Brit Awards: The most memorable moments of all-time show the ceremony at its best and worst
Cocker, the KLF... the awards show’s craziest moments tend to be unscripted
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Your support makes all the difference.Slick, choreographed and oh-so-predictable, these days the Brits are far removed from rock’n’roll. When Adele’s acceptance speech for Album of the Year in 2012 was cut short by James Corden to make way for a performance from Blur, it signalled a show so streamlined and polished for live television schedules that there was scant room for unscripted spontaneity.
The Brits are all about the starry show on the night, and collaborative performances that have brought together the likes of Lady Gaga, Brandon Flowers and Pet Shop Boys. Last year, Madonna’s first Brits appearance in 20 years and performances by Taylor Swift and Kanye West drew a million more viewers than 2014.
As ever, information about artists’ performances is kept to a bare minimum before the night itself to allow for an element of surprise. Perhaps the most anticipated performance this year is Adele’s, whose emotional delivery of “Someone Like You” stole the show in 2011. Alongside Adele, the big names keeping up the star factor are the 24-time nominated Coldplay, Justin Bieber, playing his first Brits show, and Rihanna, fresh from the release of her eighth album Anti. A tribute to David Bowie is promised, although it’s hard to imagine which of the commercial artists booked to play, who include Jess Glynne, James Bay and The Weeknd, will provide a tribute fitting for the other-worldly pop icon. But that’s maybe where the surprise factor comes in.
Here we present some of the highlights from past years, and the best moments of all – those times when things went wrong.
The KLF
Dance group The KLF ensured their exit from the music industry was one nobody would forget. Sharing the title of Best British Group with Simply Red in 1992, they invited death-metal band Extreme Noise Terror to join them in a thrash performance of “3am Eternal”, which saw frontman Bill Drummond fire machine-gun blanks over the crowd and culminated in a sacrificial sheep being dumped at the after-party with the words, “I died for ewe – bon appetit”. Publicist and narrator for the band, Scott Piering, announced over the PA system, “the KLF have now left the music business”, and furious producers refused to allow a courier to collect the award on behalf of the band.
Jarvis Cocker
The most memorable of all the Brit Awards was 1996. Michael Jackson’s theatrical performance of his chart-topping hit “Earth Song”, in which the superstar portrayed himself as Christ with children in rags surrounding him, incurred the wrath of not just Brits show producer Jonathan King, but also Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker, who leapt onto the stage in protest and wiggled his backside. Escorted swiftly off stage by one of Jackson’s bodyguards, the 32-year-old was arrested, put in a cell and released in the early hours. “My actions were a form of protest at the way Michael Jackson sees himself as some kind of Christ-like figure with the power of healing. I just ran on the stage,” Cocker later explained.
The Gallaghers
The Gallaghers have provided a fair portion of rock’s feuds, and their Brit appearances have been no different. Every now and then acceptance speeches do more than thank every member of an artist’s entourage, and on receiving Oasis’s award for Best Video from Michael Hutchence in 1996, Noel insulted the INXS singer: “Has-beens shouldn’t present awards to gonna-bes”. The following year was Liam’s turn – he announced to journalists that he was avoiding the Brit Awards in case he ran into the Spice Girls, and on collecting their award for Best Video, Melanie C retaliated by challenging him to a fight. Calling Robbie Williams the “fat one” from Take That earned Liam another challenge to a fight in 2000.
John Prescott
Deputy Prime Minister at the time, when attending with his wife in 1998, John Prescott was drenched with a bucket of iced water thrown by Danbert Nobacon, singer and keyboardist with punk-pop band Chumbawumba. The band had earlier performed their hit “Tubthumping”. Nobacon was questioned by police and later released. “If John Prescott, as a representative of the Government, has the nerve to turn up at events such as the Brit Awards in a vain attempt to make Labour seem cool and trendy, then he deserves all we can throw at him”, said a statement released by the band.
Mick Fleetwood and Samantha Fox
The Fleetwood Mac co-founder and the glamour model were given the task of hosting the relaunched Brits, which were replacing the British Record Industry Awards, in 1989. It was a disaster. They bungled their lines, announced acts randomly – Boy George walked on when they introduced The Four Tops, to name but one mishap – a video acceptance speech by Michael Jackson was forgotten, and the show under-ran to the extend that a Bros video was dug up to fill the last minutes.
Prince
After years of legal troubles and “name” issues, the purple one made his big comeback at the Brits in 2006, energetically ripping through a selection of his hits from “Te Amo Corazon” to “Fury” and “Purple Rain” to “Let’s Go Crazy”. His 21-date reign at London’s O2 Arena followed.
Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse
Having garnered a reputation for unreliable performances, Amy Winehouse defied her critics in 2008 with a stunning performance of The Zutons’ “Valerie” alongside Mark Ronson and his double-necked guitar, backed by brass and strings, that would prove one of the highlights in the history of the Brits.
Adele
It will be hard for the four-time Brit-winning singer to match the emotional punch of her last performance at the Brits, in 2011, when she had the room spellbound with her rendition of a then-little-known song, “Someone Like You”, accompanied just by piano. The song instantly topped the chart, and Adele was catapulted into the limelight with two albums and two singles in the Top 5 simultaneously – the first artist to do so since The Beatles in 1964. Thanks to her performance, by December she’d achieved the biggest-selling album of the century.
The Brits are on ITV on 24 February
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