Concert For Diana, Wembley Stadium, London

It was touch and go. Rain clouds threatened, and so did sentimentality - but in the end the Concert for Diana in Wembley Stadium, watched last night by a crowd of 62,000 and TV audiences in 46 countries, was a strange, soft-centred triumph.

So many stars, so many satisfyingly odd moments: P-Diddy, rapping over "I'll Be Missing You" with the insistent question: "Our princess. Where is she? Our princess. Where is she?" David Beckham croaking, "She was the nation's lady, the nation's princess, always has been and always will be," and then dissolving into good-natured giggles, perhaps at his own ineloquence (he's better on the turf at Wembley, bless him.) And Tony Blair's appearance on screen struck a strange note, with the crowd emitting an ambiguous noise that wasn't quite a cheer.

First up was Sir Elton John's sonorous "Your Song", while a medley of classic black and white Diana photographs were projected behind him. Next, Duran Duran's set was initially wobbly (so Nick Rhodes' wasn't joking when he said "To be honest, we haven't really done any rehearsals"). Then the tone lightened. The actor Dennis Hopper announced in his trademark style (just-suppressed frenzy) "This is no exercise in nostalgia ... this is a party!"

"We know that if our mother was here today ... she'd be the first up out of her seat and dancing!" the Princes wrote in their forward to the programme. Soon they were doing it themselves. When Nelly Furtado took to the stage, swinging her glossy pony-tail to a fine delivery of "I'm Like A Bird", the royal box started heaving with hip-hop dancing, Sloane-style.

The audience, delighted, turned round to capture the Princes' moves on several thousand phones and cameras; the press, whose seats were situated right underneath the royal box, craned their necks in frustration but couldn't see a thing. Next, 40 English National Ballet tutus fluttered on stage for a scene from Swan Lake.

The line-up was, in a word, eclectic. One moment Nelly was pumping; the next, the corps de ballet were jumping. It should have been jarring, yet somehow the dolly mix of performers worked. The crowd seemed to love the ballet; a small child pirouetted across the aisle. "We wanted to get artists that my mother really loved, and then artists that both Harry and I enjoy," Prince William explained. It was the perfect concert for cross-generational bonding. Tramping up the "pedway" from Wembley park tube to the stadium I saw one atypical family unit - Charles Spencer, surrounded by his brood of children, perplexedly asking for directions from a security guard (nice to see Diana's brother's stadium map was no better than anyone else's) - and another more typical pair of Diana concert pilgrims: a teenage boy, sweatshirt baggy and headphones trailing, clearly in it for the Kanye West, and his mother, probably about the same age as Princess Diana would have turned yesterday (46), clearly in it for Rod Stewart and clutching her £10 souvenir programme. (This was the only spending opportunity, apart from the £7 fish and chips - the Princes, with good taste, decided to ban merchandising products from the evening). The mix of ages in the audience resulted in a family knees-up atmosphere.

Tom Jones and Joss Stone performed a flirty duet to "I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor", twirling round rather like a great uncle and a bridesmaid at a wedding.

Elton refrained from singing "Candle in the Wind", in the end. It was probably wise. Emotions were high enough, anyway. Singing "Tiny Dancer", all was as it should be: Elton's voice cracked, but the weather held.