with the Golden Gun), Sidney Poitier (To Sir With Love) and Take That (Relight My Fire), as well as the customary Shout.

Keeping up the Scottish representation was Emeli Sandé, with a brisk burst of her own hits, including Heaven, Highs & Lows and Next to Me.

Artists making the journey to Scotland for the day included Jack Savoretti, his voice pleasingly grizzled and rumbling, and ABC, with the pink-suited Martin Fry bravely performing under period music videos of him in his youth while the sublime When Smokey Sings, Poison Arrow and The Look of Love played.

Judging by the number of people who left after their mid-evening set, Ireland’s The Script seemed to be a reason to be here for many, and the band seemed genuinely thrilled as singer Danny O’Donoghue raced through the crowd brandishing a Saltire. Their closing Hall of Fame, in particular, has become an inter-generational classic.

As the sun went down and Stirling Castle lit up in the background, the day closed with Chaka Khan, a still-active recording artist and lively onstage presence at the age of 73, who has just won the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. With her still-able voice bolstered by three backing singers and four horn players, Khan’s hour-long set lent space for a deeper dive than just the hits.

Opening with the breezy, uplifting disco-funk of This is My Night and the crisp, urbane Do You Love What You Feel, it also included her cover of near-locals the Average White Band’s Whatcha Gonna Do For Me and even new album Chakzilla’s title track. Love Me Still, a low-key piano ballad written with Bruce Hornsby, slowed things right down, although its funereal pace made sense given it was offered as a tribute to Dolly Parton, “such a friend and a beautiful person”.

Obscure sections of Khan’s set also delivered surprise appeal to younger listeners, for example the slow, gnarly groove of Tell Me Something Good, reworked by Irvine’s Ewan McVicar as an internationally successful club hit in 2021, and Through the Fire, sampled on Kanye West’s Through the Wire in 2004. The closing trio of I Feel for You, I’m Every Woman – a duet with special guest Alexandra Burke, who plays Khan in the musical of the same name – and Ain’t Nobody are all classics for any age.

Not all of it would have been for everyone, but everyone would have found something to enjoy. Added to which, no doubt the demographics contributed to it being the tidiest music festival anyone there will have experienced.

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