Diana Ross dedicated a “special song for you” at Brighton and Hove Pride as she sang to the crowd: “Always be you.”
The American superstar had the crowd singing and dancing along to popular hits including Upside Down, Baby Love, Chain Reaction, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough and Stop! In the Name Of Love in her closing headline act tonight (Sunday 2 August).
She opened her set with her 1980 classic I’m Coming Out to cheering festivalgoers.
The 82-year-old also dedicated a song “written for you”, asking the audience to listen to the lyrics including: “Joy, joy, joy! Freedom! Always be you.”
The Motown legend showcased several glamorous outfits, first donning a silver glittery gown and white feathers, then a red glittery dress and red ruffles and lastly a neon yellow raincoat with black trousers and top.
Throughout the set backed by a band and supporting vocals, videos spanning her decades-long career played in the background.
Earlier in the evening, reunited boy band Five walked onto the stage as the screen read “Five bad boys” and opened their set with their 1998 hit Everybody Get Up.
The British group brought the dance moves in their first performance at Brighton and Hove Pride and paid tribute to 35 years of the event as “amazing”.
The sets this evening closed Brighton and Hove Pride’s weekend, which celebrated the 35th anniversary with the theme “the power of love”.
The first Brighton Pride march took place in July 1973, organised by the Sussex Gay Liberation Front.
But only a small part of the community felt safe enough to take part, organisers have said, and Pride did not return to Brighton again until 1991.
For this milestone year, Brighton and Hove Pride moved to honour early activists and “remember the courage it took to be visible”.
Some 300,000 people were expected to take part or watch the community parade on Saturday while up to 450,000 people were estimated to turn out city-wide for Pride.
Speaking before the weekend, managing director Paul Kemp paid tribute to Diana Ross as “iconic” and said that alongside Saturday headliner Raye the line-up was “spanning a generation of divas”.
Mr Kemp said: “You can’t get much more iconic than Diana Ross.
“Diana Ross supported the LGBT community during the Aids crisis, the famous story about Nile Rodgers and the song I’m Coming Out, how he wrote that song, so it really bookmarks the 35th anniversary really well.”
