N WEDNESDAY, 12 September we launched this year’s Q Awards with a gig at the Indigo2, the rather well-appointed sister venue to the O2 Arena. That statement, in and of itself, doesn’t actually cover the full panoply of the event. What actually happened was that Manic Street Preachers, Hard Fi, Athlete, Kate Nash, Cherry Ghost and rising young singer-songwriter Eoghan Colgan all played exclusive sets before a couple of thousand fans.

So, that’ll be four artists who have had UK Number One albums and at least one of the nation’s finer tunesmiths all on the same bill. We were rather pleased with that one, especially since, awards nomination events being a traditionally hard sell to the rest of the UK’s media (if they can only announce who’s nominated and not who’s winning, they tend to be less interested, not least because there’ll be another awards ceremony just around the corner anyway). But this time we came armed with a line-up that we felt both reflected the diversity of Q and that you could also say, should you be some sort of terrible ponce, surfed the musical zeitgest. What could possibly go awry?

Led Zeppelin could reform. Bastards. Perhaps karma decreed that even thinking the phrase ‘surfed the musical zeitgest’ should be enough to warrant punishment of the most brutal kind? Whatever, on the same day, and what’s more at the same location as our Launch, the Zep announced their one-off show at the O2. All of the UK’s finest entertainment journalists were there, we were told. Twenty million folk were trying to register for tickets to the gig within an hour. Great.

What chance now for our carefully timed announcement of the Q Awards nominations and the similary orchestrated picture of a beaming Kate Nash and Hard Fi frontman Richard Archer in tandem? Well, actually, plenty. Flying in the face of the long established rule that one entertainment story per day will more than suffice for the UK media, they did cover the Q nominations, in some detail and across the board. And that fact, allied to the success of the night as a whole, probably means we will repeat the launch gig option next year, since even we aren’t daft enough to abandon a winning formula. Well, not today, anyway.

And so to the inside view of the night itself… We, and indeed I, have done launch awards before via the process of unveiling the nominations and having a band or bands play to an audience. But not for a good few years, and even then on a far more modest scale. Indeed, what such things usually amounted to was a berk with a microphone (ie, me) reading out the Q Awards nominations to a smattering of music business and media folk, after which one or two artists would strut their stuff whilst all and sundry tucked into a barbeque.

This year, all that changed, the sole exception being the role of the berk with the microphone (ie, me), although even then I had an array of screens and – ahem – graphics packages to assist with the once onerous task of reading out lists of names. And swimmingly the whole thing went, too.

You can read a precis of the event elsewhere on the site, and a full review of the show in the issue on sale 1 November, so I’ll not cover ground here which will already have been or will be trod. Suffice to say, the artists acquitted themselves admirably (personally, Kate Nash and the Manics, as rousing ever, were the musical highlights), the audience even more so. If you came along, thank you, the support was and is much appreciated.

Sole fly in the oinment was Prince. We were hoping to present him with an honorary Q Award on the night. Couldn’t. We were, too, hoping he would hot-foot it over from his gig at the O2 Arena that night to perform at the aftershow party. He didn’t. Ah, the best laid plans. Speaking of which…

With the Awards duly launched, we are set fair for the final fortnight of preparations for the Awards themselves. More of which next week. Till then…

PAUL REES – Editor, Q