Almost as good as the real thing: The Brits were a hopeful glimpse of brighter horizons

They tried their best. Given our 14-month-old pandemic and the constant safety rigmarole it demands, this year’s Brits really did give it their all. The packed, unmasked, socially distanced crowd of essential workers at The O2 last night looked almost normal. Almost.

It was most likely a result of the event’s reduced capacity, but on a night that saw women artists including Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, Arlo Parks and Little Mix dominate, it was a cherry-on-top to also witness the usually chaotic venue operate like a slickly oiled machine. Witnessing easy, speedy, contact-free admin unfold was weirdly satisfying. That’s what pandemic life does to you: it makes you appreciate the little things, like an abundance of hand-sanitising stations and masks readily available in case you lose yours.

Removing masks feels so wrong, people giggled to one another. Wearing a face covering was mandatory in the arena’s communal areas – the lobby, escalators, hallways, loos – but once guests took their seats, it was fair game to take them off. Seeing the mouths of so many strangers up close felt admittedly strange, but everyone could rest assured that it was safe. After all, attendees had to prove a negative result from a lateral flow test in the previous 72 hours to gain admission, and the first of two mandatory PCR tests had already been taken (the second, we were instructed, is to be used five days after the event). Last night’s 4,500-person party wasn’t illegal; it was government-endorsed! Like the rambunctious club night in Liverpool last month, the 2021 Brits were part of the ongoing programme for the safe restart of mass-participation events – though that didn’t quite equate to business as usual.

In reality, Coldplay kicked things off with a pontoon performance of their new track “Higher Power” on the Thames, but in effect it was really Dua Lipa who opened the ceremony. Performing an electric five-minute medley, the singer won the crowd over with an appropriately British performance: dancing on a London Underground set piece and donning a Union Jack miniskirt à la Geri Halliwell. It was a dazzling sequence that hit all the necessary notes of a music awards show opener. It actually delivered on all the pre-hype promising that the Brits would be different to other pandemic-era productions.

But soon the Covid cracks started to show. Lights came up to reveal an audience – comprising key workers from the Greater London area who had won a ticket to the event through a ballot – sitting in stands miles away from the action. Then there were the hospitality suites, from which press and co – or as host Jack Whitehall affectionately said “corporate wankers” – looked onto the auditorium floor where instead of the usual wall-to-wall crowd, stars and their plus ones perched at a sad, smattering of socially distanced tables.

And for those wanting to know what live music in 2021 feels like, I couldn’t really tell you. Although the in-real-life performances were breathtaking (Headie One, AJ Tracey and Breakthrough Artist winner Arlo Parks, especially), many were broadcast via live-stream. The result was a ceremony that, at points, resembled a YouTube stream, albeit playing on an impressively large screen. The winning combination of Elton John and Olly Alexander was soured by the fact that the show-stopping performance of “It’s a Sin” had been pre-recorded. A cheer from Alexander’s suite a few doors down, alerting the audience to his in-person presence, didn’t help. Special mention to The Weeknd, though, who managed one of the ceremony’s best performances with his rainy live-streamed rendition of “Save Your Tears”. The downpour and fisherman attire were also a nice nod to the Brits home-turf.

Whitehall earned his place as host for the third year running. The comedian’s opening gambit with Line of Duty stars and a cameo appearance from Zoom personality Jackie Weaver felt timely but not pandering. Whitehall’s cheeky asides at the expense of Laurence Fox, Piers Morgan and the prime minister’s decorator were similarly met with a collective chuckle. There were missteps (appearances from the Sea Shanty guy and the four lads in tight jeans were horribly toe-curling) but who can blame them? In a cultural landscape as barren as the past year’s undoubtedly has been, we’ve all reached to the bottom of the TikTok barrel for a laugh.

The actual winners were exciting and representative of some real change at the Brits. Last year’s show was unable to dissipate the bad taste left by its overwhelmingly male nominations, but last night saw female artists take home six out of seven awards in the mixed gender categories. Speeches, too, were noteworthy. Dua Lipa’s call on Boris Johnson to give the NHS a “fair pay rise” was met with applause, as were her tributes to nurse Dame Elizabeth Anionwu and Folajimi Olubunmi-Adewole, the 20-year-old man who died attempting to rescue a woman who had fallen off London Bridge last month. Meanwhile, Little Mix – who became the first ever girl band to win Best Group – took the opportunity to shout out Britain’s pop music doyennes: Spice Girls, Sugababes, All Saints, Girls Aloud. Seeing arguably the biggest star in the world – Swift – had actually come in person to accept her Global Icon award was also a welcome surprise.

It was naive to think that the Brits would be able to deliver a pre-pandemic style awards show; the emergency may be waning but it’s still very much a limiting factor for mass-participation events. What the Brits did succeed in doing though was reminding us of the pleasures of live music that are now suddenly back on the horizon. Crucially, the ceremony was also a celebration of key workers and their tireless work during the pandemic, something that was repeatedly and rightfully referenced throughout the night. Awarding an awards show, the Brits would get a participation trophy. Well done, you tried – and right now, no one can ask for more than that.