Sky Views: Manchester tribute was everything terrorists hate

When Miley Cyrus took to the stage at One Love Manchester wearing the teeniest pair of cut-off denim shorts, it felt like a political statement.

On Sunday night tens of thousands of people packed out the Old Trafford cricket ground just 13 days after a bomb ripped through an Ariana Grande show at Manchester Arena. It was particularly poignant coming just a day after a separate terrorist attack in London that killed seven people.

The Miley Cyrus performance was followed by girl band Little Mix, who had squeezed into a series of racy black and white outfits. The four young women bounced around the stage in bra tops and bum-baring leotards, black tassles swinging joyfully.


Young, liberated, successful women wearing whatever they damn well want is exactly what the extremists don't want to see.Sophy Ridge

I admit, I'm usually someone who finds it mildly depressing that female pop stars feel the need to bare so much flesh (or - perhaps more accurately - their management feels the need for them to do so).

But as I watched the incredibly moving One Love Manchester concert, I couldn't help thinking there was something wonderfully defiant about the young women singing on stage wearing anything from Ariana Grande's sweatshirt and jeans to Katy Perry's bizarre white feathered jacket.

Somehow it felt like the perfect way to stick two fingers up to the terrorists.

Because young, liberated, successful women wearing whatever they damn well want is exactly what the extremists don't want to see.

Image:Singers Pharrell Williams and Miley Cyrus perform during the One Love Manchester benefit concert

Terrorists pick their targets carefully, whether Londoners enjoying drinks and dinner on Saturday night, Christmas markets in Berlin or a priest at a church in Normandy, France. All are attacks on a way of life.

It was no coincidence that 22-year-old Salman Abedi decided to blow himself up at an Ariana Grande concert. He would have known that the pop star's fans are predominantly young women, as the heart-breaking photographs of the victims made abundantly clear. A total of 22 people died, including an eight-year-old girl.

Islamic State's twisted ideology is deeply misogynistic. In the warped minds of extremists, Ariana Grande's brand of femininity is threatening. How apt, then, that her tour is called Dangerous Woman - and how life affirming to see other dangerous women singing their hearts out in front of tens of thousands of people in Manchester.