Kelly Rowland grew emotional as she dedicated a song to one of her fans who recently died when she headlined Mighty Hoopla on Saturday (03.06.23).
The 42-year-old singer took to the stage in London’s Brockwell Park for her headline slot, and after dazzling fans with short versions of a number of her songs, things then took a serious turn as the ‘Dilemma’ hitmaker paid tribute to Julie Lillis, who died of cancer in March.
Dedicating her song ‘Stole’ to Julie, Kelly said: “This next song I want to dedicate to my darling Julie, who has been with Destiny’s Child and me my whole career.
“Julie, I love you. This one’s for you.”
After her rendition of the song, Kelly launched into a medley of Destiny’s Child classics, including ‘Bills Bills Bills’, ‘Survivor’, ‘Independent Women Pt. 1’ and ‘Lose My Breath’ before closing out her set with ‘Life Like This’, ‘Work’ and ‘When Love Takes Over’.
The singer later took to Instagram to share video footage of her performance.
She captioned the clip: “DAMN London. I love you so much!!! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!!! (sic)”
And Kelly wasn’t the only artist performing at the festival on Saturday to pay homage to their own back catalogue.
Earlier in the afternoon, Nadine Coyle treated fans to a selection of Girls Aloud hits, including ‘Sound of the Underground’, ‘Biology’ and ‘Something Kinda Ooh’, as well as her own ‘Go To Work’ and a cover of ‘Better Off Alone’.
Other highlights from the first day of the festival came from Kelis, who mixed her own greatest hits with covers including an instrumental take on Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and a version of Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’, a singalong set from ‘Unwritten’ hitmaker Natasha Bedingfield that included her own take on Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’, and Aqua, who had the whole park singing along to their beloved hits including ‘Turn Back Time’, ‘Doctor Jones’, and their biggest song, ‘Barbie Girl’.