The build-up to the Q Awards 2007 began in earnest with an all-star gig that boasted storming performances from Manic Street Preachers, Hard-Fi, Athlete, Kate Nash, Cherry Ghost and newcomer Eoghan Colgan at London’s intimate IndigO2 venue.
In between acts Q Editor Paul Rees announced the nominations for this month’s Q Awards, which take place on 8 October at the Grovesnor, Park Lane, London. Find out which bands will be competing for honours on the night by clicking here.
Trainee GP-turned singer-songwriter Eoghan Colgan only quit his day job last month, but the O2 Undiscovered winner didn’t appear intimidated by the occasion. Backed by a fiddle and cello player, the Glasgow-based 28-year-old played only two songs (“Better than nothing,” he quipped) but the Jeff Buckley-esque agility of his voice made for a quietly enthralling curtain-raiser.
You wouldn’t expect the scuffed, rustic Americana of Cherry Ghost to work in the ultra-slick environs of the IndigO2, but mainman
Simon Aldred seems to have smartened up his act for the occasion, taking to the stage in a buttoned-up grey jacket.
Aldred has admitted recently that he doesn’t always enjoy playing his breakthrough hit People Help The People – he’s uneasy with the way its become an arm-waving, populist “anthem” – but you’d never guess it from tonight’s performance. Charged with emotion, the rousing, Hey Jude-style “na na na” middle eight can’t help but raise goosebumps –no matter what the setting.
Last time Kate Nash played in London the occasion was somewhat marred by a drunk and confused punter bellowing “Get your muff out!” during a reflective ballad. Fortunately the crowd are more respectful tonight, and Nash rewards us with a commanding set that proves how far she’s come since her shy, tentative early gigs.
Foundations is dispatched early, allowing us to focus our attention on her other songs. Most striking of all is a climactic Merry Happy, tonight teased out into a cacophonous wig-out, with Nash hammering the piano keys with a full-blooded vigour rarely in evidence on debut album Made Of Bricks.
“Disengaged. Defeated. Disinterested.” So runs the slogan on Athlete frontman Joel Pott’s T-shirt, a reference to Q’s recent review of the band’s Beyond The Neighbourhood album. It’s a good gag - but if they’re genuinely narked they don’t let it interfere with their performance, which is as sleek and assured as we’ve come to expect from the men from Deptford.
Recent single Hurricane, in particular, has an epic, yearning quality that will no doubt make perfect sense in venues far larger than this. And judging by the sweat-soaked, full-voiced reaction down the front, Athlete’s passionately loyal fanbase couldn’t care less what critics have to say.
Hard-Fi frontman Richard Archer’s new slicked-back hairstyle is puzzling: in the wrong light he looks less Comeback Special-era Elvis, more Boycie from Only Fools And Horses. Still, this is very much Hard-Fi’s time: “England just won and we’re Number One!” bellows the singer, referencing new album How The West Was Won and, in the process, neatly encapsulating his band’s blokeish, cocky charm.
Suburban Knights provokes the loudest response of the night so far, but set-closer Living For The Weekend is still the band’s universal anthem, a hymn to hedonism with an undercurrent of drama and menace. As Hard-Fi leave the stage, the temperature and excitement in the room is noticeably higher than when they arrived. Job done.
At last year’s Q Awards Manic Street Preachers won the Merit Award – a nod to their status as revered elder statesmen. This year they’re up for Best Track and Best Album: proof of how they’ve re- engaged with the zeitgeist in 2007.
You might expect them, then, to concentrate on material from Send Away The Tigers. Actually, tonight is a smash-and-grab greatest hits set, kicking off with Motorcycle Emptiness – still spine-tingling after 15 years - and concluding with Design For Life.
Brilliantly, along the way we even get the band’s 1991, Clash- meets-Phil Spector masterpiece Motown Junk, still the most perfect distillation of the Manics’ Richey Edwards-era aesthetic, and prefaced tonight with a snippet of David Bowie’s Rebel Rebel. Both nostalgic and celebratory, you couldn't ask for a more fitting end to the evening.
