The BBC 1Xtra Prom: How this rock music fan found herself converted to grime

I wouldn’t say that my taste in music is narrow, but if you take a look at my playlists, finding a song without a guitar in it is as rare as finding a custard doughnut in a bag that advertised itself as jam only. I’ve always appreciated most genres of music, but for me, nothing is better than a loud, shouty, rock song.

This summer however, I’ve heard people talking about the BBC Proms more than ever before. My friends have been raving about the BBC Radio 1 and Frank Sinatra Proms in particular. So with a determination not to miss out AGAIN, I decided to expand my musical horizons and head to the Late Night With... BBC 1Xtra – because for me, a standard, classical music-based Prom just wasn’t an easy enough transition into another musical genre.

The thought of watching the biggest names in grime, including Wretch 32, Stormzy and Lethal Bizzle perform with the Metropole Orkest in a venue that’s usually the home of classical music, was absolutely surreal.

On the night, myself and a couple of friends arrived at the Royal Albert Hall, armed with sandwiches and cups of tea, to join the queue and ensure we got one of the £5 ‘on the door’ Promming tickets. I soon realised I had completely misjudged the queuing atmosphere, when three Prom fans got in line next to us and proceeded to have a very posh picnic on the pavement. My cheese sandwich-eating friends and I were very jealous.

After surviving the longest queue in London, we entered the Royal Albert Hall. The orchestra started playing almost immediately and the sound completely filled the venue. MistaJam from BBC Radio 1Xtra introduced the evening – and we were off!

What surprised me about the Prom was the variety of people there. As MistaJam said: “I don’t think the Royal Albert Hall has ever let so many tracksuits into the building!” – but I was standing next to a mature lady in a floor-length gown, who definitely had better dance moves than me (and knew all the words)!

The first highlight of the night for me had to be when Chip came on stage accompanied by Kano and Wretch 32: everyone in the venue got to their feet and the Royal Albert Hall may have seen its first ever attempt at crowd surfing!

My favourite bit of the evening though had to be the ‘dench’ Lethal Bizzle with Rari Workout – I’ll admit, I was dancing, and there wasn’t a guitar to be heard.

Wretch 32 closed the night with an incredible version of Traktor, a song which means a lot to me as it’s a throwback to my university days. All of the artists came back on stage to take a final bow, but the biggest cheer went to conductor Jules Buckley and the Metropole Orchestra, who throughout the evening were thoroughly embracing the spirit of grime – Jules was my favourite person to watch on stage all night!

Will I be listening to less loud shouty music in the future? Well, I think that if you find a music genre that resonates with you, you should embrace and love it – so the rock music is definitely here to stay! But I will be listening to MORE music – I’m going to put Krept & Konan and Lethal Bizzle in amongst my standard Foo Fighters and Muse – and my playlist will be the better for it.

The BBC 1Xtra Grime Symphony is available to watch in full in BBC iPlayer until Thursday, 10 September.

BBC Proms coverage continues tonight on Red Button. Full performances will be available in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV. For full coverage details please see the BBC Proms website.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.