NORTH-EAST music lovers joined more than 100,000 people in silent tribute to the US dead.

A sell-out crowd of 2,000 people packed the Baltic Square, on the Quays development at Gateshead, for the BBC Proms in the Park on Saturday.

The event, the last night of the famous concert series, was one of five concerts broadcast by BBC TV and radio.

Images of the Gateshead concert, featuring the Northern Sinfonia led by Bradley Creswick, were shown on giant video screens at the other concerts, held at the Royal Albert Hall and Hyde Park in London, in Liverpool and in Cornwall.

A total of 100,000 people attended the concerts at the five venues and a minute's silence was observed in tribute to the victims of the terrorist tragedy in America.

The traditional final sequence of the concert's second half, including Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance and Rule Britannia, were replaced by other pieces in the light of last week's events.

The chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the American, Leonard Slatkin, who performed at Hyde Park,

said: "As much as I had looked forward to observing the traditions of this most special of occasions, circumstances have dictated otherwise.

"What we are doing is in the spirit of this tragic time. Unity through music is now the message and we can use our sounds to help underscore the long healing process that must take place.''

Anthony Sargent, general director of the Music Centre in Gateshead, said: "None of us here on Tyneside can fail to be untouched by the mood of profound sorrow throughout the world at the moment.''

The Gateshead programme included works by the American composer Copland _ including Fanfare for the Common Man and Hoe Down_ and Northumbrian piper Kathryn Tickell and her band performed North-East folk songs such as Blaydon Races and Waters o' Tyne.