I’d take a hula-hooping Grace Jones over Celine Dion at the Olympics any night of the week
If hula hoop was an Olympic sport, Grace Jones would be its undisputed all-time champion. On Friday night in south London, the 76-year-old veteran supermodel superstar effortlessly rotated a hoop around her waist whilst leading her glorious band through a scintillating 15-minute version of 1985 dance epic Slave to the Rhythm. “Once I’ve started with this there’s no stopping me,” she imperiously declared, before adding the get out clause: “Sorry, there’s a curfew.”
Indeed, there was a 10:30pm curfew at the South Facing festival in Crystal Palace, albeit the only reason we were up against it was that the fashion icon had arrived unfashionably late, forcing her to curtail her set after an hour. Given that support act Roisin Murphy had cancelled due to ill-health and 10,000 revellers were occupied by a three-hour DJ set from the hard-working Horse Meat Disco instead, you might have thought the mood would have been mutinous, especially since we could have all been at home watching the Olympic Opening Ceremony.
But when Jones belatedly swept onstage in a huge science fiction headdress to slow burn Iggy Pop anthem Night Clubbing, she had the audience roaring with delight as she brazenly declared: “Sorry for being a little late. What can I tell you? I’m here!”
She was indeed, and I’m so glad that I was too. We can marvel at the Rolling Stones still rocking into their 80s but Grace Jones is only five years younger than Mick Jagger and still executing yoga poses in elaborate fashion costumes whilst singing about her Jamaican Guy, thrashing cymbals through a fierce Demolition Man and sitting astride the shoulders of a beefy bodyguard to take a walk through the crowd for a slickly brilliant Pull Up to the Bumper. “We gonna show some ass now!” she chuckled with manic delight.
Jones remains one of the best performers I have ever seen for the sheer eccentric charisma and sense of life-enhancing joy she brings to every moment in the spotlight. That, plus being backed by a supremely sinuous seven-piece band capable of grooving funkily through a set of songs (mainly drawn from the first half of the 1980s) that are amongst the smartest, artiest rock-adjacent dance records ever made.
Throughout her career, Jones has effectively been both the charismatic centre and the gilding on a supremely well-constructed music machine, and that’s essentially how she functions live, vamping on top of a great band. There is a weird sense of jeopardy as she staggers around in elaborate costumes as if not entirely sure what is going on: “Oh Jesus, there’s so much sh-t up here on stage, a lot of stuff to fall over and kill myself,” she declared. Then added: “Let’s party!”
Reader, we partied. Jones counted down the closing minutes with her hula hoop still spinning, the band grooving, the crowd dancing, and backing vocalists trilling “Never stop! Never stop! Keep it up!” As a musical spectacle, I’d take this over Celine Dion and Lady Gaga in Paris any night of the week.
South Facing Festival continues at the Crystal Palace Bowl until August 11; southfacingfestival.com