The crud, the bland and the fallen Madonna

As weird as it sounds, there’s something ever so slightly reassuring about the Brit Awards being shit.

They’re consistent – you know where you stand with the Brits. You go in expecting to be disappointed by the overwhelming blandness of such a relentlessly corporate affair and those expectations are always met. And anyway, we’d only have to find something else to complain about if this changed.

Last year, I made a point of not watching the Brits (explaining why here), but for 2015’s awards I decided to bite the bullet and subject myself to just over two hours of musical diarrhoea, vomit-inducing sycophancy and veteran pop singers hitting the floor at considerable speed, recording my thoughts in the process.

Don’t say you weren’t warned…

8pm – proceedings kick off with a frankly bizarre but mercifully brief ‘dance’ routine involving a banquet which feels like it’s on the verge of erupting into the kind of party where car keys are pulled from bowls. Nothing quite says ‘the best of British music’ like dour-faced celebrity chef Marco Pierre White, does it? And that’s probably why he was chosen to put an end to this utterly pointless routine by lifting the lid on a giant silver serving plate to reveal our cheeky, chirpy hosts for this evening’s ‘merriment’… yup, Ant and Dec. Hey, at least it’s not James Corden again.

8.05pm – if Taylor Swift’s opening performance excels at anything, it’s being lacklustre. She looks and sounds like she’s there because she has to be. ‘Blank Space’? I’ll say.

8.09pm – Dec warns us that Kanye West is in the building. I think it’s going to be one of those nights where I’d happily see him ruin anyone’s acceptance speech. Fingers crossed for Sheeran or Smith, eh?

8.11pm – first painfully predictable award of the night goes to Ed Sheeran for Best British Male Solo Artist. Presented by Orlando Bloom and Rita Ora (looking like a deflated Brigitte Nielsen), Sheeran steps up to receive something resembling an ornament from your grandma’s downstairs toilet. Kanye nowhere to be seen, but the night is young.

8.20pm - “Are you having a great time? I know I am," says Jimmy Page without so much as a hint of enthusiasm in his voice as he prepares to present the award for Best British Group to Royal Blood. The Twittersphere is awash with furious One Direction fans who, like, totally, literally, cannot BELIEVE an award has gone to someone they’ve never heard of.

8.23pm – we’re ‘treated’ to a live performance by whimpering robot Sam Smith. Maybe I’m missing something here, but how can someone marketed as a supposed soul singer make music that is so devoid of any actual soul? Mute button.

8.36pm – Excruciating effort at ‘humour’ between Lewis Hamilton and Ellie Goulding (admittedly neither are renowned for their razor-sharp wit and comic timing, but still…) as they shuffle on stage looking like the happy couple at a second-rate footballer’s wedding to present the Best International Female toilet decoration to Taylor Swift, who promptly dedicates it to tea and all things British.

8.40pm – Royal Blood perform live, presumably fuelled by the bitter, stinging tears of livid One Directioners. I like to think that future Royal Blood riders will include, nay, DEMAND barrels of the stuff.

8.51pm – Simon Cowell’s mouth botox doesn’t appear to have worn off yet. Either that or he’s just pissed. Either way, tonight he looks less like a music impresario and more like an inebriated English teacher sitting out a dance at the school prom.

8.56pm – a busker seems to have wandered on stage while no one’s looking. Oh, wait – it’s Ed Sheeran, comin’ on like a Games Workshop Justin Timberlake. At one point, he looks like he’s actually trying to put his guitar out of its misery. I wish I was that guitar.

9.11pm – “Everyone has to get up on their feet and welcome my husband, Kanye West!” shouts professional oxygen thief Kim Kardashian before His Lordship takes to the stage with what appears to be the entire population of a small town (I assume for protection in case Beck decides to crash the party) for a performance which TV bosses keep muting, despite it being shown after the watershed. Is this the most pointless television performance ever? To be fair, I’d probably still be asking that question even if it wasn’t being muted.

9.16pm – for some inexplicable reason, Zac Efron in drag comes on to present the award for Best International Male Solo Artist. Oh no, wait, it’s Cara Delevingne. Winner Pharrell Williams can’t be arsed to turn up so he sends a video in which he says “Best International Solo Artist? I don’t know…” – which, funnily enough, is exactly what I was thinking.

9.26pm – Ant and Dec do the sort of ‘comedy’ routine they’d have done when they still did kids’ TV and which even the Chuckle Brothers would now dismiss as ‘dated’. I’m rapidly starting to lose interest and a live performance by Take That (now just a three-piece following Jason Orange’s departure to focus on… oh, fuck knows) fails to reverse the situation. I’ve forgotten the song already and they haven’t finished performing it yet.

9.40pm – identikit busker-done-good George Ezra tries to liven up a predictably dull performance by giving full-blown hipsters jobs in his backing band. As charitable as that may be, the whole thing just feels flat and lifeless. He’s performed ‘Budapest’ so many times that even he sounds bored of it now.

9.50pm – award number two (in every sense) for Sam Smith as he wins British Breakthrough Act. Just to rub salt into the wound, someone’s seen fit to ask Fearne Cotton to present the award. Kanye, where are you? Bring the flamethrower.

9.56pm – “British music is the best, isn’t it?” yelps an over-excited Ant. Indeed. Maybe we should have an awards ceremony recognising the best of British music. I can’t think of anything more exciting.

9.58pm – Wand Erection finally win an award for Best British Video and they haven’t even turned up to collect it. An increasingly dishevelled looking Cowell accepts it in their place. To be fair, he’s the only one who’s actually had any input into their career to date so he may as well have their award too. I still want to smash my face into the nearest wall, however.

10.06pm – Russell Crowe presents what we are promised is the final award of the night, for Best British Album. It’s fucking Ed Sheeran again. Crowe shakes his hand like a headteacher congratulating his star pupil on winning the school science prize. Sheeran ponders flogging his award because “it’s a Tracey Emin, innit?” You might get some money for that guitar too. Just a thought.

10.11pm – it’s a sad indictment on the Brits that the most interesting thing about the whole sorry affair is Madonna falling off the stage with a not inconsiderable thump, inadvertently creating what will no doubt be the defining moment of this year’s awards. To be fair, she dusts herself off and carries on but as comebacks go… ouch.

Cooking with Gaz

Gaz Coombes – live @ The Glee Club, Birmingham, 09/02/15

Applause, then darkness.

“Hello Birmingham… I can’t see shit!”

As opening lines go, it’s certainly unusual, but occasional technical gremlins aside (the stage is accidentally plunged into darkness as the band comes on stage), Coombes seems perfectly at home in such an intimate venue, particularly when you consider that, in a previous life, he regularly played to tens of thousands of people at festivals around the world.

Touring in support of second solo album Matador, Coombes is quoted as saying that he just wanted to make a record he was into – and tonight it shows. Whereas Supergrass were seen as an integral part of the mid-90s Britpop explosion, Coombes is now at that enviable point in his career where he doesn’t have to be part of any ‘scene’. It’s an old cliché, but he really is making music for himself and if the rest of us like it then it’s a bonus – and, as it turns out, a lot of us DO like it. A LOT.

He still knows his way around a tune, of course. Matador’s strength lies in the way its songs manage to permeate your consciousness. When he plays album highlight 20/20 tonight, it feels like a song we’ve known all our lives, even though many of us (myself included) only heard it for the first time little more than a month ago.

“You’re one of the politest crowds I’ve ever played to,” he observes. And he’s right.  Tonight’s crowd may be somewhat reserved but it’s more through quiet reverence than lack of enthusiasm. It’s THAT kind of gig – the one which those who were there will still talk about in hushed tones in years to come.

Songs from Matador, such as The English Ruse, Detroit, Needle’s Eye and Seven Walls, sit comfortably among material from 2012 debut Here Come The Bombs, showcasing Coombes’ knack for writing epic, widescreen tunes incorporating stark electronica and even elements of Krautrock (the motorik beat and one-note repetition are evident here a few times) with compelling results.

Set closer Break The Silence (from the first album) becomes an extended glam rock disco stomper which gives Coombes an opportunity to introduce us to a backing band who have clearly enjoyed every second of tonight’s performance as much as their frontman. It’s only at this point that I realise Loz Colbert from Ride is the drummer.

He doesn’t play any Supergrass songs, of course – and he doesn’t need to. His solo material more than speaks for itself.