Planet Leith goes pop

I FIRST rubbed shoulders with Justin Timberlake six months ago. My short promotional visit to New York coincided with a music awards extravaganza. As I stood outside my hotel one morning, trying to find a taxi, a skinhead in a parka brushed past. I guessed he’d been delivering a pizza, but suddenly the pavement was filled with screaming teenage girls. The parka ducked into a waiting limo. I asked a fan for the star’s identity. She looked at me as though I’d just arrived from Venus.

But now Justin has landed on Planet Leith, along with Beyoncé, Sean Paul, Christina Aguilera and Kylie. They were in town for the MTV Europe Music Awards, sited in a fortified compound. There was a big-top style tent to accommodate the crowd of around 6,000, dwarfed by Chancelot Mill and Caledonia Mill - stark reminders of Leith’s industrial heritage.

Not that there’s much actual industry left in Edinburgh, if my MTV press pack is to be believed. Ninety per cent of the city’s workforce is employed in the service sector (finance, tourism and retail for the most part), while 14% of the local population is aged between 16 and 24. Is this the fabled ‘MTV Generation’ - young, in work (only 2% unemployment) and hungry for music videos? Well, there are plenty of videos on display tonight. But the reason a squealing audience is here is to see their heroes in the flesh.

The cynic in me wonders about those screamers, knowing MTV auditioned for enthusiastic fans a few days before the event. But then what do I know? I’m 43 - almost old enough to have grandchildren who would watch MTV. The last music videos I bought were by David Gilmour, Led Zeppelin and The Cure - none of which feature here tonight. I doubt the majority of the audience even knows (or cares) who David Gilmour is.

It was ever thus. My parents squirmed at my own musical education: posters of Hendrix and Alice Cooper on my bedroom wall, Hawkwind on the record player, glued to Top of the Pops. A typical diary entry for my 15th year reads: ‘Sabbath, PFM, Man on Radio Forth tonight’.

Curiously, Ozzy Osbourne of Black Sabbath still appeals to the MTV generation, courtesy of the station’s success with The Osbournes - but the oldest lags on stage tonight are probably Jane’s Addiction, who look like a works-night-out’s attempt to spoof Keith Richards. The Darkness feel old, but only because I was there first time round, which is probably what my parents thought as I tried to explain to them the unique genius of Alice Cooper. They could hear Elvis behind the greasepaint.

These days, I sometimes find myself tuning in to Radio 2 (well, it’s changed, I tell myself), and I tut my way through Top of the Pops and the Saturday morning chart show on STV, wondering what the pre-teens of today are coming to. The tunes all sound the same and I can’t make out the lyrics. I am, in effect, turning into my parents.

I’ve never been one of the MTV generation. I’m more of a VH1 man - rock rather than pop. MTV really only started appealing to me with its ‘Unplugged’ series, a concept of simple genius which set out to prove that the acts of today really could play their instruments, that they were more than just pretty, promotable faces and bodies.

The history of popular music is an exercise in marketing. It has been said that there are only seven basic plots, from which all novels are constructed. How much truer is this of tunes and pop music? The pop song, we are told, is (like the novel) in decline: too much swapping songs over the internet (in my day it was home taping). Singles are almost non-existent in terms of sales, and yet MTV thrives, and live music thrives. The thirst for stars seems unquenchable.

Which is why Edinburgh shuts down for a couple of days when MTV hits town. Crowds bring the traffic to a standstill on Princes Street as Beyoncé leaves her hotel. Most of the gawpers seem to be local men with bad dental work. They think Beyoncé is gorgeous, which is why they’re happy to be part of the crush. Somewhere else in town, Justin is probably experiencing a similar reaction.

I bumped into a press photographer on Lothian Road. He was working out if he could somehow blag his way into the Standard Life building in the hope of snapping the Sheraton’s rooftop pool. Why? Because Christina was supposed to be staying there, and she might just use the health club, and she might just decide on an outdoor swim.

What these gods and goddesses made of Leith is anyone’s guess. I reckon they never even saw the place, hidden behind the smoked glass of their limos, cosseted by managers and bodyguards. It wouldn’t matter if they were in Madrid or Motherwell, their surroundings would have been the same: flashguns and red carpets, a sound stage and a hotel suite (though this last might be a tough call in Motherwell). The Leith site has its fair share of red carpet. The stuff was still being trimmed when I visited a couple of days prior to the show.

Photographers were looking for vantage points - nearby blocks of flats and, yes, even the mills themselves. An American couple, circuiting the perimeter, had just visited HMS Britannia. They said they’d probably watch the show on television. They wouldn’t be alone. Another ‘statistic’ from the MTV marketing machine claims that up to a billion people would be watching. By the same token, up to a billion people may buy this newspaper today, or my next novel, but MTV probably know what they’re talking about.

Although this show was supposed to be about MTV Europe, most of the acts on display were aimed at the American market. Gongs were given out for Best Russian Act, Best Polish Act, and Best Romanian Act, but I didn’t actually see any of those presentations. My guess is that they took place somewhere distant from the main arena. Voting for these awards was by SMS text messaging - a blow to any band whose fan-base couldn’t afford a mobile phone (or was too young to own one).

The tent itself was massive, as was the stage. From my vantage point in the second row from the back, the performers seemed tiny, and it was the acts with charisma that won on the night. The White Stripes kicked up a real noise to say there were only two of them, while The Darkness seduced with showmanship, and Kraftwerk looked like they’d just stepped out of The Matrix Revolutions.

But the real hit of the night was actor Vin Diesel, dressed in a kilt and leading the crowd in the opening verse of ‘Flower of Scotland’. It was cheesy but effective, and a large portion of the audience joined in, disproving the rumour that locals weren’t invited to this particular party.

Seven hundred journalists, however, were on the guest list, and in the courtesy bus on the way to the gig I felt like a stranger. They were young, hip and foreign, talking excitedly on their mobile phones, probably taking bets on the chances of Cool Kids of Death walking off with the Best Polish Act award.

Prior to the show there was a ‘VIP reception’ in Ocean Terminal. It boasted hostesses dressed as S&M acts, huge amounts of free booze, steak (if you could find an empty table), and fat American men wearing sunglasses and smoking cigars - everything, in fact, bar VIPs. One of the waitresses worked at a local hospital and knew my son. She was there because her husband ran the company which had laid on the tequila and champagne. It was a classic Edinburgh moment: the local in the midst of the cosmopolitan.

Walking from the reception to the tent, I read through some more of those MTV statistics: 18 miles of lighting cables, 28 hair stylists, 1.5 million watts of electricity. A pity, then, that no one thought to do anything about the acoustics. I could make out about one word in 10 from the show’s host, Christina Aguilera, and sometimes fewer than that from the various guest presenters.

Then again, it could be that those formative Hawkwind years have damaged my hearing. The musical numbers were easier on the ears. Travis, Kylie and Sean Paul came and went. Some of the acts had trouble filling the huge stage (60 metres by 60, trivia fans). Cleverly, Ms Minogue ignored it altogether and did her act from the more intimate space where the awards were presented. Kraftwerk used a different ploy, with luminous outfits and glowing computers. According to MTV, "all the artists at the awards cite Kraftwerk as a big influence", which I’m guessing would come as news to Justin and Beyoncé.

Truth be told, the lesser mortals who were consigned to the gig in Princes Street Gardens looked to be having the most fun. The performance by the Chemical Brothers and Flaming Lips was beamed into the Leith arena, and was one of the highlights of the night. But for me, the White Stripes stole the show (as well as walking off with the award for Best Rock Act).

Throughout, however, I kept coming back to the unimaginable logistics of organising an event on this scale. The whole thing ran like clockwork, from pre-show to post-show. And when it was finished there were more VIP parties, including one back at Ocean Terminal, with more booze and food, plus DJ sets and courtesy coaches booked for 2am. I didn’t bother, opting instead for the pub, where I watched the whole thing again on television.

Suddenly it all looked more exciting, and I could make out what the various presenters and winners were saying. I could better appreciate the choreography and understand the audience’s enthusiasm. The crowd was a necessity - it’s tough to stage a live event without one - but the real home of the MTV Awards was, naturally enough, the television. The performers were acting for a battery of TV cameras, to be beamed into homes across the planet.

And what did those homes see of Scotland? They saw a Hollywood actor in a kilt, and video footage of the Tartan Army, once more for posterity baring its collective buttocks.

The show’s over (apart from regular re-screenings on MTV); the juggernaut moves on. Next year it will be another city, another country. Soon enough, it may even be Poland’s turn, and I’ll get to see Cool Kids of Death, always supposing their career has survived that long. Pop tends to chew up its idols and spit them out. It’s our fault: those crushes don’t last long. The Alice Cooper posters come down, and the fans become parents, so that their own kids can put up posters of Justin and Kylie, then sit in front of the TV to devour music videos and repeats of awards shows.

Some of MTV’s worldwide audience will be thinking of Edinburgh now. They’ll see it as a cool city, a place that can attract superstars, a city of music. Previously the MTV Awards had been hosted from the likes of Berlin, London and Dublin. Now Leith can add its name to that list. From Trainspotting to star-spotting in a single leap. If only we’d thought to build our parliament down by the dockside, too.