The Wonder of you ... Stevie performing at Madison Square Gardens. Photograph: AP/JimDeCrow
In the 80s, I watched Live Aid in a Manchester pub and remember an old chap walking in, looking up to the television and saying, "Have you seen what that Steven Wonder's wearing? He must be bloody blind."
I assume Stevie Wonder could not see what his audience were wearing when he played a short set at Selfridges last night, but they were seriously well-heeled.
The invited guests of Bulgari, Chanel, Rolex, Hermes and other luxury brands were celebrating the redesign of the flagship room in Selfridges, which has been christened the Wonder Room. Hence the show by Stevie Wonder.
Selfridges is an unusual setting for a concert but it could teach other venues a thing or two. For instance, the search for a toilet is always something of a chore. At Selfridges, we were whisked to the bathrooms by rickshaw. Food, too, is often a problem. Selfridges offered Falmouth bay oysters served with gewurztraminer jelly, and scrambled eggs with black truffles.
The Wonder Room is essentially a kind of gift store: it groups together products that have no connection other than prestige and expense. So there is food, wine and cigars, but also hats, perfume and watches. Especially watches, many at prices that make Rolexes look a bargain.
Before Stevie Wonder took the stage, the CEO of Selfridges gave a speech that, in many ways, recalled an impressario unveiling such wonders as bearded ladies and escapologists. He made the point that when Selfridges opened in 1909, it was intended as a store whose doors were open to everyone. Department stores were more democratic than the older, specialist shops they sought to replace. But they were also more excessive.
In his novel The Ladies' Paradise, Emile Zola describes the opening of the first department store in Paris. The impact was entirely visual. No one had ever seen anything so ostentatiously exuberant. The department store created the so-called 'society of the spectacle' and with it a new notion of luxury: the luxury of going well over-the-top. Luxury became glitzy, and thus something no one could ever take seriously. Somewhere along the line, the brands realised this, and started producing ironic luxury. A three thousand pound watch with a face in zebra stripes looks simultaneously expensive and cheap, and that appears to be the point.
No party is complete without a celebrity, and we had Joan Collins, Cilla Black, Trinny Woodall and Piers Morgan. To be fair to Cilla, she did appear to have come for the music.
Stevie Wonder was the perfect choice for the opening night, and not simply because he shares a name with the room. A lifetime in the field of pop soul has meant that Wonder's music has a nodding relationship with cheese.
This is all the more apparent when he plays solo, as he was last night. He sang and played keyboards while simultaneously triggering pre-recorded samples of fills and backing vocals. Songs like My Cherie Amour and Superstition are full of the dated production effects of their time, which Wonder reproduced live, via technological trickery.
Yet he did it so much wit and style, that the cheesiness was first playfully ironic but finally, somehow, transcendent. He really is the most astonishing live performer. For the length of time he played (only thirty minutes) he lent the Wonder Room something better than luxury: warmth.
