HomeMusic10 things that made the NME Awards 2014

10 things that made the NME Awards 2014

Wednesday night the NME Awards ceremony took place at Brixton O2 Academy and we were lucky enough to be there.

The night was filled with fun moments and iconic superstars took the centre stage. Big winners of the night were the Arctic Monkey, which didn’t come as a surprise, and also picking up awards were Drenge and Haim whilst sir Paul McCartney and Blondie picked up their own special awards.

We had a great time at the awards show and wanted share some of the best moments of the night so if you weren’t there you can catch up on all of the gossip here.

1. Lily Allen won Best Solo Artist. Now why is that a moment to remember you might wonder? Well it wasn’t really the fact that Lily Allen won the award but as Allen herself eloquently put it she won in a category which included David Bowie and Sir Paul McCartney as nominees. This did look like an odd win perhaps (certainly if you were part of the older demographic reading the NME) but Lily does represent part of the youth out there and has contributed to pop music quite largely in the UK and elsewhere. Lily herself isn’t an idiot and admitted that she possibly didn’t deserve this win. We don’t know whether she deserved it but there was no booing as she picked up the award.

2. Belle & Sebastian played with beach balls. Isn’t it fun when the acts include you in? Belle & Sebastian are all about that and proved that more than ever on Wednesday when they decided to combine their performance with some cardio. Following their Outstanding Contribution To Music award the band took to the stage and dazzled us with a fun set of classic songs. With their set came a game of beach balls and if that wasn’t enough some lucky punters were even allowed to dance on stage with the band (it should have been us).

3. White Fat Family recited a poem. The Philip Hall Radar Award was given to White Fat Family but we think they should have also won an additional award for Best Speech. Forget about Alex Turner’s Brit Award speech, the White Fat Family gave their entire speech in prose! The whole thing was hilarious and even more so because of the state of them. Being merry is so much fun and from now on we expect speeches to always be artistic.

4. Michael Eavis’ shorts. You can take the man out of the farm but you can’t take the farm out of the man! Michael Eavis picked up the award for Best Festival (Glastonbury) which wasn’t much of a surprise but the man himself decided to attend the event to pick the award was. On top of it all Eavis treated us with a magnificent sight of his calves (oh yeah). Guess what? Being a farmer keeps your calves looking good and even though Eavis won the fictional award of the Worst Dressed at the party he also won big on courage. Also if you’re the man responsible for one of best things that has ever happened to the music industry you can do whatever you want!

5. Drenge are two guys. Pardon us we’d heard of Drenge and we definitely heard their music (loud and good) but we hadn’t realised that the band is composed of just two brothers, one on guitar and the other on drums. Did you? They picked up the award for Best New Band and then treated us to a performance, which was by far the loudest of the night and to some extent one of the most exciting. These guys are good and manage to generate a powerful sound with just their two instruments.

6. Aaron Paul snubbed the awards. In case you didn’t know Aaron Paul is one of the lead characters in hit US TV show Breaking Bad. You know the one where a chemistry teacher becomes a meth cook. Well if like us you are still mourning the loss of one of the best TV shows ever made then you would have been pretty excited to see Paul aka Jesse but it was not meant to be. We weren’t as bitter as the NME seemed to be though (get over it bitch).

7. Alex Turner didn’t break anything. I suppose maybe the NME isn’t as much of a joke as the Brits are to Turner so it was quite good that he didn’t break mics or other props. We’ve got to admit that we were expecting something at least as spectacular but unfortunately it wasn’t that kind of night; instead Turner was thankful and well behaved (rock on).

8. Technical problems. If you were jealous about not being there well don’t be. We had to wait for a long while before Blondie were able to get on stage. Whether there really were technical problems we don’t know (the other bands managed just fine) but it certainly killed a bit of the atmosphere.

9. Drunk Fan. The night wouldn’t have been complete without our friend, which we shall brand ‘drunk fan’. This guy screamed a lot (in our ear) and was the most enthusiastic crowd member of the night. Drunk fan was a big rock enthusiast and expressed his love to the likes of Johnny Marr, Sir Paul McCartney and Debbie Harry with fierceness, which meant we stank of beer and were deaf in one ear at the end of the night. The night would have not been complete without someone as enthusiastic so thank you drunk fan.

10. Blondie rocked. The iconic band picked up the Godlike Genius award, which was well deserved. We were waiting for the band to take the stage all night and we were not disappointed. Debbie Harry still has it, that hot mama sang perfectly and we were truly mesmerized.

So there you have our highlights at the awards but there was plenty more going on like Paul McCartney and Damon Albarn picking up awards and performances from The Horrors and Drenge.

Sarah Bargiela
Sarah Bargiela
Sarah aka Bargi is the Assistant Editor and Music Editor for Entertainment Focus (EF).

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