LONDON, Paris, New York, Sydney, Las Vegas.
Legendary singing star Tony “(Is This The Way To) Amarillo” Christie has performed in iconic venues across the world during his six decade career.
And now he can add Rotherham to that starry list.
Thanks to me.
Well, not really, but I did have a role in putting on his performance in South Yorkshire last week.
Forget the London Palladium, Carnegie Hall and Caesars Palace.
It is easy to put a star on the stage at any of those famous venues.
Try the second floor of a new industrial building on a manufacturing park between a dual carriageway and a Morrisons.
A year ago, when Andrew Betts, the UK managing director of Italian steel group Danieli, asked me for some ideas on an opening event for the company’s new UK headquarters, I needed to employ every ounce of my very vivid imagination.
At the time the company was based out of a small building nestled among the steelworks of Rotherham and work had only just begun on a new HQ on the Advanced Manufacturing Park which sits on the border of Sheffield and Rotherham a few miles away.
From the images Andrew showed me, I could see that the new building being created by developer Harworth Group and builder BDB was going to be big and striking.
It would sit comfortably alongside its blue chip neighbours on the Advanced Manufacturing Park: Rolls-Royce, Boeing and McLaren.
But other than inviting a few dignitaries, cutting a ribbon and serving a few canapes, how could we make the opening of the building different, memorable and fun?
That question was answered when Andrew said to me that it would be nice if his uncle could sing at the opening ceremony.
I was just about to order a karaoke machine when he revealed that his uncle is South Yorkshire-born singer Tony Christie, the man behind not just Amarillo but Avenues and Alleyways, Las Vegas, Solitaire, I Did What I Did For Maria and Don’t Go Down To Reno.
That, coupled with the fact that Danieli’s worldwide headquarters in the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia in the North East of Italy neighbours a celebrated vineyard and the company has close links to San Daniele ham which is produced in the region and rated as the finest prosciutto in Italy, meant I knew we had all the ingredients to create an event with a difference.
Several months of planning culminated in the opening event last week attended by more than 120 guests including Alessandro Brussi, the chairman of the Danieli Group which has a turnover of 4.3 billion euros and has steel operations across the world.
Guests included Danieli’s customers from the UK aluminium sector, the metals recycling sector and the UK steel industry, local MP Sarah Champion, as well as dignitaries from the South Yorkshire Mayoral Authority and the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire which has represented metalworkers in Sheffield and South Yorkshire since 1624.
On a sunny late autumn afternoon, guests gathered in a marquee outside the entrance to the new building where they were served prosecco from Giorgio Colutta’s vineyard in Italy before a brief ribbon cutting ceremony.
They then were taken up to the second floor of the building which 24 hours earlier was a completely empty space.
Thanks to the creative efforts and energy of my colleague Andrea Munt and the team from our partner Ayre Events, it had been transformed into as close to a Las Vegas show lounge as you are going to find on a manufacturing park in Rotherham.
Carpets, staging, lighting, balloons, LED tables, a Negroni bar, a prosciutto station, it looked fantastic.
I could have had a field day at the Negroni bar if I wasn’t compering events.
I welcomed the guests and told them that from my time in business journalism at the Yorkshire Post and TheBusinessDesk.com, there is no more positive or popular story than that of inward investment.
Indeed, post Brexit, for a major Europe-based but global business to commit to a serious investment in the UK is certainly something worth celebrating.
After brief speeches from Deputy Lieutenant Bob Dyson and Andrew Betts and Alessandro Brussi from Danieli, guests enjoyed the food and drinks before Tony Christie took to the stage for an acoustic performance with his four-piece band.
Now aged 81 and having revealed in January last year that he had been diagnosed with dementia, he has performed 35 public gigs this year in addition to private performances which have included being flown to Switzerland in a private jet to play at an event for the Porsche family.
He sang 10 songs which included his biggest hits as well as a couple by his heroes, Fly Me To The Moon by Frank Sinatra and Mr Bojangles by Sammy Davis Jr.
Tony Christie’s performance was mesmerising and he punctuated his numbers with memories from his career and some warm words for Danieli with the opening of its new UK investment.
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DEPUTY Lieutenant for South Yorkshire Bob Dyson performed the ribbon cutting ceremony with Andrew Betts and Alessandro Brussi from Danieli.
A former senior police officer in South Yorkshire, including six months as temporary Chief Constable, Bob told me he wasn’t going to include it in his speech, but his links to the Advanced Manufacturing Park site go back 40 years.
It was built on the site of the former Orgreave Colliery.
In 1984 during the Miners’ Strike, the infamous Battle of Orgreave took place around the neighbouring coking works.
The confrontation between miners and police officers was one of the most violent and vicious clashes in British industrial history and Bob told me he was a young PC who was there at the time.
DURING the drinks reception I chatted to a senior representative from the Italian Embassy in London and the talk turned to football.
He told me he was from Naples and supported Napoli and had, in fact, attended every game, home and away, including in the Champions’ League, during the 2022-2023 season when the team won the Serie A title.
Suitably impressed, given Napoli once featured the legend Maradona and are renowned for playing fast-flowing, entertaining football, I asked him if since his move to London, he now supported an English football team?
“Yes, Millwall,” he replied.
Struggling to understand why he would choose this South London team whose fans revel in the chant: “No one likes us, we don’t care”, I asked if it was because he lived nearby.
“No, I live in Kensington,” he said.
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THERE were representatives from the universities of Manchester, Loughborough and Sheffield at the opening event.
And also the headteacher and a senior teacher from Wales High School in Rotherham, which enjoys a close collaboration with Danieli UK.
Lisa McCall is a charismatic leader of the school who told me that she recently gave an assembly to pupils where she talked about her background growing up on a council estate in Bootle on Merseyside.
We both chatted about our shared belief that telling stories is such a powerful way to communicate and connect with people.
Lisa said that when she showed pupils a photo of her as a teenager pulling pints of Guinness for drinkers in a Liverpool pub, they were really impressed.
I persuaded her to try a Negroni which I think made her the coolest teacher I’ve ever met.
Her colleague said he would have loved to have sampled one too but better not as he was returning to school that evening to direct the first night of the school musical, We Will Rock You.
Have a great weekend.