I tuned into Channel 4 the other night to find the Vodaphone Live Music Awards being shown to my great excitement. This was however as good as it got for me, there were so many reasons why this was not a celebration of live music but just a big waste of time and just another crappy awards ceremony:
1, The Venue – God knows where this was held but performances of the bands were not all infront of the crowd which assembled in the main arena, but up a floor and out the back infront of some atmospheric shabby looking concrete walls. What was this trying to prove? that bands like to play in garages or derelict industrial wastelands?
2, Sound Quality – For a televised event the sound quality was extremely poor, no vibe of the live music atmosphere waded through the TV at all. I mean if all live televised performances were this dire, bring back the god-damned miming!
3, Chris Moyles – Iv’e always held the impression that Radio is the perfect platform for this guy, for he cannot actually here the long oh my god silences after yet another one of his dead pan japes. Maybe after this evening he will realise nobody laughs and just pack up his bags as well as his ample frame and get back to plaguing the uk’s radio waves.
4, The Crowd – Even the Brit awards have a pit full of screaming teenagers stage front who at least look as if they are enjoying theirselves. But im afraid that this event suffered severely from Corporate Fever. Everyone except maybe a few lucky competion winners looked like white collar corporate bigwigs in highflying overpaid jobs, who believe that making any slight movement in enjoying the music might ruin their business credentials. There were no fans there and it was more aligned with a friday evening social event at the CEO’s country getaway than a concert.
Such a great concept which is well overdue in arriving, but such poor execution! Still hats off to the winners!
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