Miscellaneous - The Brit Awards Show

  by Jon Rogers

published: 13 / 2 / 2010

intro

Jon Rogers finds The Brit Awards show for 2010 to be over sanitised and lacking in thrills

itiThe organisers of the Brit Awards must surely be aware that this year’s bash was rather lacking in fizz and excitement. Even the chief pop critic of ‘The Evening Standard’, a paper normally on the reactionary side of conservatism, called the whole event “about as edgy as a frisbee.” The thing is I’d go further than that and say the whole thing was sanitised and bleached clean to within an inch of its life. It was castrated from the start with host Peter Kay saying it would be a night of “responsible fun” and sounding like some boring IT manager about to get a round in of sweet sherry. Steady on there, Kay. Don’t go too wild now. Better have a nice mug of cocoa and a bit of a lie down. There’s no need for pop stars to live up to the hard-living rock cliché; to swagger, drunkenly up on stage with a bottle of Jack Daniels, swear profusely and express a desire to shag every woman in the building before passing out cold ,but this year’s bunch really have themselves to blame. Only Lady Gaga - and I’m certainly no fan - did anything of interest and I don’t just mean her taste in clothes. And least she looked the part of a narcissistic pop star in yet another OTT dress that screamed look at me, look at me and put on a captivating spectacle, even if musically it wasn’t that exciting and was something of a rehash of 80s disco beats. But she grabbed your attention. The rest though were identikit corporate pop stars, tugging their forelocks in gratitude to their paymasters for their 15 minutes of fame, grinning inanely and being ever so polite. The worst offenders were the likes of Dizzee Rascal, JLS and Robbie Williams all of whom looked like they were attending some sort of convention for insurance clerks. There was the token pantomime rebel in the form of Liam Gallagher who, predictably, caused a bit of ‘controversy’ for ‘Daily Mai’l readers by swearing on TV and throwing his award and mic into the audience. Oooh, you are a naughty boy. Aside to Liam: if you have such distain for the whole thing why did you bother to turn up in the first place? Why not follow Nick Cave’s example and write a sarcastic letter to the event’s organisers explaining why it would hurt your muse to attend such a thing? Or perhaps you really like it all and are just thinking about the possibility of more record sales? Why not stay in your nice, comfy, upper middle-class area of London? And if you disliked the award so much, why get it back again later on? And if the artists featured lacked excitement what about the host, comedian (and I use the term loosely) Peter Kay? Just how terrible was he? Can’t. Read. An. Autocue. For a start and his jokes were pathetic, failing to raise even a glimmer of a smirk. Alan Carr was far funnier. Althoug I have got to agree with Kay’s assessment of Liam Gallagher as a “knobhead.”. His sidekick, Fearne Cotton, doing the backstage interviews, had all the insight and gravitas of a cuddly teddy bear with a hangover. Sample interviewing question – Fearne: “How are you going to celebrate?”. A bemused Lily Allen: “Er... with a drink.” Well, that’s good to know. But all of this was really secondary to the main event of the night – one Cheryl Cole performing her single ‘Fight for This Love’. The combination of the alleged infidelity (again) of her husband footballer Ashley Cole in the tabloids and Lady Gaga wondering exactly what to do during her slot meant that the Girls Aloud singer was given the prime slot. Admittedly it was a pretty ropey performance and she had trouble even miming along to the song let alone actually singing it but considering her high profile marriage may be close to collapse then she deserves the benefit of the doubt. Clearly she was more intent on sending her errant husband an unsubtle message. Personally, Chezza, if you want to fight for this love I’d get round one off to a cracking start with a short, sharp slap across the face. It is a pity though your understandable ire didn’t fuel a really heartfelt rendition. But according to those who were actually at the event her performance was better than it appeared on TV. There was the token ‘rock’ act, as usual, with this year Kasabian getting their chance in the spotlight. Despite all their rock posturing the band are nothing more than a boy band with guitars. They’re stylised to an inch of their lives and play bland, insipid music but just because they play “real” instruments and have skinny jeans they are edgy and authentic, unlike those pop acts. Er, no... And Fearne Cotton had her finger right on the pulse when she called them “the people’s band”. All in all it is perhaps telling that after each ad break the response from the fans was less than muted with a round of lukewarm cheers, even after Kay had done is best arousing interest by screaming “Welcome back...” If the ‘kids’ can’t get interested then there’s no hope, really. And the best performance over the past 30 years? The Spice Girls? Pur-lease. Surely it should have been shared equally between the KLF and Jarvis Cocker. Oh well, there’s always next year, when no doubt I’ll be sorely disappointed once more but still avidly watching all the same.