London
March 02, 2005
And what do you do, Mr Clapton?
By Ben Hoyle and Adam Sherwin
THE QUEEN welcomed some of the biggest names in British music to Buckingham Palace last night but had no idea who some of them were.
Introduced to four of the country's most famous guitar heroes she asked: "And what do you do?" Brian May, from Queen the group, the first of the big names to be greeted by the real Queen, reminded her that he played the National Anthem on the roof of the Palace to start the 2002 Golden Jubilee rock concert. "Oh! That was you was it?" she exclaimed.
Moving on to Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, the Queen inquired: "Are you a guitarist too?" Eric Clapton took no chances and, firmly shaking the Queen's hand, introduced himself by name. "Have you been playing a long time?" the Queen asked. "It must be 45 years now," replied Clapton, 59.
Next in the VIP line-up was Jeff Beck who, with Clapton, told the Queen that, with Page, all three had started off in the same band, the Yardbirds.
"And we're all from Surrey," added Clapton. Later Clapton, now a teetotaller, praised the Queen for hosting the evening drinks and canapés reception.
"It's great to meet her — and it doesn't matter at all that she did not know who were are or what we do. I wouldn't expect her to." Despite their rock'n'roll habits, all four managed to arrive in good time for the reception, which is more than could be said of the former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, who swanned into the party 40 minutes after it started and almost two hours after many of the 500 celebrity guests arrived.
The one-time Ginger Spice, who once famously pinched Prince Charles's bottom, perhaps did not realise that the monarch is supposed to be the last person to arrive for a royal engagement. The Countess of Wessex, the Duke and Duchess of Kent and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester all turned up before the Queen.
The palace doors had to be reopened for Ms Halliwell when she arrived at 6.40pm, confusing palace officials who had assumed that she had decided not to attend. Ms Halliwell, who was also dressed more casually than most of the other female guests, in a pair of cream trousers, said she felt "fantastic" at being invited.
The reception, the Queen's first for the music industry, was attended by guests with an average age of 54. Dame Vera Lynn, 87, and Humphrey Lyttelton, 83, also joined the party. The average age fell below 60 only because of Jamie Cullum, 24, the jazz prodigy, and Katie Melua, 20, the million-selling graduate of the Brit School for the Performing Arts and Technology.
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