NME Awards: Backstage And Beyond!
Well there it was; in a riot of booze, honour and lasers, the ShockWaves NME Awards are over for another year. And we had a blast. Thursday (February 28) saw the great, the good and the glittery descend upon the Indigo2 in Greenwich for the most rocking UK awards back of the year.
Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons, Muse, Glasvegas, Kate Nash, The Killers, The Enemy and The Wombats, were the big winners, and honourable mention must go to deserving Worst Band winners, The Hoosiers. You can get a full minute-by-minute campaign of the bash over at NME.COM/awards chock full with news reports, pictures, blogs and video from this year's awards.
But to whet your appetite, here's a few of our favourite videos.
Muse were very happy with their award for Best Live Act. It felt weird that the year they set a new standard for rock shows at Wembley Stadium, the Brits chose to honour Take That. NME readers obviously had it right. Here, Matt tells us what he's going to do with this trophy, and Dom tells us he fancies Kimberley Stewart.
Arctic Monkeys, who are used to this sort of thing by now, took home awards for Best Band, Best Track and Best Video. They told us all about their plans, and how today was not a day for the punching of others.
Inbetween claiming to want to seduce the entire Horrors line-up; honouring Mark E Smith; and getting competitive with Patrick Wolf, Nicky Wire of the Manic Street Preachers told how he was moved and humbled by their recognition as Godlike Geniuses. In past years, the ceremony's biggest honour has gone to New Order, Ian Brown, The Clash and Primal Scream.
It was the Godlike Genius Award that meant the most to me, as well as The Wire, since Manic Street Preachers were my favourite band since I was 14 years old. As for me, I was out covering the chaos on the floor, so I also caught up with Wire just as he was in his full flow of champagne (Wire has never been a big drinker), and he gave me a lovely tour of his badge collection.
Noel Fielding from The Mighty Boosh would later pick up the Awards for Best TV Show and Sexiest Male. But earlier on in the day, he was pondering the magical nature of the red carpet.
And finally, they didn't manage to get enough of the public votes to win any awards themselves (recount!), but it was still a special day for NME faves The Cribs. Johnny Marr has been flirting with them for a while, but their performance at the Big Gig later on at the 02 itself marked the first proper show where he's played the whole show with them. The two parties have been laying down some demos together, so the signs are that this is going to be a beautiful marriage.
Team NME is emerging from our rest, but it isn't over for the NME Awards 2008. Oh no, this year our North American and Canadian users are getting a ceremony of their own. The NME Awards USA will take place at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles on April 23. Voting for the long list is now open, and you can vote for who you want in the Long List, head over to nme.com/usaawards now.
Did you agree with the British voters winners? Who do you think lost out? And who will you be voting for in the US version? Leave a comment below...

