Coldplay have been named the Best British Live Act at the BRIT Awards 2013 in London last night. They won the award ahead of the likes of The Rolling Stones, Muse and Mumford & Sons following their huge sold out Mylo Xyloto tour last year. More discussion and photos of Coldplay's latest Brit Award win is at the Coldplay forum now.
The prize was picked up by Will Champion and Jonny Buckland, while Chris Martin and Guy Berryman were not able to attend. Coldplay performed over 100 shows and released their first live DVD in nine years over the tour and incorporated Xylobands for which Jason Regler was thanked by Will during his acceptance speech. He also thanked all the fans who came to see the band on the road. "Thank you very much," Will said. "This is absolutely extraordinary."
Backstage, Will Champion admitted that "a bit of recognition is wonderful" after collecting their eighth Brit Award. "We're always pleased to come to these things and to win is amazing," said drummer Will Champion when interviewed backstage after the ceremony. "We feel that we've worked very hard at our live shows so to get a bit of recognition is wonderful."
Will felt their latest Brit win also honoured their wider creative team. He said: "It's a great thing because we've been able to use things made by exceptional people - people like Jason Regler who invented the wristbands that we use. He had an idea about five years ago to invent this little thing while he was watching one of our shows on TV. So to bring an idea like that out and then let it do its thing is a brilliant thing."
When asked if any new music was materialising since 2011's Mylo Xyloto, it was an emphatic "no" from lead guitarist Jonny Buckland, although he did concede he was doing "the occasional jam session" with Will Champion. "It's nothing productive though," the drummer was keen to point out. It's absolutely dreadful. Garbage, abstract, avant-garde nonsense. So you shall never hear of it, even if we released it you'd never hear it."
The Brit Awards themselves received heavy criticism, and the Guardian appear to lead the way with the scathing articles. The wrote: 'Lumbered with a script that appeared to have been written by the same person responsible for the quips in an early 70s Miss World contest, host James Corden spent much of the evening apologising for the solitary moment of off-message excitement at last year's Brits, when Adele's acceptance speech was cut short.'
They continued: 'Certainly there were no surprises among the winners, which furthermore rather defy any kind of meaningful analysis. The Brits exist to reward success, thus the winners tell you nothing about the state of British music that anyone with even a glancing knowledge of the charts doesn't know already. You could argue that makes the Brit awards slightly superfluous to requirements, as the winners had been rewarded fairly abundantly for their efforts even before they took delivery of the spotted statuettes Corden described a little confusingly as designed "by the visually British artist Damien Hirst", but it means there's something inarguable about the results.'
The Evening Standard also had a swipe, commenting: 'Pure pop was largely off the menu, so much so that they had to make up a new category, the Global Success Award, to give something to One Direction. That meant some more credible winners including remarkable R&B singer Frank Ocean and spooky chanteuse Lana Del Rey. Despite all the fireworks it still looked a little low-rent at times. The Black Keys couldn’t even be bothered to make a sorry-we-couldn’t-be-bothered-to-come video, Chris Martin sent the drummer to do Coldplay’s speech, and Adele wasn’t coming near the place after last year, preferring to rehearse for the Oscars instead. Sandé, the best we have for now, closed proceedings with a whimper, not a bang.
Photos of Will Champion and Jonny Buckland at the Brit Awards 2013 (20th February):
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