It has become one of the most surprising and iconic images to have emerged from the Grammys in recent years: James Hetfield, barrel-chested and iron-lunged Metallica frontman, screaming into a microphone he's sharing with generational pop superstar, Lady Gaga.

The duo, backed by the rest of Metallica, pillars of pyro and a gaggle of backing dancers as they rip through Moth Into Flame, have had to improvise after an almighty technical hiccup threatened to throw the entire performance into parody. Luckily, it all only serves to make an historic collaboration both more intimate and, somehow, more epic. Disaster averted, basically.

The unlikely team-up took place at the 59th edition of the music industry's most prestigious awards show, which was held on February 12, 2017 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

On a night also marked by appearances by pop heavyweights such as Adele, Beyoncé, The Weeknd, Daft Punk, Bruno Mars and Katy Perry, Metallica's one-song set promised to inject the evening with some much needed energy and heaviness, not to mention the fact that it'd involve one of the wildest partnerships in Grammys history.

Amazingly, the whole thing came together over just a matter of weeks, following a chance meeting between Metallica's drummer and honorary motormouth, Lars Ulrich, and Gaga herself. "We were asked whether we would come and join the Grammys again," Ulrich explained to Access Hollywood ahead of the performance.

"They encourage you to consider, 'Is there some collaboration that you think would be cool?' We said, 'Let's think about it.' And so, I was at a dinner party [with Gaga], and we were sitting next to each other, and we were just basically talking, and I thought, 'Wait a minute, this would be cool.' So I said, 'We're doing the Grammys in a couple of months, do you wanna join us?' and she was just, 'Yeah, that would be great!'"

The dinner party in question was held at the residence of none other than Hollywood A-lister Bradley Cooper, who was in pre-production with Gaga for the film they were both starring in (and that Cooper was directing), A Star Is Born. "I was at Bradley's house with Lars and we were just hanging out," Gaga confirmed to Apple Music's Zane Lowe later that year.

The singer was also full of superlatives for Ulrich and his band, adding: "He's amazing! I went to see them live, I've seen them a couple times live, but I saw them recently… and we were watching the show and I'll tell you something, those guys play better than they've played in their whole lives."

And so, a rehearsal studio in LA was booked for the weekend leading up to the big event, and Gaga and Metallica set about reimagining Moth Into Flame in a way that'd both suit its heavy roots while making the most of Gaga's powerful, unique vocals and flamboyant sense of creativity.

"She was in there for two hours before we even got there, working on her moves and thinking stuff up," James Hetfield told Howard Stern in 2020. "She's extremely creative, and she's a fearless artist."

"She was telling me that Metal Militia, which is this deep cut on our first album Kill 'Em All, was her favourite song back in the day," added Ulrich. "She loves metal, has been very vocal about her love for metal all the time and would show up at Iron Maiden shows and Anthrax shows."

Following a successful on-set dress rehearsal before the show began, the stage was officially set and the 59th annual Grammys were underway. And here, sadly, is where things started to go pear-shaped. On the same night that Megadeth were inexplicably played to the stage pick up their Best Metal Performance award to the sound of the house band playing Metallica's Master Of Puppets, it seemed that Metallica themselves were also destined to be undermined at the Grammys - and not for the first time.

Around halfway through the evening, Orange Is The New Black actress Laverne Cox arrived on stage to introduce Metallica and Lady Gaga's performance...only to forget to mention Metallica at all. Whoops! “I am so sorry to Metallica and all their fans," Cox later stated on Twitter. "I am told I didn’t say their names during the intro. Love you Metallica. You Rock."

The facepalms did by no means end there. As lashings of pyro burst out across the stage and the band kicked into Moth Into Flame, a metalled-up and go-go-dancing Gaga in tow, it soon became obvious that something was wrong.

Namely, James Hetfield's microphone wasn't working. While the band were clearly on top form, as the track's first verse kicked into gear, the frontman's voice was nowhere to be heard as he bellowed into the mic, a quick, confused glance to his side emphasising that he could tell something was up.

Gaga soldiered on, sounding great as she sung her parts, but by the time it came to Moth Into Flames' chorus, it was clear the issue was not getting fixed - almost ninety seconds into the song, and Papa Het was still singing his heart out to absolutely no avail.

"In the heat of the battle, you’re out there, you’re playing," Lars Ulrich told James Corden on The Late Late Show a few weeks later. "When it’s a technical issue, you don’t really know. Is it going to the house? Are the vocals going to the truck? Maybe it’s just the monitor – so you just gotta keep playing."

Thankfully, quick minds prevailed. Gaga, ever the professional, subtly beckoned Hetfield over, and the two sung the track's chorus together on her mic, sharing it for the remainder of the performance. What could have been a total catastrophe ended up being saved at the last minute, and the rest of the song went by without a hitch - and, of course, gave us that iconic shot of the two vocalists side by side.

Sadly, the technical snafu had already done its damage as far as Hetfield's mood was concerned; as soon as the performance finished, Metallica's usually PMA powerhouse could be seen angrily throwing his guitar off stage. He was still fuming by the time the band got back to their dressing room.

“We get off stage, we get back there and I haven’t seen him like that in 20 years," Ulrich revealed on The Late Late Show. "He was livid. He’s aged really well and is a pretty chilled guy – but the first five or 10 minutes in that dressing room was not a lot of fun.”

"I felt embarrassed," Hetfield told the New York Post. "I haven’t been that angry in a long time. When something out of my control goes wrong, I still get wound up. I’m sure it taps into other stuff from my past, but I felt helpless."

TMZ would report that the unfortunate screw-up was down to a stagehand accidentally unplugging a wire under the stage moments before the performance took place. A brutal mistake, but a mistake nonetheless - and one that Metallica, to their credit, were quickly able to put a positive spin on.

"Like they say, the show must go on," said Lars on The Late Late Show. "We fought through it and a lot of people said that it at least made for great television.” "It ended up being a blessing because I ended up singing in a microphone with Lady Gaga - maybe even more than she wanted," Hetfield told the New York Post. "It felt more like a real collaboration because of that."

In hindsight, Metallica's collab with Gaga is far from the biggest disaster the Four Horsemen have put their name to. A victory snatched from the jaws of defeat, it served as an imperfect if riotously entertaining awards performance unlike any other. Like just about everything else Metallica do, it was certainly unforgettable - and at least we have the flawless rehearsal footage to remind exactly how it all should have gone.

Awards shows can be a tiresome old thing. We sit for hours on end, watching celebrities be wheeled out one after the other to give carefully scripted introductory speeches, before handing awards to their celebrity mates, who give carefully planned, endlessly long speeches of their own, thanking everyone they've ever met in their decades of existence, before finally walking off with a gong that'll inevitably end up in a draw or on a toilet shelf somewhere.

Alright, maybe that's a little over the top - when done right, awards shows can be a legitimate and emotional way to pay tribute to our heroes - but whether it's an overly sanitised Brit Awards or a Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame that can't seem to go a year without pissing off a fanbase or two, it certainly feels like, for the most part, when it comes to awards, we've just seen it all before.

It's perhaps why legendary Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson decided to take matters into his own hands when Rush were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2013. The induction was widely accepted in the rock community as a huge victory for prog music, and a moment of vindication for a band who had often been treated snidely by certain corners of the rock media and fanbase.

This didn't stop Lifeson, however, deciding to undermine the whole shindig in the most hilarious way possible. Following warm, eloquent and heartfelt speeches by his Rush bandmates, bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee and drummer Neil Peart, the guitarist proceeded to spend no less than two and a half minutes 'blah blah blah'-ing into the microphone.

We're not being facetious. He literally spends his entire speech saying 'blah' in more ways that we ever thought possible, from imitating instruments to pretending to have a phone call and, most brilliantly of all, mocking the teary-eyed acceptance speeches of many an awards show gone by.

As it dawns on the star-filled audience that this isn't merely an opening gag, Lifeson's bandmates look on in amusement, and a ludicrous moment of Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame history is born.

Years later, Lifeson would comment on the speech, telling Rolling Stone: "Well, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. I had a speech written and I was trying to memorize it and I couldn't remember it. And I thought I might as well just [go] 'blah blah blah.' And I thought, 'Well, that's a good idea.' And so I thought it would tell the story of our history and how we got to that stage without using any words. And the interesting thing is that everybody remembers my speech."

Watch the iconic moment below.

Phil Collins has stated that he won't be performing at this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

Already in the RnRHoF as a member of Genesis, on November 14, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, Collins will be inducted into the Rock Hall for his solo work. Other artists set to be inducted on the night include Iron Maiden, Oasis, Billy Idol, Wu-Tang Clan, Joy Division/New Order and Sade.

But as with Iron Maiden (who'll be on tour), and the original members of New Order (who remain bitterly divided), Collins won't be performing on the evening.

"They asked me if I would perform," Collins tells BBC Breakfast, "and I said, No, because you've got to be match fit to do something like that. You can't just go on stage... you have to rehearse, and by that point if you've not been singing, your voice is going to be shot and that's not going to be good. So, I'd rather not do it."

Asked if he thinks he might ever perform again, "I can't really see it happening, but I'm healthier now than I have been for quite a while."

"The last 18 months, say, has been fine," he revealed. "Before that, not so good. Everything health-wise caught up with me at the same time, and whatever could go wrong did go wrong.

"I had problems with my knee," Collins explains, "which I had for a while but I played through it, toured through it. But eventually I had to have a knee operation, and I had to have it five times because it kept either getting infected or it broke. So I was inactive for a long time. But I do physio three times a week with a very stern Australian lady: you've got to have someone that bullies you, and she bullies me!"

Earlier this month, former Joy Division / New Order bassist Peter Hook insisted that that was zero chance that he would reunite with his former bandmates Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert to perform at the ceremony.

"I’d rather die," he told MOJO.

Additionally, no-one knows whether or not Oasis will show up on then night, given the extreme sarcasm that vocalist Liam Gallagher has employed every time he's asked about the honour. "Ever since I was a little kid and singing in the shower I’d dream about 1 day being in the RnR hall of fame," he posted on X earlier this year, with tongue firmly in cheek.

The inductees for this year's Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame have been announced. The class of 2026 will include Oasis, Billy Idol, Phil Collins (who was inducted as a member of Genesis in 2010), Wu-Tang Clan, Joy Division/New Order, Sade and Luther Vandross.

Most excitingly, in a will-they-or-won't-they-show-up development, Iron Maiden – whose singer, Bruce Dickinson, has previously called the Hall Of Fame an "utter, complete load of bollocks" – will be inducted.

“We’d like to thank the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for including us (and former members who were all part of our story) in the 2026 roll call of inductees," says band manager Rod Smallwood. "Iron Maiden have always been about our relationship with our fans above anything else, including awards and industry accolades. However, having said that, it’s always nice to be recognised and honoured for any achievements within the music industry too!

"It also seems appropriate for the band to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year as we continue our 50th anniversary celebrations with our Run For Your Lives World Tour visiting the Americas and beyond. We would also like to congratulate our fellow 2026 inductees and extend our gratitude as ever to our fans for their loyalty, perseverance and support for over 50 years now! See you all, somewhere on tour."

"I’ve never been bothered with it," Maiden leader Steve Harris told Metal Hammer in 2023. "We’ve never done music to be in some Hall Of Fame or whatever. And also, if it was a thing that was voted by fans, that’d be ok, but the way it works, it doesn’t matter how many fans vote, it only counts as one vote. So it doesn’t really represent anything. I don’t know how I’d feel about it if we did actually get [inducted]."

"I wanna thank all the people who voted for us," Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher posted. "It’s a real honour. Ever since I was a little kid and singing in the shower, I’d dream about 1 day being in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It’s true what they say – anything is possible if you have a dream."

Other inductees this year include Gram Parsons, Fela Kuti, Queen Latifah and Celia Cruz in the Early Influence category, as well as Jimmy Miller, Rick Rubin, Linda Creed and Arif Mardin in the Music Excellence category. In addition, TV legend Ed Sullivan will posthumously receive the Ahmet Ertegun Award.

This year's Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony will be held at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on November 14.

The 2026 Grammy Awards are locked in and set to take place at the Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles, on Sunday, February 1 - and the rock, metal and alternative genres are represented among the 95 total categories.

Trevor Noah will be on hand once again to host the evening’s entertainment, which will be broadcast live on CBS & Paramount+ Premium from 5pm PST, 8pm EST and 1am GMT - and even if you’re going to be out of the country on the night, you’ll still be able to watch by using a VPN.

Paramount+ Essential subscribers won’t be able to watch live, but the good news is that the ceremony will be available to stream on-demand the following day.

How to watch the 2026 Grammy Awards in the US

How to watch the 2026 Grammy Awards anywhere

• Watch via Nord VPN and save 70%

If you're going to be travelling outside the US and don't want to miss out on watching the Grammy Awards 2026, you can watch through a VPN.

Virtual Private Networks are used to change the location of your IP address, enabling you to watch the 2026 Grammy Awards outside of the US. Nord VPN is Louder's service of choice and it's currently available with 70% off the usual price - and there's a 30-day money back guarantee.

How to use a VPN

1. Install a VPN. As we've mentioned above, Nord VPN is Louder's favourite from the many available.

2. Choose the location you wish to connect to in the VPN. If you're currently in the UK on holiday and want to watch this year's Grammys, just select 'US' from the list.

3. Turn the volume up and relax. You're all set to watch the whole evening's entertainment unfold.

What to expect this year

The Grammys cover a huge variety of genres, but I’m interested in what’s going on in the rock, metal and alternative categories, with Best Rock album seeing Deftones going to head-to-head with Turnstile, Linkin Park, Yungblud and HAIM.

Elsewhere, the Best Metal Performance category (won last year by Gojira, Marina Viotti & Victor Le Manse for Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!) during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games opening ceremony) includes Dream Theater, Ghost, Sleep Token, Spiritbox and Turnstile, while The Cure, Turnstile, Wet Leg, Hayley Williams and Bon Iver are in the mix for Best Alternative Music Performance.

As for the artists performing at the Grammys 2026, they’ve been confirmed as Addison Rae, Alex Warren, Katseye, Leon Thomas, Olivia Dean, Sabrina Carpenter, Sombr and The Marias.

It's also been revealed that a group of rock icons, including Slash and Duff McKagan, Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as Post Malone and Andrew Watt, will be taking to the stage to perform a special tribute to the late, great Ozzy Osbourne, who recently passed away.

Find out more below, and for a full list of this year’s categories and nominees, click on the official Grammy Awards website.

Listen to the official Grammy playlist

If you'd like to get to know the nominated artists a little better before the ceremony, you can turn up the volume on the Grammys Official Playlist on Spotify. There's a total of 125 tracks to dive into and should set you up nicely for the main event.

2026 nominations

Grammys 2026 rock, metal and alternative nominations

Best Metal Performance
Dream Theater: Night Terror
Ghost: Lachryma
Sleep Token: Emergence
Spiritbox: Soft Spine
Turnstile: Birds

Best Rock Performance
Amyl And The Sniffers: U Should Not Be Doing That
Linkin Park: The Emptiness Machine
Turnstile: Never Enough
Hayley Williams: Mirtazapine
Yungblud featuring Nuno Bettencourt, Frank Bello, Adam Wakeman: Changes (Live From Villa Park, Back To The Beginning)

Best Rock Song
Nine Inch Nails: As Alive As You Need Me To Be
Sleep Token: Caramel
Hayley Williams: Glum
Turnstile: Never Enough
Yungblud: Zombie

Best Rock Album
Deftones: Private Music
HAIM: I Quit
Linkin Park: From Zero
Turnstile: Never Enough
Yungblud: Idols

Best Alternative Music Performance
Bon Iver: Everything Is Peaceful Love
The Cure: Alone
Turnstile: Seein’ Stars
Wet Leg: Mangetout
Hayley Williams: Parachute

Best Alternative Music Album
Bon Iver: Sable, Fable
The Cure: Songs Of A Lost World
Tyler, The Creator: Don’t Tap The Glass
Wet Leg: Moisturiser
Hayley Williams: Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party

Last year's winners

Best metal performance
Gojira, Marina Viotti & Victor Le Masne: Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!)

Best rock performance
The Beatles: Now And Then"

Best rock song
St Vincent: Broken Man

Best rock album
The Rolling Stones: Hackney Diamonds

Best Alternative Music Performance
St. Vincent: Flea

Best Alternative Music Album
St. Vincent: All Born Screaming

This Saturday, artists including Bad Company, Soundgarden, The White Stripes and Joe Cocker will be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame at a ceremony in Los Angeles.

The evening will be broadcast live from the Peacock Theater through Disney+. ABC viewers will be able to tune into a highlight package of the ceremony on January 1, with Hulu showing the ceremony from January 2.

Bad Company, Soundgarden, The White Stripes and Joe Cocker and joined in the Performer category by Chubby Checker, Cyndi Lauper and Outkast, while Salt N Pepa and Warren Zevon will be inducted via the Musical Influence category.

This year's Musical Excellence inductees are Thom Bell, Nicky Hopkins and Carol Kaye, while the 2025 Ahmet Ertegun Award goes to producer and music industry executive Lenny Waronker.

The ceremony will also see appearances and performances by artists including Elton John, Heart's Nancy Wilson, Pearl Jam's Mike McCready, Jerry Cantrell, Bryan Adams, Avril Lavigne, Mick Fleetwood, Beck, The Killers, Chappell Roan, Olivio Rodrigo, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Taylor Momsen, Twenty One Pilots and Red Hot Chili Pepper, Flea.

How to watch the induction ceremony

Disney+ have exclusive rights to show the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony. If you've still to sign up to the popular streaming service, there's loads more to dig into if you pick up a subscription.

All the family-friendly Disney content you'd expect is here, but it's also home to the entire Star Wars universe, all the Marvel movies, series and shorts, Pixar, The Simpsons, National Geographic and the Hulu channel.

For music fans, you'll there's loads to dig into, including Peter Jackson's The Beatles: Get Back which sits alongside The Beatles' 1970 film Let It Be. There's also Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, Elton John Live, the 2024 Beach Boys doc, Pam & Tommy, London music film Camden, Hip Hop Uncovered and more.

Disney+ subscriptions start from just $9.99/£4.99 per month for the Standard with ads tier and go up to Premium which comes in at $13.99/£10.99 per month.

Earlier this week, Bad Company's Paul Rodgers pulled out of appearing at this weekend's ceremony, with drummer Simon Kirke set to be in attendance to accept the award and will also perform.

Rodgers said: "My hope was to be at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony and to perform for the fans, but at this time I have to prioritise my health. I have no problem singing, it's the stress of everything else. Thank you for understanding."

Rodgers added: "Simon, along with some outstanding musicians, will be stepping in for me - guaranteed to rock."

The evening’s entertainment will be shown on Disney+ from 5pm PT, 8pm ET and 1am BST.

The White Stripes, Soundgarden, Bad Company and Joe Cocker have been confirmed as members of the Class of 2025 at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

OutKast, Cyndi Lauper and Chubby Checker will also be inducted during the ceremony, while late singer-songwriter Warren Zevon and pioneering rappers Salt-N-Peppa will be recognised in the Musical Excellence category.

Wrecking Crew bassist Carol Kaye, late Philadelphia soul legend Thom Bell and pianist Nicky Hopkins – who died in 1994 – will be recipients of the Musical Influence Award.

"Each of these inductees created their own sound and attitude that had a profound impact on culture and helped to change the course of rock'n'roll forever," says John Sykes, chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. "Their music gave a voice to generations and influenced countless artists that followed in their footsteps."

Improvisational jam band Phish, who won the fan vote convincingly, will have to wait at least another year to be recognised. Other acts to lose out included The Black Crowes, Oasis, Billy Idol, Joy Division/New Order, Mariah Carey and Maná.

The induction of Chubby Checker, which comes more than 60 years after his global smash The Twist made him a household name and nearly 40 years after he was first eligible for Hall of Fame recognition, is the latest example – in addition to Zevron, Bell and Hopkins – of posthumous awards being given to artists who could have been recognised while they were still alive.

The Class of 25 will be inducted during a ceremony at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on November 8. The events will be broadcast on Disney+.

Billy Idol is one of 14 artists long-listed for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year, and, alongside the likes of Oasis, Soundgarden, The White Stripes, The Black Crowes and Joy Division/New Order, the artist formerly known as William Michael Albert Broad is currently a candidate for the Hall's public vote.

As ever, some artists are more bothered about receiving an invite into the Rock Hall than others, and Idol is very clear as to why he merits inclusion.

“Because I’m just fucking incredible!” he tells The Independent in a new interview. ‘It’s pretty amazing that I went from something like punk rock in England to mainstream success in the States. I was not only involved in punk, I became a big part of the ’80s New Wave. And then I carried on making the music, living the rock’n’roll life.

“I’ve also gone beyond what people expect, with things like cyberpunk,” he adds, referencing his 1993 album of that name. “I didn’t stay in my lane. I took chances. Even coming to America, I had no idea I was going to do really well. And the risks I took worked. All of that shows an enterprising spirit – a spirit of rock’n’roll.”

Artists become eligible for nomination into the 'prestigious' institution 25 years after the release of their first commercial recording. The shortlist of nominees will be revealed at the end of this month. Other artists on the long-list include Bad Company, Joe Cocker, Mariah Carey, OutKast, Cindy Lauper and Phish.

Idol is set to release Dream Into It, his first album of new music in over a decade, on April 25 via Dark Horse Records. The album features guest appearances by Avril Lavigne (on 77), Joan Jett (on Wildside) and Alison Mosshart of The Kills, on a song called John Wayne.

Speaking recently to Drew Barrymore on her talk show, Idol said, "Avril's just fantastic on 77, it was great working with her. With her on it, it got three times better."

The singer is going on tour with Joan Jett, who he first met at a Germs / Dead Kennedys gig, from April 30. His It’s a Nice Day To… Tour Again! trek will launch at the Talking Stick Resort in Phoenix Arizona.

Idol will return 'home' to the UK to play alongside Kraftwerk, Death Cult, The Damned, Public Image Ltd, The Jesus & Mary Chain, The The and more at the inaugural Forever Now festival at The National Bowl, Milton Keynes on June 22.

Forever Now is billed as a celebration of the "cultural phenomenon of the darker underbelly of creativity, from new wave to post-punk, psychedelia and alt-rock".

It’s possible the news passed you by, but a prog band won the Mercury Prize last year. It’s possible you caught their twee, unambitious, nothing-to-see-here band name (see also: Dry Cleaning, Wet Leg, etc) and decided not to explore further.

It’s possible you thought they were part of that ever-growing, NME-friendly, modern English post-punk glut (see also: Dry Cleaning, Wet Leg etc) and dismissed them as cookie-cutter. It’s possible you weren’t really paying attention.

But English Teacher – whose debut album This Could Be Texas walked away with the Mercury award – are about as progressive as it gets.

Anyone unconvinced is advised to ease their way in with track nine. Nearly Daffodils comes together quickly, kicking off like a Disney version of Neu!, with Nicholas Eden’s bass racing jauntily beneath singer Lily Fontaine’s breathless, half-sung, half-spoken vocals.

By the 10-second mark, the song is already doing the unexpected, with a sudden blast of discordant, cusp-of-collapse guitar hoving into view before vanishing just as quickly. The song continues in this vein, with clever flurries of musical activity keeping multiple balls in the air. And then, at 1:50, it all goes, against expectations, a bit King Crimson.

“The middle section of Nearly Daffodils is heavily inspired by the end section of Frame By Frame [from King Crimson’s 1981 album Discipline],” Eden told Brooklyn Vegan last year. “Robert Fripp’s guitar parts make me rewind nearly every time I listen to this track.

“Adrian Belew and Fripp’s 7/8 guitars interweave (somehow), finding each other and completing with a flurry of notes from a third guitar at the very end. Yummy.”

In the same interview, English Teacher namechecked other songs that fed into the creation of This Could Be Texas, among them Radiohead’s discombobulating weepy True Love Waits, the propulsive space rock of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s Rattlesnake and David Bowie’s melodramatic Five Years.

They sound like a band who didn’t plot their sound before plugging in. Instead, they sound like the happiest of accidents, where notions of genre weren’t so much put carefully aside as deemed irrelevant from the off, where great taste begat great results.

There’s an enticing freedom to their music, with songs – such glorious, memorable songs! – that careen wildly from one idea to the next, giddily toying with mood and time signature without ever losing sight of some beautifully crafted pop melodies.

And they have the chops to pull it off. It should be noted that the band met while studying at Leeds Conservatoire, where alumni include Asia/Yes man Geoff Downes and a plethora of notable jazzers.

All of which boils down to something inescapable: English Teacher are a phenomenal band, and This Could Be Texas is a phenomenal album. Do yourself a favour and give it a listen.

Earlier this week it was announced that Billy Idol, alongside Oasis, Soundgarden, The White Stripes and more, is on the longlist of nominees for induction into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame this year. And it's fair to say that the British punk veteran is pretty chuffed by the news.

In a new interview with Vulture, Idol (born William Broad) admits that he's “knocked out” to be among the nominees, and all the more excited because he got to witness the pomp and circumstance of the occasion for himself last year, when he was one of the musicians paying tribute to Ozzy Osbourne following the Prince of Darkness' induction into the Rock Hall as a solo artist.

“My eyes were opened,” he admits. “It’s a bigger deal than I thought”

At the 2024 ceremony, Idol sang Ozzy's 1991 single No More Tears, the title track of the sixth solo album from the Black Sabbath frontman. Idol was backed on the night by an all-star band which included Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ drummer Chad Smith, Ozzy's producer Andrew Watt, Adam Wakeman, and guitarists Wolfgang Van Halen, Steve Stevens and Zakk Wylde.

“Ozzy called me a rock-and-roll icon, and I was like, Whoa!”, Idol tells Vulture's Devon Ivie, reminiscing about the evening. “That’s exciting coming from him. One of the first gigs I saw was Black Sabbath. It was one month before their first album came out, and I was 12 or 13. Ozzy’s tassels were touching me at the front of the stage. So it was fantastic getting to honor him and induct him in with that performance. I enjoyed that big time.”

As to the possibility of being inducted in his own right this year, Idol tells Ivie that he would consider it “incredible”.

“A lot of people I really like or have been influenced by - John Lennon, David Bowie, Link Wray - are in there,” he notes. When I realized the extent of who’s in there whom I love, the idea that I could end up alongside them is an incredible honor.”

Read the full Vulture interview with Idol here.

Artists become eligible for nomination into the Cleveland, Ohio-based Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame 25 years after the release of their first commercial recording.

Also on the 2025 longlist are Bad Company, The Black Crowes, Joy Division/New Order, Joe Cocker, Mariah Carey, OutKast, Cindy Lauper, Chubby Checker, Mexican pop-rock band Maná and Phish.

Fans are now invited to cast their votes for the acts they deem most worthy of inclusion, with the shortlist of nominees to be revealed in April.

Soundgarden, Oasis, The White Stripes and Joy Division/New Order have been selected for the longlist of artists eligible for inclusion into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame this year.

They're joined on the 14-strong list of nominees by Bad Company, The Black Crowes, Billy Idol, Joe Cocker, Mariah Carey, OutKast, Cindy Lauper, Phish and more.

Artists become eligible for nomination into the 'prestigious' institution 25 years after the release of their first commercial recording.

Fans are now invited to cast their votes for the acts they deem most worthy of inclusion, with the shortlist of nominees to be revealed in April.

On this day last year, Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher expressed his sentiments towards the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when the Manchester band were nominated, writing on X, “Fuck the Rock n Roll hall of fame its full of BUMBACLARTS LG x.” When a follower suggested that the singer is already keeping "rock n roll alive", the singer responded, "You know it I don’t need some wank award by some geriatric in a cowboy hat."

In October, Ozzy Osbourne, Foreigner and Peter Frampton were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame at the awards ceremony in Cleveland, Ohio.

On the night, Ozzy kept his speech mercifully short.

Speaking from a throne adorned by a vast pair of bat wings, the Prince Of Darkness said, "Well, here we are. You know what? I can’t believe I’m here myself. Let me get the thank yous out of the way, because I’m not going to bore you with a long, drawn-out fucking monologue. I’d like to thank whoever voted me into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for my solo work. A great thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."

Footage of Gojira accepting the 2025 Grammy Award For Best Metal Performance has been shared online.

The French extreme metal quartet claimed the prize at the Los Angeles ceremony on Sunday (February 2), winning with a rendition of revolutionary song Ah! Ça Ira that they performed at the 2024 Olympic Games opening ceremony.

This year marks the fourth time Gojira were Grammy-nominated – they were put forward for Best Rock Album and Best Metal Performance in 2017, then Best Metal Performance again in 2022 – and their first win. They beat Metallica, Spiritbox, Judas Priest and Knocked Loose feat. Poppy to take home the trophy.

When Gojira took the stage to accept their Grammy last night, they were joined by opera singer Marina Viotti, who performed Ah! Ça Ira with the band, and Victor Le Masne, musical director of the 2024 Olympics.

In the published video (available below), singer/guitarist Joe Duplantier graciously dedicates the win to forward-thinking artists throughout the musical world.

“We are extremely excited to receive this award,” he says. “We had the privilege to perform at the Olympic [opening] ceremony with Marina and Victor. So this is a great day for us, obviously.”

He continues: “We want to dedicate this award to all the bands who are pushing the boundaries. Support your local artists, support your local bands, because that’s where it’s at and they’re inspiring us to continue. Thank you very much for this!”

In an interview with Metal Hammer in December, Duplantier revealed that the idea of Gojira gracing the Olympics was originally Le Masne’s. He told journalist Dave Everley that accepting the opportunity was a “no-brainer”, but added that singing a song as violent as Ah! Ça Ira clashed with Gojira’s more positive outlook.

In the end, the band decided to emphasise the lyrics ‘Let us rejoice, good times will come’ and ‘Without fear of fire or flame’. “That became the centrepiece of the song: two little lines that are not full of blood and beheading,” he states.

Le Masne told Hammer why Gojira were the perfect choice for the French Revolution-themed portion of the opening ceremony. “And I thought: ‘Metal,’” he said. “Metal, for me, is a revolutionary music. And Gojira were an obvious choice – I wanted to have a French act, and in 2024 they are one of the most brilliant acts in the genre.”

Gojira released their latest album, Fortitude, in 2021 and are expected to put out its followup this year. In September, Duplantier said their next album will “take a clear step forward and upward” from its predecessor.

The band will tour Europe in the summer and stop at Derbyshire’s Bloodstock Open Air in August, headlining the festival alongside Machine Head and Trivium.

Spiritbox vocalist Courtney LaPlante was mistaken for Poppy at the Grammy Awards this weekend.

LaPlante got incorrectly introduced as the US genre-smashing solo act in a video interview on the red carpet on Sunday (February 2).

Poppy was also in attendance because Suffocate, her collaboration track with hardcore band Knocked Loose, had been nominated for the Best Metal Performance trophy.

Spiritbox had their song Cellar Door in contention for the same prize, alongside other tracks by Judas Priest, Gojira and Metallica. Gojira ultimately won with their version of Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça Ira!), which they performed at the Olympic Games opening ceremony in the summer.

Despite the incorrect introduction, LaPlante runs with it. “I am Poppy,” she ‘confirms’ to the interviewer, “and I am really happy to be here nominated with Knocked Loose. I really hope we win.”

LaPlante then uses the moment to make an important point about the Grammys’ Best Metal Performance category, noting that no woman has taken that award home in its 35-year history.

“I was actually nominated in, I believe, 2020,” the singer adds, continuing to pretend to be Poppy. (Poppy was actually nominated for Best Metal Performance in 2021 with her song Bloodmoney.) “Really happy to be here again; would love to take home the Grammy for Knocked Loose and myself because I would be the first woman to win this award.”

When she’s asked how many women have been nominated for Best Metal Performance, LaPlante takes the opportunity to give a shout-out to herself. “I actually haven’t looked at that but I just always know that it’s time for one of us to win. I hope it’s me or Spiritbox and Courtney.”

Watch a section of the video interview, and try not to cringe, below.

Although Spiritbox didn’t take home an award over the weekend, the band have plenty to be excited for. They’ll embark on a headline tour of Europe this month, which will include their biggest-ever UK headline show at the 10,000-capacity Alexandra Palace in London. They’ll then tour North America from April. See dates and details via their website.

The Canadians will also release their highly anticipated second album Tsunami Sea on March 7.

As for Poppy, she put out new album Negative Spaces in November and will begin her They’re All Around Us tour of North America next month. See dates and details via the singer’s website.

Gojira, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and St. Vincent are among the winners at this year's Grammy Awards, held at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.

Gojira's prize came in the Best Metal Performance category and was awarded for the band's extraordinary rendition of the French Revolution-era song Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça Ira!) – performed alongside French-Swiss mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti – which was a highlight of last year's Olympic opening ceremony in Paris.

Gojira triumphed over a shortlist that also included Judas Priest's Crown Of Horns, Metallica's Screaming Suicide, Spiritbox's Cellar Door and Suffocate, last year's collaboration between Knocked Loose and Poppy.

One of the night's big winners was Anne Clark, aka St. Vincent, who triumphed in three categories. She picked up the Best Rock Song (for Broken Man), Best Alternative Music Performance (Flea) and Best Alternative Music Album (All Born Screaming) against competition that included Pearl Jam, Green Day, Nick Cave and Kim Gordon.

Elsewhere it was a triumph for some of rock's eldest statesmen, as The Beatles' Now And Then – the unfinished John Lennon demo turned into a 'new' Beatles song after WingNut Films, the production company owned by filmmaker Peter Jackson, was able to restore the audio – won the Best Rock Performance gong.

The Best Rock Album Grammy went to the Rolling Stones for their well-received Hackney Diamonds album. The other albums on the shortlist were Romance by Fontaines D.C., Saviors by Green Day, Tangk by Idles, Dark Matter by Pearl Jam and Jack White's No Name.

The Best Traditional Blues Album award was given to The Taj Mahal Sextet for Swingin' Live At The Church In Tulsa, while Ruthie Foster picked up the Best Contemporary Blues Album prize for Mileage.

The big prizes went to Kendrick Lamar, who won Record Of The Year and Song Of The Year for his Drake diss track You And Me, and Beyonce, who picked up the Album Of The Year award for her country album, Cowboy Carter.

How to watch the 2025 Grammys.

Nine Inch Nails duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have been awarded a Golden Globe for their soundtrack to Luca Guadagnino's Challengers.

Their victory adds another trophy to their already stacked CV, the pair's 15-year collaboration having previously been honoured with Oscars and Golden Globe wins for the likes of The Social Network and Soul. Their friendship began when Reznor signed Londoner Ross' band 12 Rounds to his Nothing label in the late '90s.

The duo picked up the award from Elton John and Brandi Carlile at the ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles last night, January 5. In his acceptance speech, Ross described Reznor as "my best friend", and a "great talent", and said of the score, "To be honest, we always thought we'd get the call, 'Can you turn it down just a little bit?' But it never came, and here we are."

“It allows the audience to feel this fire between these characters that never goes away,” the film's star Zendaya said of the score, speaking to Variety in April. “It’s constantly changing, and that’s what makes it really fun.”

In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Reznor said, “Scoring has provided a way for me to feel vital, to feel challenged.”

“Over the last 10 years or so, I’ve been a bit disillusioned by popular music,” Reznor admitted. “As I get older, some things feel less relatable to me. The business sucks. The way people consume music is not as inspiring as it used to be, it’s marginalized in a lot of ways. Scoring has provided a way for me to feel vital, to feel challenged.”

The Offspring doubt they'll ever be inducted into the Rock and Roll of Fame – but they admit it would be cool to get that kind of recognition.

The pop punk heroes say the fact they've never won any major awards in their long career, despite huge success in terms of chart positions and record sales, means the chances of the Rock Hall considering them at all is pretty unlikely.

But unlike a lot of other artists, they won't dismiss the Rock Hall as meaningless. In fact, they'd quite like to be included.

Guitarist Kevin 'Noodles' Wasserman tells Tuna On Toast: "So many great bands have been snubbed, it's almost kind of more elite to be in that club, it can be argued.

"I think would be a great honour to be in it, but I'm not gonna hold my breath."

Frontman Dexter Holland agrees, saying: "We've never won any awards. We haven't gotten a Grammy, we've never been on the cover of Rolling Stone, any of that stuff.

"So I don't know if that's on the cards for us. But I mean, sure, it'd be nice to be recognised."

As for the perception that the Rock Hall has diluted it's importance by including artists from musical genres other than rock and roll, Noodles says that argument doesn't make sense.

He adds: "I think rock and roll should be inclusive. Willie Nelson people think of him as a country artist. 'Doesn't he belong in the Country Hall Of Fame?'

"You know, screw that. He also writes great songs. He rocks in his own way. So does Dolly Parton, of course.

"There are all the hip-hop guys. Like when NWA was inducted, people came out of the woodwork for that. That's great. They're punk as hell. They were defiant. That's what rock and roll is all about – being defiant."

The Offspring will play a UK arena tour in 2025.

The Offspring UK tour dates 2025

Nov 10: Utilita Arena, Cardiff
Nov 14: The O2, London
Nov 15: Utilita Arena, Newcastle
Nov 16: AO Arena, Manchester
Nov 18: OVO Hydro, Glasgow

The Clash and Prince are among the artists to be honoured with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognises performers "who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording."

The London punk pioneers and the gifted Minneapolis icon join Frankie Valli, blues legend Taj Mahal, and trailblazing rapper Roxanne Shante on the 2025 list, which is voted for by the Recording Academy's National Trustees.

On the official Grammys website, The Clash are hailed as "pioneers in integrating elements of militant reggae, dub, funk, jazz, and hip-hop into their music, influencing fellow bands, musicians and DJs alike, then and now", while Prince's tribute states that he is "considered by many to be the greatest artist of all time."

In another acknowledgement of rock's rich history, English producer and recording engineer Glyn Johns, whose CV takes in work on legendary albums by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, is to receive a Special Merit Award, with the Academy noting, "his legacy in rock music is profound, with his techniques and ethics continuing to influence modern producers and engineers."

The 67th Annual Grammy Awards will take place on Sunday, February 2, 2025 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.

Beyonce has received 11 nominations for her country album, Cowboy Carter, while Kendrick Lamar, Charli XCX, Post Malone and Billie Eilish have each received seven nominations.

The Best Rock Album category will be contested by, The Black Crowes' comeback record Happiness Bastards, voted Album of The Year by Classic Rock's writers, Pearl Jam's Dark Matter, Romance by Fontaines D.C., The Rolling Stones' 24th studio album Hackney Diamonds, Green Day's Saviors and Tangk by Idles.

Bob Vylan. Birmingham's hard-hitting sisters Alt Blk Era, South London rapper Kid Bookie and Irish-Nigerian newcomer Spider are among the nominees set to face-off in the Best Alternative Music Act category at the MOBO Awards 2025.

Ipswich's genre-fluid alt. rapper Native James and London singer/songwriter/rapper Hak Baker complete the nominations in the category, which is being sponsored by Marshall.

The 2025 MOBO Awards will be staged at Newcastle's Utilita Arena on February 18.

Beyond the Best Alternative category, Sampha, Jorja Smith and Cleo Sol each have three nominations at what is Britain's biggest celebration of Black music and culture, as do Central Cee, Bashy and Ghetts.

Sampha, Jorja Smith, Ghetts, Bashy, and Cleo Soul are all nominated in the prestigious Best Album category, alongside London rapper Skrapz.

The Best International Act is packed with industry heavy-hitters including Beyonce, Kendrick Lamar, Nicki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion, alongside emerging stars such as Tyla, GloRilla and Ayra Starr.

MOBO Founder Kanya King CBE says: “Each and every time we unveil the MOBO Awards nominations, I am taken aback by the sheer amount of incredible talent we have in the UK. It inspires us all to continue pushing the industry to be more inclusive of a greater variety of Black music and culture.

“The music coming out of the UK this past year has been some of the best we have had in years. These distinct, uncompromising voices – across different genres from R&B and Soul to Grime, Hip-Hop to Jazz and Alternative – are not just soundtracks for our days. They provide healing and reflection, and also escapism in times of need.

“For several years now we have also seen the growth of our MOBO UnSung talent programme, as it continues to be a beacon for spotlighting and empowering emerging artists. Some of the artists tipped by UnSung have gone on to achieve great things and we're so proud to be following their journey, and celebrating their success. A huge congratulations to all our nominees across music, film and television, and entertainment. We look forward to welcoming you in Newcastle!"

Tickets for the awards ceremony, which is set to feature performances from Ghetts, Sugababes, Soul II Soul and more, are now available for sale here.

Former Foreigner singer Lou Gramm has revealed that the original band members were not allowed to perform a medley of hits at their induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame this year.

In an interview with SiriusXM, Gramm says the organisers denied his request to perform a medley, and instead selected younger performers Kelly Clarkson and Demi Lovato – in addition to Sammy Hagar – to perform on their behalf.

"The thing for me is, I’m first and foremost a rock singer and it’s the Rock Hall of Fame," says Gramm. "Somehow, I couldn’t sing a rock song at the Rock Hall of Fame when I’m being inducted? It doesn’t make any sense to me, and it sticks in my craw."

Gramm, who fronted Foreigner for two stints, from 1976 to 1990 and again from 1992 until 2003, did appear at the ceremony during a performance of I Want To Know What Love Is, when he duetted with Clarkson.

During the interview, Gramm also shed some light on founding drummer Dennis Elliott's decision to shun the ceremony. It appears that Elliott, who was originally rumoured to have backed out because band members' spouses were reportedly not allowed to walk the red carpet before the show, had prior knowledge of the organisers' decision to sideline the founding members.

"I didn’t know sooner," says Gramm. "When I found out that’s why he didn’t come, I even got more angrier, but not at him. It was almost like there was a fast one being played. The Rock Hall insisted that 'time restraints' kept it from giving Foreigner a meaningful amount of time.

"We found out last minute that it was the ‘new Foreigner’ who was gonna be playing, and Rick and Al [original bassist Rick Willis and keyboardist Al Greenwood] would be standing there singing background vocals."

Fellow founding member Mick Jones, the band's longtime creative leader, did not attend the ceremony as he is battling Parkinson's Disease.

Next year's Grammy nominations have officially been announced, and there are a host of metal, rock and alternative names in the mix. Heading up this year's Best Metal Performance category are Metallica with Screaming Suicide, a cut from 2023 album 72 Seasons (confusingly, that album also received nominations for this year's Grammy's, with the title track bagging the Best Metal Performance award for 2024), as well as fellow heavy metal veterans Judas Priest. Joining them are hardcore crushers Knocked Loose for their ferocious collab with Poppy, alongside modern metalcore heavyweights Spiritbox and Gojira, whose Olympics-stealing cover of Mea Culpa (Ah! Ca Ira!) managed to earn them their fourth Grammy nom.

Meanwhile, the Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song and Best Rock Album nominations lists are dominated by The Black Keys, Green Day, Pearl Jam and Idles, with The Beatles, St. Vincent, The Rolling Stones and Fontaines D.C. also amongst the names. Fontaines D.C. and St. Vincent also received recognition in the Best Alternative categories, as did Cage The Elephant, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Kim Gordon, Brittany Howard and Clairo.

Elsewhere in alternative/heavy music world, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross also received a nomination in the Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media Category for their thumping soundtrack to this year's shamelessly sexy tennis blockbuster, Challengers.

See the full list of rock, metal and alternative Grammys 2025 nominations below. Next year's awards take place on February 2 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.

Grammys 2025 rock, metal and alternative nominations

Best Metal Performance

Gojira, Marina Viotta & Victor Le Masne - Mea Culpa (Ah! Ca Ira!)
Judas Priest - Crown of Horns
Knocked Loose featuring Poppy - Suffocate
Metallica - Screaming Suicide
Spiritbox - Cellar Door

Best Rock Performance

The Beatles - Now and Then
The Black Keys - Beautiful People (Stay High)
Green Day - The American Dream Is Killing Me
Idles - Gift Horse
Pearl Jam - Dark Matter
St. Vincent - Broken Man

Best Rock Song

The Black Keys - Beautiful People (Stay High)
Green Day - Dilemma
Idles - Gift Horse
Pearl Jam - Dark Matter
St. Vincent - Broken Man

Best Rock Album

The Black Crowes - Happiness Bastards
Pearl Jam - Dark Matter
Fontaines D.C. - Romance
The Rolling Stones - Hackney Diamonds
Green Day - Saviors
Idles - Tangk

Best Alternative Music Performance

Cage The Elephant - Neon Pill
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Song Of The Lake
Fontaines D.C. - Starburster
Kim Gordon - Bye Bye
St. Vincent - Flea

Best Alternative Music Album

Brittany Howard - What Now
Clairo - Charm
Kim Gordon - The Collective
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Wild God
St. Vincent - All Born Screaming

Official footage of Judas Priest's historic live performance at the 2022 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony has been uploaded to YouTube to mark the second anniversary of the occasion.

The band – made up of singer Rob Halford, bassist Ian Hill, guitarists Richie Faulkner and Glen Tipton plus drummer Scott Travis – were joined on the night by former members guitarist KK Downing and drummer Les Binks, and performed truncated versions of three classics: Breakin' The Law, Living After Midnight and You've Got Another Thing Coming.

Before hitting the stage, Judas Priest were introduced by Alice Cooper, who described them as “the definitive metal band.”

After the performance, which celebrated Priest's entry into the Hall Of Fame via the Award for Musical Excellence category, Halford took to the mic to make a typically heartfelt speech.

"I'm the gay guy in the band," said Halford. "We call ourselves the heavy metal community which is all-inclusive, no matter what your sexual identity is, what you look like, or what you believe in or don't believe in. Everybody’s welcome.

"We should get out another 50 years, but the joy about music is that it lives forever. And that’s the reason why we're here. We live for heavy metal. We live for music. And we're living for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.”

Earlier this week, Judas Priest announced a run of dates in mainland Europe for next year. The band also play six Japanese shows next month. Full dates below.

Judas Priest: Invincible Shield tour dates

Dec 05: Nagoya Aichi Prefectural Art Theater, Japan
Dec 06: Amagasaki Amashin Archaic Hall, Japan
Dec 09: Okayama Performing Arts Theatre, Japan
Dec 10: Yokohama KT Zepp, Japan
Dec 12: Yokohoma PIA Arena, Japan
Dec 13: Tokyo EX Theater, Japan

Jun 14: Oslo Tjuvholmen Arena, Norway
Jun 17: Stuttgart Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle, Germany
Jun 18: Frankfurt Hessentag Festival, Germany
Jul 01: Ferrara Summer Festival, Italy
Jul 03: Zurwich Hallenstadion, Switzerland
Jul 07: Lodz Atlas Arena, Poland
Jul 10: Rattvik Dalhalla, Sweden
Jul 13: Munich Olympiahalle, Germany
Jul 15: Carcassonne Festival De Carcassonne, France
Jul 17: Sion Sous Les Etoiles, Switzerland
Jul 19: Luxembourg Rockhal, Luxembourg
Jul 20: Oberhausen Rudolf-Weber-Arena, Germany

The UK Music Hall of Fame was a short-lived affair. Launched to great fanfare in 2004, it lasted less than four years before being quietly closed for lack of funding.

The inaugural event, held at Hackney Empire in East London, saw 10 artists inducted – two from each decade, from the 1950s to the 1990s – and the stars showed up: Madonna and Bono were both on hand to pick up their awards, while Priscilla Presley flew in to accept Elvis's.

In year two it was even bigger. The ceremony moved to the iconic Alexandria Palace in North London. Pink Floyd were inducted by The Who's Pete Townshend. Jimi Hendrix received a posthumous induction from Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell and then-Velvet Revolver man Slash. Bob Dylan was recognised by Hollywood star Woody Harrelson. And, over in the hard rock corner, Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath were both inaugurated.

"Brian May inducted us," Tony Iommi wrote in his autobiography, Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath. "There was a bit of a commotion about that, because Sharon wanted Angus Young of AC/DC to do it. I wanted Brian. Then she wanted Angus and Brian to do it together, but Brian just didn't want to do it that way.

"I'm glad he stuck to his guns. He wasn't going to do it and I had to phone him up and said: 'Please do it. Do it for me.' He came and made a great speech, absolutely fantastic. I was really proud of him."

In the end, Ozzy – the solo performer – was inducted by Angus and, as you might expect, the speech was less effusive.

"Angus Young said about three words about that," wrote Iommi. "Well, his first few words were: 'Hello, can you hear me? Can you hear me?' He's probably as good a talker as I am on those bloody occasions."

Black Sabbath's performance was notable for a couple of reasons. First, it would be the last time all four original members would play together onstage until 2025's Back To The Beginning blowout. And second, for something that happened during the short set, in which the band played the intro to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath before launching into Paranoid. Halfway through the latter, a cheeky grin creeps over Ozzy's face before he turns to face drummer Bill Ward, drops his trousers, and moons the audience.

Ozzy, who reportedly exposed his buttocks because the crowd weren't enjoying the music as much as he thought they should be, "stole the show with a bottom-baring performance," according to the BBC, who went on to say that he received a standing ovation at the song's climax.

Iommi, meanwhile, was less enthusiastic. "I've seen Ozzy's arse more times than I've seen my own," he said.

Ozzy Osbourne has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, and while the Prince Of Darkness's contributions to the festivities may have been slender – he didn't perform, and delivered his brief acceptance speech while seated at a bat-themed throne – there's no doubt that the room was full of love for the former Black Sabbath man.

Jack Black said it best, inducting Ozzy with a fiery, passionate speech that referred to him as the "Jack Nicholson of rock" and ended with a plea to future generations of musicians and music fans.

"I’m talking to you 13-year-olds watching the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony," said Black. "All five of you put down your phones unless you’re watching on the phone, then put it closer to your face. Oh, man, rock aficionado is about to drop some truth. Sure, you could go stream Post Malone and Taylor Swift and get all the warm hugs you need for your broken hearts, or you can stay up all night and get your minds blown by Ozzy’s entire catalogue for the first time."

After Ozzy's acceptance speech, an all-star band assembled onstage to pay tribute to the great man, with a lineup including Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ drummer Chad Smith, Wolfgang Van Halen, Andrew Watt, Adam Wakeman, Steve Stevens and Zakk Wylde.

Three different frontmen took over for Ozzy's vocal parts, with Tool's Maynard James Keenan taking the lead on Crazy Train, country star Jelly Roll doing the same on Mama I'm Coming Home, and Billy Idol singing No More Tears. Watch the performance below.

Ozzy's induction was his second, after receiving the same honour as a member of Black Sabbath in 2006. Other inductees at this year's ceremony in Cleveland included Peter Frampton, Foreigner, the Dave Matthews Band and the MC5.

Ozzy Osbourne has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. And, unlike many of his fellow inductees, Ozzy kept his speech mercifully short.

Speaking from a throne adorned by a vast pair of bat wings, the Prince Of Darkness said, "Well, here we are. You know what? I can’t believe I’m here myself. Let me get the thank yous out of the way, because I’m not going to bore you with a long, drawn-out fucking monologue. I’d like to thank whoever voted me into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for my solo work. A great thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

"My fans have been so loyal to me over the years, I cannot thank them enough. I’ve been fortunate over the years to play with some of the world’s greatest guitar players, drummers, bass players, and a few of them are here tonight. But I’ve got to say one thing for a guy by the name of Randy Rhoads. If I’d hadn’t have met Randy Rhoads, I don’t think I’d be sitting here now. And more than that, my wife Sharon. Saved my life. And my grandbabies and my babies. I love them all."

Ozzy then handed over to the live band, who included Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ drummer Chad Smith, Wolfgang Van Halen, Andrew Watt, Adam Wakeman, Steve Stevens and Zakk Wylde. Three different frontmen filled in for Ozzy, with Tool's Maynard James Keenan taking the lead on Crazy Train, country star Jelly Roll doing the same on Mama I'm Coming Home, and Billy Idol singing No More Tears.

Jack Black's induction speech was as impassioned as you'd expect, with the Tenacious D star relating his first encounter with the Black Sabbath legend's music.

"I remember the first time I heard of Ozzy," said Black. "I was 13 years old, wandering around the record store. What should I get? Styx? Journey? An older rock aficionado noticed my indecision, and he said, “Stop fucking around, kid. This is the album you need to get, Blizzard of Ozz.”

"Man, was he right! Thank you, nameless rock aficionado, wherever you are, you changed my life. I remember looking at that album cover at Ozzy’s face before I even heard the music. I was transfixed. He looked so cool, that red-white suit with the white fringe on the sleeves, that crazy look in his eyes, the skull, the cross. Holy shit. The whole thing just looked so badass.

"It was the most metal thing I’d ever seen, and I didn’t even know what metal was. He was teaching me. I didn’t realize I was entering a whole new world of heavy metal music."

Ozzy's induction was his second, after receiving the same honour as a member of Black Sabbath in 2006. Other inductees at the ceremony in Cleveland included Peter Frampton, Foreigner, the Dave Matthews Band and the MC5.

This coming Saturday, Ozzy Osbourne, Foreigner and Peter Frampton will be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame at a ceremony in Cleveland, Ohio.

The evening will be broadcast live from the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse through Disney+, with Hulu showing the event the following day. ABC viewers will also get a chance to catch up on the night on a future date still to be announced.

Ozzy, who was previously inducted into the Rock Hall as a member of Black Sabbath in 2006, previously told Rolling Stone that actor and musician Jack Black would induct him, while it was also revealed Billy Idol, Maynard James Keenan and country artist Jelly Roll would perform vocals in an Ozzy tribute band.

They’ll be joined by long-time Ozzy guitarist Zack Wylde, Wolfgang Van Halen, Steve Stevens and producer Andrew Watt on guitars, Metallica bassist and Ozzy’s former solo band member Robert Trujillo will handle bass duties, Red Hot Chili Pepper Chad Smith will be on drums, and Adam Wakeman will be on keyboards.

The evening’s entertainment will be shown on Disney+ from 4pm PT, 7pm ET and midnight BST.  

How to watch the induction ceremony

Disney+ have exclusive rights to show the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony live. If you've still to sign up to the popular streaming service, there's loads more to dig into if you pick up a subscription.

All the family-friendly Disney content you'd expect is here, but it's also home to the entire Star Wars universe, all the Marvel movies, series and shorts, Pixar, The Simpsons, National Geographic and the Star channel.

For music fans, you'll get access to Peter Jackson's documentary The Beatles: Get Back which sits alongside The Beatles' 1970 film Let It Be. There's also Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, Elton John Live, the 2024 Beach Boys doc, Pam & Tommy, London music film Camden, Hip Hop Uncovered and more.

Disney+ subscriptions start from just $9.99/£4.99 per month for the Standard with ads tier and go up to Premium which comes in at $13.99/£10.99 per month.

Joining Ozzy, Foreigner and Peter Frampton in the induction's Performer category is Mary J. Blige, Cher, Dave Matthews Band, Kool & The Gang and A Tribe Called Quest.

The Musical Influence Award features Alexis Korner, John Mayall and Big Mama Thornton, while Jimmy Buffett, MC5, Dionne Warwick and Norman Whitfield will receive the Musical Excellence Award. Finally, the Ahmet Ertegun Award will go to Suzanne de Passe.

Upon learning of being one of the class of 2024, Frampton said: "This is something I never expected. I am overwhelmed that I will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, especially alongside so many incredible artists who have gone before me. I can’t thank everyone enough for voting for me. You are the best. Somebody pinch me please!"

The annual Hall Of Fame induction ceremony is a source of rancour as often as it is a celebration, and this year's event are set to be no different. Just days before the show at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, Cleveland, Ohio, founding Foreigner drummer Dennis Elliott – who played on every album the band released between 1977's self-titled debut to 1991's Unusual Heat – has announced that he won't be going.

Writing on Facebook, Elliott pulls no punches, saying, "Don't look too hard, we will not be there. We were finally given the schedule last night, and it is not to our satisfaction. So we are staying home. We have been asking for this for weeks, and they have waited until the very last minute to send it knowing we were all packed and going to bed. Totally unacceptable to us. Hope you have a good time."

It's unclear which part of the schedule gave Elliott cause to withdraw, but sources in Cleveland tell Billboard that the problem may have arisen because the musician's spouses were not being allowed to walk the red carpet prior to the show, only the band members.

Just hours later, Foreigner posted a message of their own, naming those who would be in attendance - and it appears that founder and creative force Mick Jones isn't one of them.

"Foreigner is greatly looking forward to Saturday’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony," they wrote. "The band will be joined by Demi Lovato, Sammy Hagar, and Kelly Clarkson in a set celebrating the induction of the guys who started it all almost fifty years ago. Original members Lou Gramm, Al Greenwood, and Rick Wills will be there to accept the awards on behalf of the band’s leader and founder Mick Jones, drummer Dennis Elliot, and Ian McDonald and Ed Gagliardi who are no longer with us."

In February 2024, Jones revealed that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease some years ago, citing this as his reason for not touring with Foreigner since 2023, and only sporadically in the years before that.

"I’ve always liked to be at my best when performing onstage, and sadly, at present, I find that a bit difficult," said Jones in a statement. "I am still very much involved in the background with Foreigner and remain a presence.

"Parkinson’s is a daily struggle; the important thing is to persevere and remind myself of the wonderful career I’ve had in music. I thank all the fans who have supported Foreigner throughout the years and continue to attend our concerts – I want you to know I appreciate your support; it always means so very much to me, but especially so at this point in my life."

As well as Foreigner, Ozzy Osbourne and Peter Frampton are among this year's Rock Hall inductees.

Ozzy Osbourne has revealed what to expect for his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame later this month.

The Black Sabbath vocalist has told Rolling Stone that he’ll be inducted into the Rock Hall at the ceremony on October 19 by actor and musician Jack Black. Furthermore, Billy Idol, Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan and country star Jelly Roll will sing in a star-studded tribute band to the metal legend.

Rolling Stone also reports that longtime Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde, Wolfgang Van Halen, longtime Billy Idol guitarist Steve Stevens and The Prince Of Darkness’s producer Andrew Watt will play guitar at the ceremony. Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, previously a member of Osbourne’s solo band, will man the low end while Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers will drum. Adam Wakeman, who’s worked with Osbourne since 2004 and handled live keyboards for Black Sabbath, will play keys.

Of Black, Osbourne says, “Jack invited my family to the School Of Rock movie premiere in 2002. I’ve always been a big fan of his. Jack is one of the few great actors that is also a genuine rock and roller and not acting the part.”

He adds, “Billy Idol is a rock icon. His music is timeless. Billy Idol should be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.” Plus, “Maynard has been a true family friend since 1997. He is such a creative force. There are few artists who can keep three successful bands going for multiple decades [Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer].”

Osbourne also sings Jelly Roll’s praises, saying, “Who doesn’t love Jelly Roll? His voice is soulful, pure, and dirty. I’m so honoured that someone would do this for me who I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting.”

Regarding Trujillo and Smith, Osbourne tells Rolling Stone, “The rhythm section is the anchor of the band,” Osbourne says, “and you honestly couldn’t get a better rhythm section than Robert Trujillo and Chad Smith.”

Osbourne’s induction into the Rock Hall was confirmed in April. Foreigner, Cher, Peter Frampton and others will also be inducted this year. This year marked the first time Osbourne was eligible to join the Rock Hall as a solo artist, and he was voted in immediately.

It is currently unclear whether or not Osbourne will himself perform at his Rock Hall induction. The singer retired from touring last year as a result of health troubles, including Parkinson’s Disease.

Eric Clapton has some harsh words for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – despite being the only person to have been inducted three times.

The guitar icon was inducted as part of The Yardbirds in 1992, as a member of Cream in 1993 and as a solo artist in 2000.

Despite that unprecedented triple honour, Clapton believes he was suckered into ever getting involved in the first place.

He tells The Real Music Observer: “I think of it as a frat boys club that happened to lure me in."

Explaining how he was convinced to join, Clapton says the involvement of former Atlantic Records president and Rock Hall chairman Ahmet Ertugen was a key factor.

He adds: "I think the fact that they had Ahmet Ertegun was the ticket for me. He was doing it for people like Ruth Brown and the Drifters, all those early Atlantic artists that were being forgotten. And then, it just kind of started to snowball."

He says he was "suspicious" of Rolling Stone magazine Jann Wenner's involvement in launching the Rock Hall. But ultimately it's the names that haven't been inducted that prove to Clapton that the Rock Hall should be taken with a pinch of salt.

On J.J. Cale never being nominated, Clapton says: “The fact that someone like J.J. has never even been suggested is proof of what that thing is, or proof of what it isn’t. It’s not likely he’ll ever come up. It’s not their thing. I don’t know what their thing is. But he’s too anonymous for those guys."

Bad Company and Free singer Paul Rodgers not being inducted is another example Clapton points to. He adds: "He’s a rebel. It’s not a place for rebels. It’s establishment stuff."

Leeds indie-rockers English Teacher have won the 2024 Mercury Prize for their debut album This Could Be Texas.

The Yorkshire band triumphed over the heavily-hyped odds-on favourite Charli XCX, The Last Dinner Party, Corinne Bailey Rae, Portishead vocalist Beth Gibbons, Ghetts and more at the ceremony, held at Abbey Road studios in London on September 6.

The band admitted that they weren't expecting to win the prestigious award, telling the audience, “We didn’t really plan this far!”

The prize includes £25,000 for the quartet, who released This Could Be Texas in April.

The judging team declared: “This has been a really tough year for the Mercury Prize judges, with the final 12 albums being so reflective of our diverse & rich musical landscape. There was so much passion and enthusiasm for each one.

“In the end, though, we did agree that This Could Be Texas by English Teacher stands out for its originality & character. A winning lyrical mix of surrealism and social observation, alongside a subtle way of wearing its musical innovations lightly, displays a fresh approach to the traditional guitar band format. This Could Be Texas reveals new depths on every listen; the mark of a future classic.”

Talking about the album to The New Cue in April, vocalist Lily Fontaine told Niall Doherty: “In terms of writing it, the writing process started maybe five years ago because some of the songs were some of the first songs that I wrote back when I was at university. Where my head was back then and where my head’s at now is so completely different. It’s strange. I do wonder if you can tell which songs are from then and from now.

“When we were writing as a group with the newer songs and recording it, I think we were quite intimidated by the idea of doing a full-length album. It was a bit of pressure and I wouldn’t say that the songs came together easily, especially because we all had different ideas about what we wanted and we were all a bit all over the place with where we were living so it was kind of stressful, but that made it just more of a proud thing to create.”

It's 1991. MTV are at their peak, and the annual Video Music Awards show is the hottest ticket in Los Angeles. Joining host Arsenio Hall at the Universal Amphitheatre in Hollywood are a stellar cast of live performers, including Van Halen, Metallica and Guns N' Roses.

And then there's Poison. The previous year's Flesh & Blood album had shifted more than seven million copies and spawned two Top 10 hits in the US, so they were on a high. They were also fighting, as success and substance abuse took their inevitable toll. Indeed, frontman Bret Michaels and guitarist C.C. DevIlle had already come to blows at a sports bar in New Orleans belonging to NFL legend Archie Manning.

"Me and him were having a few words, having a good time," Michaels told Fox Sport Radio. "Next thing you know, maybe a couple drinks, a little substance here, next thing you know a few words, and we are beating the living crap out of each other. And then it continued. They broke us apart.

"We went back to the hotel, right, and all of a sudden the elevator door opens and we just happened to be going down to our buses, they were trying to separate us, and it started again. Old C.C. came at me and we went at it again. And it was like an old Army/Navy bam, boom, boom, we got some punches in. It was good…"

So the scene was set for an evening where the band's victory lap could only be marred by internal volatility, and that's exactly what happened. During a short promotional segment with MTV's Julie Brown prior to the band's performance, DeVille already looks enlivened, extolling viewers to vote ("If you’re lazy and you’re sitting down, you better do it now!") and pointing wildly at the camera as he struggles to read his cues.   

While it's not entirely clear what precisely went wrong – and the full footage isn't currently on YouTube – the performance was a mess. The band take to the stage during a commercial break, and DeVille starts playing the riff to the previous year's hit Unskinny Bop before the show returns to air. The band join in, and the song is well underway by the time the broadcast resumes. Realising what's happened, they stop, causing a few seconds of dead air and prompting Arsenio Hall to swiftly improvise an introduction.

It would get worse. Determined to re-ignite the puzzled audience, Michaels asks if they're "ready to talk dirty to me", triggering DeVille to start playing the band's 1987 hit Talk Dirty To Me rather than returning to the scheduled Unskinny Bop. The rest of the band follow suit, but it's a sloppy, chaotic mess. Or, as Michaels says at the song's climax, "It ain’t perfect, but it’s rock'n'roll.”

Backstage, the two men get into another fistfight, which leads to DeVille's departure from the band. He is eventually replaced by Ritchie Kotzen.  

"I broke his nose" Michaels told Fox Sports, recalling the earlier sports bar incident and bringing the story up to date. "He chipped one of my teeth. We went and played the next day in Georgia and it was great. Then we did it at the MTV Awards. We came out on stage and beat the living crap out of each other."

Five years later, DeVille would be back in the band, where he's remained ever since. And it was the singer who brought his old sparring partner back into the fold.  

"He had been abandoned by a lot of his friends, and I knew he was in trouble," Michaels told People magazine. "He had this amazingly beautiful house up in the Hollywood Hills, and I went up there, kicked in his front door and helped him get healthy. I just said, 'This is going to be tough love, brother, but whether we're in a band again together or not, I'm your friend.'"

In August 1995, for anyone in the United Kingdom with a passing interest in modern music, it was impossible to avoid the noise and hype around 'The Battle of Britpop'.

In the most basic terms, this 'conflict' pivoted around the fact that two of England's biggest bands, Blur and Oasis, had singles scheduled for release on the same day, August 14. But the question of whether Country House or Roll With It would sell the most copies before a victor was declared on August 20 was only part of the story. In media terms, this  was also about The South versus The North, middle class vs. working class, Chirpy Cockneys (which Blur weren't, tbh) versus Mouthy Mancs (which Oasis most assuredly were). And there was, in fairness, some genuine enmity between the two bands, with Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher making headlines when he stated, in 1995,  that he hoped that Blur vocalist Damon Albarn and bassist Alex James would "catch Aids and die".

In the end, Blur emerged victorious from this particular stramash, but it was something of a pyrrhic victory, for while their 1995 album, The Great Escape, went triple platinum in the UK, selling 900,000 copies, Oasis' (What's The Story) Morning Glory was certified 17 times platinum, selling 5,100,000 copies. As if that weren't crushing enough, the Gallagher brothers then went on to pick up the British Album Of The Year, the British Video Of The Year (for Wonderwall) and the British Group trophies at the 1996 Brit Awards, while Blur won precisely nothing. 

Naturally, Oasis had a ball at the ceremony, which took place at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre in west London. They drank lots, swore more, swaggered around as if they owned the place, and insulted just about everyone in attendance.

Picking up the Best Video award, Noel Gallagher looked down at the audience and said, "I'm extremely rich, and you lot aren't", before labelling INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, who presented the award, a "has-been." Then, when picking up their British Album Of The Year award, the Gallagher brothers celebrated by bursting into an impromptu version of Blur's Parklife re-titled 'Shite Life', before Liam called host Chris Evans "ginger bollocks" and pretended to shove the award up his own arse. 

Asked by Musician magazine later that year if they "took any heat" for their antics on the night, Noel Gallagher replied, "The music press thought we were great, but the national newspapers said we were a disgrace to our country. Which is fine by me, because our country is a disgrace to us."

To be fair, after the awards, the national newspaper were actually more concerned about Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker invading the stage during Michael Jackson's performance of Earth Song, which he found "extremely distasteful and crap". By way of protest, Cocker pretended, Monty Python-style, to fart in Jackson's general direction, an action which led to him being questioned by police for two hours after the ceremony. “He’s Off His Cocker” a headline in The Sun exclaimed.

"Jarvis is a star!" Noel Gallagher told Musician. "People thought it was so shocking. It’s not as if he cracked [Jackson] on the head with a baseball bat - which is what I woulda done if I’d gone up there."

Gallagher rounded off his 1996 Musician interview with another killer put down, laughing at "all these shitty little indie bands who hate us back in England".

"They go [affects empathetic voice], 'Tch, you know what, man? I’d really hate to be in your position, man. You must have no privacy at all, man. I mean, your life must be really hard.' And I’m thinking, What? You sell two records in Gloucester, and you’re telling me you’d hate to be in my position? I’ve got a fookin' Rolls-Royce and a fookin’ bastard mansion [Note: Southern English music journalists in the '90s were obsessed at a time with writing the word fookin' instead of 'fucking' when it came quoting musicians from the North of England] and an airplane and you’d hate to be me? Ha, not as much as I’d hate to be you, you daft cunt!"

The Kinks hero Dave Davies was shocked and saddened to find his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame trophy being sold for $12,500 on eBay.

The gong was listed on the website some time after it was found in a storage locker auction of the type made famous on TV shows like Storage Wars.

According to the listing, Davies had not paid the rental fees for the unit for more than a year, allowing the storage company to auction the unit off to the highest bidder.

The award changed hands multiple times before it ended up with its current owners, Colony Records.

Davies was stunned to see the trophy listed for sale and believes he may have lost track of the award around 2004 when he suffered a stroke.

In a post on X, he says the listing was made without his consent, adding: "This auction makes me very sad. I lost track of my award years ago and didn’t know where it was. If the person bought it at a storage unit it may have been around the time of my 2004 stroke when I was incapacitated in UK.

"I’m grateful to have made a full record from my stroke but it’s a shame that I wasn’t contacted. I’m assuming this is what happened.

"We’ve written to the seller and are waiting to hear back. I don’t want to have to pay 12 grand to get my own award back. But maybe we can work something out more reasonable."

The good news for Davies is that the sellers have since removed the listing and they have been communicating with him.

He says: "I have no problem with Colony Records, they bought it in good faith from a legitimate seller. It had changed hands many times. We are working something out so I can get it back when I’m done traveling. They have been very helpful and communicative."

The Kinks were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

Bruce Springsteen was inducted into the Fellowship of the Ivors Academy at the prestigious Ivor Novello Awards in London last night, May 23, and received a warm-hearted, tongue-in-cheek, tribute from his good friend Paul McCartney ahead of receiving the award.

Springsteen became the first ever international songwriter that the Academy has inducted into Fellowship in its 80-year history, recognising his outstanding contribution to the craft of songwriting and impact on the UK’s cultural landscape.

McCartney told the audience at the ceremony at London's Grosvenor House hotel that he “couldn't think of a more fitting recipient”, before jokingly adding, “except maybe Bob Dylan. Or Paul Simon, or Billy Joel, or Beyoncé, or Taylor Swift... The list goes on.”

Continuing his teasing tribute, the former Beatle added, “He’s known as the American working man but he admits he’s never worked a day in his life.”

Musing upon how Springsteen might have fitted into The Beatles, McCartney concluded, “When it comes to talent, he’d definitely be in the top five.“

In a more sincere moment, McCartney hailed his longtime friend as “a lovely boy.“

Somewhat hoarse after a three-hour show in Sunderland on the previous evening, Springsteen stated that performing for his fans “remains one of the greatest privileges and honours of my life as a musician.”

“I want to thank you for taking my music into your hearts and into your souls,” he added. “I want to thank you for including me in the challenging and beautiful cultural life in the UK.”

Reminiscing about his very first visit to the UK in 1975, he recalled: “The aeroplane food was not so great, and my first thought when we landed at Heathrow was, Where’s all the cheeseburgers? The cheeseburgers had either been hidden or replaced by something called fish and chips. I knew what a fish was, but I didn’t know what a chip was. It was a little disconcerting.

“Our next stop was the Hammersmith Odeon, where I was greeted by a huge sign announcing: ‘London is finally ready for Bruce Springsteen’. And all I thought was, If London isn’t ready for a cheeseburger, they may not be ready for me.

“...I guess London is finally ready for cheeseburgers.”

Springsteen also performed an acoustic version of Thunder Road for the assembled music industry guests, which you can watch below:

1996 was a big year for Jarvis Cocker but, more than that, it was a big year for Jarvis Cocker’s arse. His band Pulp were riding high after 1995’s Different Class had turned them from cult indie concern into one of the country’s biggest bands but Cocker was about to become very well-known for entirely different reasons, for this was the year that he took umbrage with Michael Jackson doing his second coming act at the Brits and decided to go and stand on the stage and wiggle his bum for a bit. It was a bum wiggle that shocked the nation (well, it mainly cheered the nation up a bit but for the benefit of the tabloids, it shocked them, OK?).

Now you can get the full deep dive on this earth-shaking arse-shimmy. A few years ago, this writer spoke to Marc Marot and got the skinny on what happened. Former music exec Marot was managing director of Island Records at the time. Let him set the scene for you: “Island had had a particularly good year and I had two, maybe three, tables at the Brits,” Marot recalled. “Jarvis and all of Pulp were on my table, along with my head of talent, Nick Angel and also Roger Ames, who was the chairman of Polygram.”

Marot said that everyone was a little irritated at the way the Brits were being organised that year. 

“At the time, each year, the Brits organisation was handed over from one major organisation to another, so one year it would be Warner Brothers, the next year it would be EMI, then it’d be Sony, then it’d be Universal, or Polygram at the time. That particular year it was Sony and they had hijacked it. They had the HiStory album out by Michael Jackson and in effect, everybody in the room, including my chairman, felt that it had been hijacked completely by Sony as a promotional vehicle for Michael Jackson, including creating the fake award that was being given to him, the Artist Of A Generation Award. That day they had floated a sixty foot effigy of Michael Jackson down the Thames, it just felt like they had taken it over. There was a palpable sense in the room that this was not the Brit Awards, it was the Michael Jackson awards.”

That irritation spilled over the edge when Jackson took to the stage to perform Earth Song surrounded by children with the Thriller man portraying a messiah-like figure to these poor young souls in rags. 

“I could see that Jarvis was getting really worked up and it was Candida, the keyboard player, who goaded him on and said, “look, if you’re that pissed off about it, do something about it,” and before I knew it, Jarvis was up and he was gone, on his way,” Marot recounts. “Because I had more than one table, Tricky was another of my artists on the second table and Tricky got up and followed him and he was followed by Mushroom from Massive Attack, so those were the other artists that tried to get onstage but got stopped by the bouncers. Can you imagine if three different artists, unrelated to each other, had got up there? It was a perfect moment of rock’n’roll bedlam, followed by shouting and noticing that my chairman, who was the very respected head of Polygram UK, was standing on his chair shouting him on whilst this thing erupted in front of us.”

Watch the stage invasion below - Jarvis appears on the scene at the 4'57 mark:

What happened next was that Cocker was accused by Jackson’s team of injuring one of the child dancers during his little stage invasion. When Marot got backstage, he saw Jarvis being carted off to the police station. 

“I realised it was my duty to make sure he was alright and his situation was alright, so Nick and I went back into the auditorium to try and find a sober lawyer, which was really difficult by that point in the proceedings,” he said. “I found a lawyer called John Statham, a very seasoned and experienced lawyer who was sober enough and volunteered to help. Nick had signed Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer and we’d had that number one single, Dizzy, and Bob and Vic were at one of our tables as well – we had a pretty good set of tables – and Bob Mortimer, with the caveat that he was a conveyancing lawyer – said he’d come along and try to help. So the four of us got in a taxi, John Statham, Nick Angel, me and Bob Mortimer, got in a taxi and went to the police station. Nick was a bit pissed. He’s a very bullish, strong character, and Bob Mortimer was a bit pissed too and they were remonstrating with the duty officer and at one point the duty officer said to John Statham and I, ‘If your friends don’t back off, I’m gonna put them in the fucking cell too!”. Outside the police station, Vic Reeves was there with a sign saying “Free the Jarvis One”, a reference to “free the Birmingham six”. We didn’t succeed in getting Jarvis out.” 

Cocker, of course, was cleared when a video emerged showing that it was one of Jackson’s security guards who’d pushed into the child rather than the Pulp man, a startled Cocker looking back over the incident at a press conference that made the evening news. Pulp’s legacy is built on their kitchen-sink anthems and Britpop singalongs, no doubt about that, but this tale is definitely one of their more entertaining sidenotes…

Bring Me The Horizon have won the Alternative/Rock Act award at the BRIT Awards. 

The Sheffield metalcore band triumphed over The Rolling Stones, Blur, Young Fathers and Yussef Dayes in the fan-voted category at the British music industry's premier awards evening, held at London's O2 Arena tonight (March 2).

Accepting the award from actors Luke Evans and Marisa Abela in front of a bored-looking industry crowd who could barely be bothered to look up at the stage or pause their conversations, frontman Oli Sykes paid tribute to the group's loyal fans, saying, "Cheers to the BRITs for making the voting system so complicated that only our fans could be arsed to vote!"

Sykes also went on to thank the band's families and management, casually throwing in some industrial language - an early "Fuck!", an admission that winning the award was "fucking insane... er... bloody insane" - in his acceptance speech to ensure that someone somewhere will log a complaint with broadcasters ITV, because that's how these things work. 

For years, there have been complaints about Bring Me The Horizon - and metal in general - being ignored at the BRIT Awards time after time. The band did, however, take part in the 2022 ceremony, performing onstage with Ed Sheeran. 

Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong and Tre Cool also appeared as guest presenters at tonight's ceremony, to present the Best Group award to Jungle.

The Last Dinner Party won the Rising Star award, which was not featured on the TV broadcast, while Boygenius won the International Group Award, a category in in which Blink-182, Foo Fighters, Paramore and Gabriels were also nominated.

The Mastercard-sponsored Awards also featured live performances by award-winners Raye, Dua Lipa, Kylie Minogue, Jungle and more, lots of shout-outs to Jesus, several weak jokes about alcohol consumption, and no jokes whatsoever about the use of credit cards in the O2 arena's toilets.

Raye's record-winning triumph in six categories - which included Best Artist, Album of The Year and Single Of The Year - will doubtless cause some embarrassment within the British music industry given that, in 2021, the London R&B singer had to publicly beg on Twitter to be released from her major label deal with Polydor after being barred from releasing an album during her seven years with the label. Released independently in 2023, My 21st Century Blues subsequently became a Top 10 album in 20 countries, including the UK and US.

This year’s BRIT Awards with Mastercard will take place on Saturday, March 2 - the first time the long-running ceremony has taken place over a weekend since it debuted back in 1977.

Artists including Foo Fighters, Paramore, Bring Me The Horizon, Blink-182, the Rolling Stones and Blur are up for awards, with the entire evening’s ceremony set to be broadcast live in the UK on ITV1 and ITVX from London’s O2 Arena from 8.30pm BST.

If you’re going to be out of the UK on the night, you'll still be able to stream all the evening's action through a VPN.

Speaking about this year’s ceremony, managing director and president of promotions at Atlantic Records and chair of the BRIT committee Damian Christian said on the official BRIT’s website: “This year's BRIT nominees really highlight the incredible breadth and diversity within British music. 

"From breaking artists to returning greats, and with artists spanning so many genres, this year's shortlist really feels like it has it all.”

How to watch the 2024 BRIT Awards in the UK

The Brits will be broadcast live from the O2 in London on Saturday, March 2, with the awards kicking off at 8.30pm. If you’re in the UK, you can watch live either on ITV1 or ITVX.

If you're on holiday outside of the UK and don't want to miss the live broadcast, you can watch it live with the help of a VPN. Find details below.

How to watch the BRIT Awards from anywhere

If you're going to be outside the UK on holiday or travelling with work and don't want to miss the 2024 BRIT Awards, don't worry, as you'll still be able to watch with a VPN.

Virtual Private Networks are used to change the location of your IP address, enabling you to watch the BRITS outside of the UK. Express VPN is our service of choice and it's available with a 30-day trial.

How to use a VPN

1. Install a VPN. As we've mentioned above, ExpressVPN is Louder's favourite.

2. Choose the location you wish to connect to in the VPN. If you're currently outside the UK on holiday and want to watch the BRIT Awards, just select 'UK' from the list.

3. Turn the volume up and relax. You're all set to watch the evening's entertainment live from London's O2.

BRIT Awards 2024 nominations

Alternative/Rock Act

Blur
Bring Me The Horizon
The Rolling Stones
Young Fathers
Yussef Dayes

Group Of The Year

Blur
Chase & Status
Headie One & K-Trap
Jungle
Young Fathers

International Group Of The Year

Blink-182
Boygenius
Foo Fighters
Gabriels
Paramore

Album Of The Year

Blur - The Ballad of Darren
J Hus - Beautiful And Brutal Yard
Little Simz - NO THANK YOU
RAYE - My 21st Century Blues
Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy

Dance Act

Barry Can't Swim
Becky Hill
Calvin Harris
Fred again..
Romy

Hip Hop/Grime/Rap Act

CASISDEAD
Central Cee
Dave
J Hus
Little Simz

Artist Of The Year

Arlo Parks
Central Cee
Dave
Dua Lipa
Fred again..
J Hus
Jessie Ware
Little Simz
Olivia Dean
RAYE

International Artist Of The Year

Asake
Burna Boy
Caroline Polachek
CMAT
Kylie Minogue
Lana Del Rey
Miley Cyrus
Olivia Rodrigo
SZA
Taylor Swift

Best New Artist

Mahalia
Olivia Dean
PinkPantheress
RAYE
Yussef Dayes

Pop Act

Calvin Harris
Charli XCX
Dua Lipa
Olivia Dean
RAYE

Brits 2024 performances

While the Brits is mostly a pop-focused event, that doesn't mean there won't be performances worth tuning in for if you're of the rockier persuasion. Just two years ago, Bring Me The Horizon stormed the stage with Ed Sheeran for a pummelling version of Sheeran's track Bad Habits. And last year Wet Leg took to the stage for a rousing performance of Chaise Longue.

For 2024, performers include Raye, Dua Lipa and Kylie Minogue, plus electronic music duo Jungle. 

Known for its collaborative performances, this year the Brits will also play host to star turns from Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding, and Becky Hill will join Chase & Status on stage.

Welsh rockers Skindred have picked up the Best Alternative Music Act prize at this evening's MOBO Awards ceremony, held at the Utilita Arena in Sheffield.

Skindred beat out stiff competition from Alt Blk Era, Arlo Parks, Deijuvhs, Kid Bookie, and Young Fathers to pick up the prize from London duo Nova Twins, whose open letter to MOBO organisers in 2020 prompted the introduction of a indie and rock-oriented category for the first time in 2022. 

"Thank you so much," said Skindred frontman Benji Webb upon accepting the award. "You know what? This band Skindred have been going 23 years. I said 23 years! 23 years with the same lineup! We've been through pain and tribulation, we've been through hard times and fun times. 

"We wanna thank [category sponsor] Marshall for putting us on this stage tonight, our families, our wives, all the people in our lives. Big up Newport! Big up The MOBOs! Thanks you so very much! Skindred in the area!"

At the last MOBO ceremony, held in late 2022, London grime-punk duo Bob Vylan made history as the first band to win the newly introduced Best Alternative Music Act category. The pairing - comprised of frontman Bobby Vylan and drummer Bobbie Vylan - beat out competition from Nova Twins, Skunk Anansie, Loathe, Kid Bookie and Big Joanie.

Other winners at the year's MOBOs include Tunde, who won the Best Newcomer award, mysterious collective Sault, who picked up the Best R&B/Soul Act prize, and Bugzy Malone, who walked away with the Best Grime Act gong.

The ceremony was hosted by Indiyah Polack & Babatúndém Aléshé.

The official nominations for this year's Brit Awards have been revealed, and some sizeable rock and metal artists have been recognised. This year's Alternative/Rock Act category sees nominations for Blur, Bring Me The Horizon, The Rolling Stones, Young Fathers and Yussef Dayes, with Blur and Young Fathers also receiving nods in the Group Of The Year category alongside electronic acts Chase & Status and Jungle and rap duo Headie One and K-Trap. 

Both Blur and Young Fathers are also nominated in the Album Of The Year list for The Ballad Of Darren and Heavy Heavy respectively. Meanwhile, Paramore, Foo Fighters, boygenius, Gabriels and Blink-182 make up the rock-heavy International Group Of The Year category. 

Elsewhere it's very much business as usual for the Brits, with Calvin Harris, Dua Lipa, Raye, Lana Del Rey, Kylie Minogue and Taylor Swift amongst the major names also nominated.

The Brit Awards 2024 take place March 2 in London. See the full list of nominations below.

Brits 2024 nominations

Alternative/Rock Act

Blur
Bring Me The Horizon
The Rolling Stones
Young Fathers
Yussef Dayes

Group Of The Year

Blur
Chase & Status
Headie One & K-Trap
Jungle
Young Fathers

International Group Of The Year

Blink-182
Boygenius
Foo Fighters
Gabriels
Paramore

Album Of The Year

Blur - The Ballad of Darren
J Hus - Beautiful And Brutal Yard
Little Simz - NO THANK YOU
RAYE - My 21st Century Blues
Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy

Dance Act

Barry Can't Swim
Becky Hill
Calvin Harris
Fred again..
Romy

Hip Hop/Grime/Rap Act

CASISDEAD
Central Cee
Dave
J Hus
Little Simz

Artist Of The Year

Arlo Parks
Central Cee
Dave
Dua Lipa
Fred again..
J Hus
Jessie Ware
Little Simz
Olivia Dean
RAYE

International Artist Of The Year

Asake
Burna Boy
Caroline Polachek
CMAT
Kylie Minogue
Lana Del Rey
Miley Cyrus
Olivia Rodrigo
SZA
Taylor Swift

Best New Artist

Mahalia
Olivia Dean
PinkPantheress
RAYE
Yussef Dayes

Pop Act

Calvin Harris
Charli XCX
Dua Lipa
Olivia Dean
RAYE

Skindred, Arlo Parks and Young Fathers have been included among the nominees for the Best Alternative Music Act at the 2024 MOBO Awards.

The three will battle it out with Kid Bookie, Alt Blk Era and Deijuvhs in the category, held in association with Marshall, which was initiated at the 25th staging of the UK's biggest and most prestigious celebration of black music and culture, held on November 30, 2022: Bob Vylan took home the first ever award in the category.

Little Simz and Stormzy have both received 4 nominations for the 2024 Awards, which will be staged at the Utilita Arena Sheffield on February 7.

Simz has been nominated for Best Female Act (in association with Shea Moisture), Album of the Year, Video of The Year and Best Hip Hop Act. Stormzy is nominated for Best Male Act, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Video of the Year.

PinkPantheress, RAYE, Central Cee and J Hus each have three nominations.

The eligibility period for the 26th MOBO Awards is from September 1, 2022 – August 31, 2023.

MOBO Founder Kanya King CBE, says, “We are proud to champion this year’s incredible lineup of nominees for the 26th MOBO Awards, who have all brought stellar music and content to our attention through their remarkable work in music, film, TV, online and more. Since 1996, we've celebrated Black music and culture, breaking new ground and leading the way, seeing MOBO evolve and innovate to champion outstanding talent beyond music. This year’s nominees not only represent the best of their genre and artform and an incredible year of music, but also continue our dedication to sustaining an inclusive ecosystem where diverse talent is both recognised and empowered to thrive!”

Limited tickets for next year's ceremony are available here.

When Jimmy Page appeared at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame ceremony last month, it was his first live performance since 2011, when he'd guested with Donovan, the Black Crowes and Roy Harper at three shows.

In the decade prior, Page had been a little busier. There was Led Zeppelin's historic Celebration Day show at London's O2 in 2007, of course. And his jubilant turn with John Paul Jones as the pair played with Foo Fighters at Wembley Stadium the following year. But one performance isn't looked back on with such rose-tinted affection.

In 2001, the MTV Europe Music Awards were held in Frankfurt. Limp Bizkit won three awards, beating Destiny's Child, Gorillaz, R.E.M. and U2 in the Best Group category, while Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water picked up the prize for best album, and the band's website won the inaugural (and short-lived) Web Award. Guitarist Wes Borland had left the band previous month, and frontman Fred Durst needed some musical support for his performance at the show, so he called on Puddle Of Mudd frontman Wes Scantlin... and Jimmy Page.

The performance begins with Durst and Scantlin seated onstage. They play Led Zeppelin's Thank You, with Scantlin delivering a rather clunky version of Page's guitar part. Durst sings and it's OK. Scantlin joins in on the chorus and their voices work well together. And then it's time for the special guest.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," says Durst. "Mr Jimmy Page. The one and only."

Page strolls on with a double-neck acoustic guitar, and it falls apart. His loose style is at odds with Scantlin's stiff approach, and the pair drift apart almost immediately, struggling to stay in sync with each other. Sometimes it sounds like they're competing. Occasionally, it feels like one of those viral YouTube videos where someone has replaced the original live audio with a badly-played substitute. You know, for the LOLs. 

Feedback beneath the YouTube clip is not kind. 

"Just watched and listened to the desecration of a great song," writes shark3939, while alexandergenov adds, "When you talk about the poor performance of Led Zeppelin at Live Aid, wait till you hear this one."

"Having Jimmy Page on was a bad move," says stephenprice154. "It just accentuated what terrible musicians they are. Durst can't sing and Scantlin has no sense of rhythm."

"Jimmy Page is my hero but this is not good," adds briano.5746, as djmoisesmancera simply says, "Worst version ever. Shame." 

We shouldn’t be surprised, should we? The nominees for the Grammy Award For Best Metal Performance were announced this afternoon, and they were – to put it politely – predominantly boring. Metallica’s 72 Seasons, Slipknot’s Hive Mind, Disturbed’s Bad Man, Ghost’s Phantom Of The Opera and Spiritbox’s Jaded are the five contenders for the big gold gramophone in 2024. It’s a list of names that should represent the most gifted, relevant and beloved bands in all of heavy music today. Instead, it’s a mostly uninspired series of former winners that broadly reaffirms not the musical excellence of those named, but the apathy (at best) or contempt (at worst) the music industry’s biggest awards ceremony has for the metal scene.

Of course, saying “The Grammys are getting heavy metal wrong” is about as revolutionary as saying “The world keeps on turning.” Ever since the Recording Academy started recognising hard rock and heavy metal in 1989, they’ve been messing it up, with the ghost of them giving a prize to Jethro Tull over Metallica still haunting the institution. However – with the world of metal currently full to bursting with bands that are both making innovative music and on the cusp of breaking through – this continual misunderstanding has never been more inexcusable.

Now, to be fair to the Academy, they’ve not screwed up 100 percent of the time. Baroness getting nodded for Best Metal Performance in 2017 was a pleasant surprise, as was Mastodon winning it the following year with the superb Emperor Of Sand. Even this year, seeing Spiritbox listed alongside Metallica, Slipknot and Ghost inspires a warm feeling in the tummy, as they’re a legitimately fresh and popular force who likely have their best material ahead of them.

Every admirable choice the Grammys have made, though, can be countered with a dozen lazy or downright baffling ones: Metallica getting nominated again and again, Tenacious D winning by covering Dio on acoustic guitars, the Best Metal Performance ceremony not being televised since 1992…

Right now, Metallica are promoting the most middle-of-the-road material of their career, with 72 Seasons lacking the urgency and dynamic range of their halcyon days. If the Four Horsemen hadn’t made it, would the judging panel care? The same can be asked about Slipknot, members of whom have even admitted that their new album – The End, So Far – was rushed. Ghost aren’t even being nominated for a song they came up with, for crying out loud!

The list of bands more deserving of being on the podium of Best Metal Performance in 2024 is incredibly long and not that difficult to drum up. UK up-and-comers Urne released one of the finest collections of riffs of the year, A Feast On Sorrow, in August; In Flames returned to form with the blistering melodeath of Foregone in February; Crypta are rising monarchs in pan-American death metal and a Grammy nod for Shades Of Sorrow would affirm their place; Elder’s Innate Passage, released late last year, is a dreamscape of stoner riffs and hypnotic melodies. Worthy lineups will vary depending on which metalhead you talk to, but it’s a pretty safe guarantee most of them will come up with something better than what the Grammys did.

It’s easy to answer the hypothetical list we’ve just proposed with the counterargument, “Well, the Grammys would never touch bands like that anyway – they’re too small!” And that’s the problem, isn’t it? Heavy metal is intrinsically anti-mainstream and the number of bands we had when it was commercially viable is shrinking by the day. The Grammys’ desperate clinging to the last vestiges of metal’s “big” bands, in hopes of those artists’ fans paying attention, is increasingly outdated and frustrating.

What we’re left with is that the annual announcement of heavy music’s Grammy nominees, now, is nothing more than metalheads’ most regular dosage of outrage porn. It serves no one: Metallica, Slipknot and Disturbed are too big to benefit from another trophy in their cabinets, while the Grammys never look good for simply maintaining the status quo and the bands that could do with some gold are too far under the ceremony’s radar.

All is not lost, however. There are two ways the Grammys’ relationship with the heavy metal underbelly could improve. Option number one is just burn that bridge: metalheads don’t take the Grammys seriously, nor do they take us seriously, so let’s just go our separate ways and let the music industry’s pop juggernauts pat each other’s backs every February.

The second option, however, is the far more interesting one: the Grammys actually start acknowledging newer and/or underground talent. They’re already a fifth of the way there this year with Spiritbox, so it’s not completely impossible. If the Best Metal Performance slate for 2025 included one or two old names alongside – let’s say – Green Lung, Svalbard and Caligula’s Horse, diehard metalheads would suddenly be far more invested. Meanwhile, those on the fringes, only familiar with the aforementioned old names, would have a motive to look up the younger bands. It’s not like sacrificing one or two hard rock veterans would cost the Grammys TV ratings, right?

Right now, the Grammys are trapped in a limbo between trying to diminish the achievements of heavy metal and capitalise on it by throwing some gold its way every year. It’s an approach that works for no one. Either use music’s biggest prize to foster a future for the music metalheads hold so dear, or let’s just end this regular rage cycle here and now.

• How to watch the Grammys from anywhere

Jimmy Page made his first live appearance in 12 years with a surprise appearance at the 2023 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony.

The former Led Zeppelin guitarist was part of a tribute to late rock’n’roll guitarist Link Wray, who was inducted into the Hall Of Fame at this year’s ceremony, held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on November 4.

Page appeared in a video tribute to the guitarist, who died in 2005, alongside Iggy Pop, the late Jeff Beck and The Band guitarist Robbie Robertson, who passed away earlier in 2023.

After the video finished, Page himself appeared onstage holding his iconic double-necked Gibson to play Wray’s signature song, Rumble. 

Page’s last appearance onstage was in 2011, when he made a guest appearance with Roy Harper at London’s Royal Festival Hall, duetting on the song The Same Old Rock. 

At the same ceremony, singer and guitarist St Vincent cover Kate Bush‘s Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God), in honour of the British singer, who was also inducted.

Bush did not attend the ceremony, instead sending a letter explaining her absence.

Bush wrote: “I’m afraid I won’t be able to attend the ceremony tonight, but for me the real honour is knowing that you felt I deserved it. The RRHOF has welcomed me into the most extraordinary rostrum of overwhelming talent.” 

The singer also paid tribute to Bernie Taupin, Elton John’s longtime lyricist, who received the Award For Musical Excellence.

“I poured over his music, longed to be able to play piano like him and longed to write songs that could move people in the way his work moved me. That little girl in South East London could never have dreamed she’d be sharing the event tonight with Bernie Taupin, Elton’s writing partner, an incredible lyricist who inspired me to keep writing songs – to keep trying. Congratulations Bernie! Congratulations to everyone who is being inducted tonight!”

John himself presented Taupin with the award, saying: “Our success story is what it is, you all know. Through the years we grew and we grew and we grew. We climbed mountains that we never thought were possible to climb, and we scaled heights that we never thought were possible to scale.

“And throughout that time, we never ever really had an argument. He was disgusted with my behavior, yes, that’s a given. But to this day, we are still growing as a partnership.”

Rage Against The Machine were also inducted into the Hall Of Fame. Guitarist Tom Morello told the audience: “The job we set out to do is not over. Now you’re the ones that must testif. If you’ve got a boss, join a union. If you’re a student, start underground paper. If you’re an anarchist, throw a brick. If you’re a soldier or a cop, follow your conscience not your orders. If you’re bummed out that you didn’t get to see Rage Against The Machine, then form your own band, and let’s hear what you have to say.”

The full list of artists inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame this year are Kate Bush. Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, George Michael, Willie Nelson, Rage Against The Machine and The Spinners.

Link Wray and hip hop pioneer DJ Kool Herc were inducted into the Musical Excellence category, while Bernie Taupin, Al Kooper and Chaka Khan were given the Award For Musical Excellence. 

On February 15, 2016, Alice Cooper's Hollywood Vampires paid tribute to Lemmy by performing Ace Of Spades as a posthumous tribute to Motörhead's legendary leader, who passed away just 6 weeks earlier, on December 28, 2015, aged 70.

The night also featured tribute to other iconic musicians who had passed away in 2015, including David Bowie and Glenn Frey. After the event, however, the show's producer, Ken Ehrlich, admitted that he hadn't actually planned the tribute to Motörhead's frontman, but had been pushed into it by one of Lemmy's closest friends.

"I will confess I didn’t have a lot of Motörhead on my iPad," he told Billboard. "The metalheads have Dave Grohl to thank for that, because when I asked Dave if he would introduce that segment, he said, 'I’ll do it – if you do something for Lemmy'."

That Lemmy would otherwise been overlooked at the music industry's most high-profile annual event would have come as no surprise whatsoever to the great man.

Few bands were less interested in playing the corporate game than Motörhead. In 1992, when the band were nominated for the first time at the Grammys, with 1916 included in the Best Metal Performance category, it was a rare gesture of acknowledgement from an industry which had largely sought to keep a safe, respectable distance from the band. Given that his band have been ripped off, dismissed and patronized within the industry for decades, Lemmy viewed the accolade - and the ceremony itself - with a certain amount of wry detachment, witheringly observing "everyone was dressed in hired penguin tuxedos, trying to look as much as possible like the motherfuckers who were stealing their money."

"We don't play the game," Lemmy snorted. "I had a great speech ready in the event we had won. I was going to say, I'm not going to thank anybody. None of you fuckers have ever given us a hand. You didn't do anything."

Sadly, the assembled suits never got to hear this wry tribute, as Motörhead lost out on the night to Metallica's self-titled 'Black' album. Ironically when they did finally win a Grammy, in 2005, they did so with a cover of Metallica's Whiplash, the second time they were nominated for covering a track by a band who took so much influence from them, having also been nominated in 1999 for their version of Enter Sandman.

"They got the knife in even then," sniffed an unimpressed Lemmy after being informed of Motörhead's triumph. "It was like, 'We still don't think you're any good, but we gotta give you an award cos you've been going for 30 fucking years'."

Lemmy: the most honest man in the music business until the day he died.

Metallica’s Kirk Hammett recently paid tribute to prog rock’s impact on heavy metal - but he probably wasn’t in the same mood when Jethro Tull infamously “robbed” his band of a Grammy in 1989. Former Tull guitarist Martin Barre offered Prog his take on the surprise moment in 2017.

In a flash, Martin Barre replies: “July.” The question was when did he realise he was being sidelined in the band to which he had devoted himself for over four decades. His follow-up is telling. “It would be two thousand and… you probably know the year more than I do,” he continues, grasping for detail.

“I tried to eradicate it from my mind,” he concedes, laughing.

It was July 31, 2011, at Munich’s Circus Krone that Jethro Tull played their last show, sending Barre into an uncertain future. “Me and Doane [Perry, Tull’s drummer of 27 years] were told weeks before ‘the event’,” he explains with mock portentousness. “It was a shock and an unpleasant position to be in because I had no plans.

“When you play with Jethro Tull, you’re committing everything to doing that job. You’re committing the year you’re doing it, and the next year, and the year after that, and hopefully you’ve projected as much into the future as you can foresee. And then when the carpet’s pulled from under your feet, you have absolutely nothing.”

Ringmaster Ian Anderson had been planning the next act for some time before that night at the circus in Munich, and was already beginning to exclude the guitarist from his next billing well in advance.

“There were suspicions that something was going to happen,” muses Barre with the gift of hindsight. “There was a lot of talk of touring Thick As A Brick in its entirety, and I know Ian was talking to the other guys [John O’Hara, piano; Dave Goodier, bass] about playing it and I naïvely thought it strange that he hadn’t talked to me about it. I thought, ‘He doesn’t need to because he knows that I know all the music and the other guys would have to learn it.’ This was about a year before Jethro Tull finished and, of course, the penny dropped eventually.”

The shock and subsequent tremors from this seismic shift in Barre’s life were profound and left him in upheaval, needing to jump-start his music career from a standing stop. In recent times he has progressed and is more philosophical about ‘the event’.

“I can talk about it now. Four years ago I would’ve spent the rest of the afternoon being really depressed, but now I can talk about it as something that’s just fact,” he reveals with typically self-deprecating detachment.

The feelings of all those concerned are not a matter of public interest or debate – after all, these were relationships and friendships that endured for decades, and continue to do so in some cases. The guitarist sums up his current state of mind on the episode: “I’m not going to say how I felt or how it happened and all the emotions behind it on all sides because that’s private and people don’t need to know. Plus, I’m past it. I’ve moved on completely. I won’t let that affect my life any more.”

Martin Lancelot Barre joined Jethro Tull in 1968. Over the Christmas of that year, he learned the material that would become their second album, Stand Up. He and Anderson represented the core of the band over the course of another 19 studio records, culminating with solstitial synchronicity in 2003’s The Jethro Tull Christmas Album.

While the ‘Tull sound’ is instantly recognisable, due in large part to Anderson’s distinctive voice, scholarly lyrics and virtuoso flute, the stylistic shifts over the decades have been many and varied: from folk to blues, prog to medieval minstrelsy, radio and MTV-friendly rock to metal. Metal? Really? The Grammy Committee famously caused a stir when they nominated Crest Of A Knave for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance in 1989. The controversy is the stuff of legend, with Metallica fans baying for justice, but Barre is proud of the award.

“It was unfortunately misplaced in a very awkward section of music they’d come up with,” he explains. “They’re certainly two different categories of music and they unfortunately threw them together for that one year. It laid it open to misinterpretation.

“Metallica fitted the bill for that genre and were expected to win, which is why we didn’t go to the ceremony. We thought, ‘Well, we got a nice little certificate that says we’ve been nominated – that’s nice, I’ll put that on the wall.’ Then, on the night, we got a phone call and I was completely bowled over. I was mainly upset I wasn’t there. At that one period in time, when something really significant and important happened to the band, we weren’t there to enjoy it. That went down badly, of course. People assumed we couldn’t be bothered to be there, which just wasn’t the case.”

At home in England, far from the glitz and pageantry of the ceremony, something had to be done to mark the band riding the crest of a wave.

“My wife, being a very resourceful person, phoned everybody we knew,” recounts Barre. “I found out at 11 o’clock at night, and by half past 12 we had about 30 people at our house, drinking champagne and raving! It was the right thing to do. I’m really proud of it and I’m glad we had the one little window in our career where we had a good album, we were fairly important in the music world, and people recognised us for that alone.”

Although classifying Jethro Tull as metal would be a genre leap too far, they have consistently reinvented their sound. Looking back now on that diverse catalogue, does Barre have a particular fondness for any era?

“I loved them all!” he exclaims like a proud parent. “I always perceived that Tull had a constant – that would be me and Ian – and they had variables, people that joined the band. Some of them left for various reasons. They came and went but they left behind their influences for the period that they were in the band.”

So these changes in musical style didn’t come from Anderson as the main writer, but by the cross‑pollination of ideas between the line-up at any given time, and the many journeyman collaborators?

“Certainly Dave Pegg brought in a huge folk influence. David Palmer brought a classical influence. Eddie Jobson, maybe prog?” he ponders, quizzically. “I don’t know. His style of music was very, very upfront on the A album. His virtuoso playing was a really big influence, particularly for me, but also for Ian. His songwriting was guided by taking on board these extra musicians and it was a refreshing thing for all of us to have these challenges.”

Not all of the musical challenges Jethro Tull faced were so refreshing. With age and experience come the ravages of time, the physical slowing down of the body, and for a singer, a change in timbre that isn’t always for the better. In later years, Anderson’s voice diminished in power and range. This must have presented difficulties not only for the singer but for the band as a whole, particularly when they were playing old favourites live.

“It’s something Ian dealt with himself and it was very, very gradual,” explains Barre sympathetically. “It’s a terrible thing to have happen to you that you don’t want, isn’t your fault and affects something you do with great passion and great importance in a huge way. Everybody has to be prepared to make compromises. It was only in the late years of Tull that it was really becoming apparent. Ian got round it by singing the lines slightly differently and altering the keys in a couple of cases, but then you’re chasing your tail really.”

Barre, who recently celebrated his 70th birthday, feels that he’s getting better with age and has been spared such debilitating distress.

“I feel I’ve improved a huge amount since Tull finished, just as a player and certainly as a writer. My fingers at the moment are good, but you get people of my age with arthritis and it must be really horrible to want to play so badly and some physical thing prevents you from doing what you really love.

“People say they’re happy with their body. Well, I say I’m happy with my fingers,” he chuckles wryly.

There’s a pathos in Martin Barre’s voice when he’s talking about his sparring partner of 43 years. Now that his future as a solo artist is presenting itself and the hurt has dissipated, does he feel that there’s any chance of reconciliation and musical reunion at some point in the future?

“We don’t communicate and we’re very established in our minds that we’ve gone separate ways,” he counters, putting such notions firmly in the drawer marked ‘Nostalgia’. “Every month, every year we’re going in different directions. At first I was always aware of what Ian was doing but now it doesn’t affect me at all because I’m so far removed musically that we don’t clash. We’re not in competition.

“With my band I’m sort of doing what Jethro Tull was trying to do 40 years ago – a really dynamic, powerful band getting into the marketplace – and I think I’m encapsulating that spirit of Tull from the very early days when there was all this enthusiasm and we were fighting for every inch of concert space. Ian’s going in a more formal direction, more instrumental, using playback, using string quartets. Musically, we’re not connected at all.

“We had a long time together. I don’t have any regrets and hopefully that’s the same for everybody. I meet up with some other guys from Tull and they’re very good friends – Clive Bunker and Paul Burgess. That friendship is still there.”

Some of the friendships that have endured the storms over the years are about to bear fruit as part of the half-century celebrations. The guitarist reveals to Prog that the Martin Barre Band are planning an extensive series of 50th-anniversary shows in 2018. The announcement comes in the wake of his own milestone 70th anniversary. Martin Lancelot Barre has fought for his right to party and he’s going to damn well exercise it.

“I was 70 years old a month ago and it was a big deal for me – I celebrated it like there was no tomorrow! I had three parties and I thought, ‘You know what? It’s something to stand on a chair and shout out loud.’ It’s the same for everybody – whatever milestone there is in life, it should be celebrated, because otherwise what’s life about?

“It’s the same in music. If there’s a 50th anniversary, that’s a really amazing accomplishment. I’m really glad that you’re doing this article because it’s historically really important and that’s why I’m planning something because I presume that’s all that’s going to happen. I’ve heard of nothing else either by the record label or anybody at all. I’m not going to let it pass. It’s going to be a labour of love. It’s a musical adventure I’m really going to have fun with.”

Barre is not a man to rest on past glories – he’s constantly rearranging much-loved songs, dusting them down from tip to toe to give them a fresh livery. The Tull tunes he picks for his setlist are often not the usual suspects, and he doesn’t like to tour without having fresh material to present to an audience.

“I always put two, three, four new bits of music in every time we go on the road because that was always the problem in the latter days of Tull – we had such a restrictive setlist and we were going back on tour with virtually the same setlist year after year. Even the fans were beginning to moan!

“As loyal as Tull fans are, it was beginning to be a bit of a problem for me because there’s so much Tull music that hasn’t been played for years and years, and really deserves to be.”

It’s apt that a musician famed for helping bring medieval stylings into the rock format should be undergoing his own renaissance. He’s relishing reconnecting with the audience on his own terms, rather than from behind the cape of his erstwhile frontman.

“I’ve rediscovered I actually like talking about music,” he enthuses. “In Tull, the five guys had a lot to say musically and a lot to say about themselves, about the band, but Ian traditionally became the spokesperson. The whole journey is re-establishing yourself in communication and talking to people. At the end of the show I go and sign CDs, which Tull never did, and I get to meet fans. It’s a rebirth and I’m enjoying everything about it.”

The people Barre has been meeting, connecting or reconnecting with have been relaying to him just what was so important about Jethro Tull, why the band endure, and why they should be celebrated 50 years on.

“The feedback I get is that people grew up with Tull and they really appreciated whatever it gave them – it was a positive experience,” he divulges. “The legacy of all those albums will be there forever. I don’t think it has a sell-by date, which a lot of modern music does. Why it does is not for me to explain or to analyse but I believe that’s the case. Obviously that’s why I exist as a working musician, as does Ian, because that legacy carries on and younger audiences are being introduced to the music through their elders and they want to come and see the concerts.”

So how does Martin Barre assess that past from a personal perspective?

“That’s 43 years of my life and it’s important,” he says. “I don’t brush it off lightly or as if it never happened. It has an important place in music history but I make a living by being a musician, by what I’m doing today and what I’m planning for the future.”

Music historians will remember the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards less for who took home 'Moonman' trophies than for the tense pre-show face-off between the Nirvana and Guns N' Roses camps. But for Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis the night was memorable for an entirely different reason.

The night promised to be a significant one for the Los Angeles funk-rock quartet, who were then riding high on the success of their Rick Rubin-produced fifth album, 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik. The Chilis were actually the most nominated artists of the evening, having secured six nominations for French film-maker Stéphane Sednaoui's striking video for the album's first single, Give It Away, plus an additional three nominations for Gus Van Sant's more low-key and intimate video for Under The Bridge, which had peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The band were also scheduled to perform on the night, alongside industry big-hitters including U2, Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses and Michael Jackson, plus their 1991 touring partners Pearl Jam and Nirvana.

In the end, Kiedis, Flea, John Frusciante and Chad Smith would share the 'artist of the night' spotlight with fellow Californian rockers Van Halen, with both bands picking up three 'Moonmen'. It was when the group collected the Best Art Direction In A Video award for Under The Bridge that matters took a surreal turn, when Kiedis began his acceptance speech with the words, "First of all I'd like to thank Satan..." before going on to pay respects to Louis Armstrong, Neil Young, the Rollins Band, Bob Marley, the Marx Brothers and more. 

As the singer recalled in his 2004 autobiography Scar Tissue, one TV viewer who was distinctly unimpressed by his throwaway joke was his devout Christian grandmother, who informed Kiedis' family that she wished to disown him.

"I had to write Granny a postcard on her eightieth birthday, explaining that I wasn't really a Satanist," the suitably chastened vocalist admitted.

The matter didn't end there, however. Two Christian groups, one running the Christ In Prophecy website, the other curating the Good Fight Ministries YouTube channel, seized upon the joke as evidence that the Chili Peppers were in league with The One With Horns.

Misidentifying both Kiedis and the year of the awards ceremony, the Christ In Prophecy website warned, "The true Satan has no interest in blessing anyone, except for the purpose of ensnaring their souls, and there will be no partying in Hell", while the evangelical Christians behind the Good Fight Ministries channel proclaimed, "Sadly, like so many artists who are leading the masses away from God, and to Hell, the Red Hot Chili Peppers pay homage to Satan, are being used by the Satanic powers of darkness." The voiceover then refers to Give It Away as a "perverted" song, and declares John Frusciante to be an "occultist."

"Satanism and demonic possession is common in the entertainment world," the voiceover continues, "as Satan seeks to use artists as puppets to adversely influence the blind masses to do things like destructive drugs and engage in sexual perversion."

To be fair here, the Good Fight Ministries does seem to have quite an extensive list of souls in need of salvation, with their YouTube channel videos also calling out the Harry Potter films, Marvel, High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens, Megan Fox, and, as far as we can tell, the green Power Ranger.

If Kiedis is a Satanist then, at least he won't be short of company in hell. 

On April 18, 2013, Rush were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, at a star-studded ceremony at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles.

The band were inducted into the Rock Hall by Foo Fighters duo Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins, both self-confessed Rush nerds. In his speech, Grohl talked about his introduction to Rush in 1976 via a "cool stoner older cousin" who handed him a copy of 2112, an album he hailed as "heavy shit." He then pulled up a photo of the band in white kimonos and skin-tight 'pants' - "the most infamous band photo of all time" - and joked that, all these years later, the image of Alex Lifeson could still be found on 'CamelToe.org'.

"If you aren’t into Rush," Spin noted, "the speech is basically like Homer Simpson describing the merits of Grand Funk Railroad. If you are into Rush, this is a validation of your life."

As Rush took to the stage to deliver their acceptance speeches, one might have assumed that would be the end of the evening's 'banter'. Neil Peart thanked the group's road crew, co-producers, friends and family. Geddy Lee spoke of his "two really terrific partners" in the band, and spoke of "the privilege" of making music together. And then Alex Lifeson stepped to the podium, and spent over two minutes saying 'Blah Blah Blah" in a variety of ways, to audience reactions ranging from confusion to hilarity. 

His bandmates, smiling through somewhat forced grins, were not in on the joke. Their reaction afterwards? "They wanted to kill me," said Lifeson. "They were really upset."

The guitarist spoke about the incident in depth in 2019 to writer James McNair for the now defunct Planet Rock magazine. Asked if it was true that his bandmates had no idea of his plans, Lifeson admitted, "I didn’t know myself."

"We had a little rehearsal in the afternoon, just checking the teleprompter was working," he told McNair. "I was reading my speech and trying to memorise it - no easy task when you get to this age. In the end I thought, 'I should just get up and go blah, blah, blah or something.' And then it was, 'Oh my God! Do I actually have the balls to get up there and do that?' So, during the actual show when we were sitting at the table I leaned over to my wife to tell her my plan. Then somebody gave this very serious and grand speech and she was like, 'And you’re gonna blah, blah, blah?'

"I committed to it as I was walking up to the podium," Lifeson continued. "And, yeah, I did have a mischievous smile on my face, because I was thinking to myself, 'Al. You’re gonna do this.' All these people were getting up and giving these long-winded speeches, most of which were really fucking boring. I thought, 'Here we are in The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame - isn’t rock supposed to be irreverent?'

"Geddy and Neil had no idea what was was going on. I think they were confused. I had my back to them and they couldn’t see that I was acting-out the whole story of  Rush and how we got there." 

Lifeson went on to explain that his bandmates didn't initially get the joke... but saw the funny side soon enough.

"They wanted to kill me," he recalled. "They were really upset. They were like, 'What is the matter with you? How could you do that after our heartfelt speeches?' Then the following day I got an email from Neil saying 'I owe you and apology the size of Texas. I am so sorry that I got upset. I’ve been inundated with emails from everybody I know saying, Wasn’t Alex’s speech great?’ So I was vindicated!"

Watch the speech below:

With its flames, cages, horns and all-round Satanic vibes, Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ eye-catching performance of their 2022 hit Unholy was one of the stand-out moments of this year’s Grammys.

Not everyone was impressed – not least actual Satanists. Speaking to TMZ, David Harris, a high-ranking member of the Church Of Satan, dismissed Smith’s performance as “alright” and “nothing particularly special.” Harris pointed out that Smith and Petras weren’t the first artists to uses ‘Satanic’ iconography, comparing it unfavourably to rapper Lil Nas X’s properly ‘blasphemous’ video for Montero (Call Me By Your Name).

Harris also addressed the backlash from right-wing politicians, including Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who described Smith’s performance as ‘evil’, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who used it to peddle anti-vaxx conspiracy theories and claim the Church Of Satan had their own abortion clinic.

“The Grammy’s [sic] featured Sam Smith’s demonic performance and was sponsored by Pfizer,” tweeted Greene. “And the Satanic Church now has an abortion clinic in NM [New Mexico] that requires its patients to perform a Satanic ritual before services.”

The Church of Satan‘s David Harris responded to Greene’s comments, saying: “t's sad when politicians on a national stage use someone's religion as a punchline."

• How to watch the Grammys from anywhere

The nominations for this year's Brit Awards have been announced, with none other than London-based alt-rock duo Nova Twins getting two debut nominations. The two-piece have been nominated in the British Group Of The Year and Best British Rock/Alternative Act category.

Also amongst this year's nominations are Sheffield indie-rockers Arctic Monkeys, Cheshire pop-rock crew The 1975, Isle Of Wight indie-rockers Wet Leg and alt-pop heroine Rina Sawayama.

The two Brits nominations come off the back of an incredible twelve months for Nova Twins, who were also nominated in the first ever Best Alternative category at the 2022 MOBOs, played Glastonbury festival and got to release a special remix of Sam Smith and Kim Petras' chart-smashing hit, Unholy.

See the full list of this year's Brits nominations below. The awards take place Saturday February 11 at the London O2 arena.

Brits nominations 2023

Best British Rock/Alternative Act

The 1975

Arctic Monkeys

Nova Twins

Tom Grennan

Wet Leg

British Group of The Year

The 1975

Arctic Monkeys

Bad Boy Chiller Crew

Nova Twins

Wet Leg

British Song Of The Year

Aitch and Ashanti – Baby

Cat Burns – Go

Dave – Starlight

Ed Sheeran and Elton John – Merry Christmas

Eliza Rose and Interplanetary Criminal – BOTA (Baddest Of Them All)

George Ezra – Green Green Grass

Harry Styles – As It Was

Lewis Capaldi – Forget Me

LF System – Afraid To Feel

Sam Smith and Kim Petras – Unholy

British Artist Of The Year

Central Cee

Fred Again..

George Ezra

Harry Styles

Stormzy

Best New Artist

Kojey Radical

Mimi Webb

Rina Sawayama

Sam Ryder

Wet Leg

International Group Of The Year

Blankpink

Drake & 21 Savage

First Aid Kit

Fontaines D.C.

Gabriels

Best British Pop/R&B Act

Cat Burns

Charli XCX

Dua Lipa

Harry Styles

Sam Smith

Best British Dance Act

Becky Hill

Bonobo

Calvin Harris

Eliza Rose

Fred Again..

Best British Hip-Hop/Grime/Rap Act

Aitch

Central Cee

Dave

Loyle Carner

Stormzy

Beabadoobee, Rina Sawayama, Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls, and Bob Vylan are among the artists who've signed up to play special intimate UK shows in the week before and after the 2023 BRIT Awards in support of the War Child charity.

In each instance, the gigs will take place in venues smaller than those the artists would traditionally book: for example, having sold out London's 4,800-capacity O2 Academy Brixton in October, Beabadoobee will play the 600-capacity Lafayette club on February 3, while Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls, who've previously headlined the 20,000 capacity O2 Arena, will play the significantly smaller 2,000 capacity O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire on February 9. 

Proceeds from each gig will be donated to War Child, which protects, educates, and stands up for the rights of children in war.

The gigs confirmed so far are:

Jan 29: The Hunna, London, Lafayette

Feb 01: Metronomy, London, HERE at Outernet
Feb 02: Years & Years, London, HERE at Outernet
Feb 03: Beabadoobee, London, Lafayette 
Feb 03: Kojey Radical, London, XOYO
Feb 04: Cavetown, London, Omeara
Feb 05: The Snuts – Glasgow, Stereo
Feb 07: easy life, Bristol, Trinity Centre
Feb 07: Sea Girls, London, 100 Club, 
Feb 09: Xtra Mile Recordings 20th Anniversary with Frank Turner + The Sleeping Souls, London, O2 Shepherds Bush Empire,
Feb 10: Rina Sawayama, London, Lafayette
Feb 10: Bob Vylan, London, Omeara

More artists and gigs will be announced in January.

The War Child pre-sale begins at 9am on December 15 for people who subscribe before midnight tomorrow (December 14), and general sale starts at 9am on Friday, December 14. A prize draw to win tickets is also open.

The 2023 BRIT Awards ceremony is scheduled for February 11 at London's O2 Arena.

London grime-punk duo Bob Vylan made history last night (November 30) as the first band to win the MOBO Awards' newly introduced Best Alternative Music Act category. The twosome - comprised of frontman Bobby Vylan and drummer Bobbie Vylan - beat out competition from Nova Twins, Skunk Anansie, Loathe, Kid Bookie and Big Joanie to win the historic award, which was introduced following an open letter penned by Nova Twins in 2020 demanding that the MOBOs recognise rock-oriented musicians of colour.

Acknowledging their nomination for the award back in November, Bob Vylan stated via Instagram: "The DIY, self releasing, top 20 charting, bumboclaating Bob Vylan are nominated for Best Alternative act! It’s not all about awards but to do things on our own terms, our own way and still own all of the rights to the music we release and be acknowledged for our hard work is appreciated. Much love to all the other nominees."

“What a moment this is, it’s a massive win for the alt. community,” stated Nova Twins upon the announcement of the new MOBOs category. “To think back to two years ago, when we wrote our open letter to now, being here celebrating this new category alongside all the amazing artists who help push the genre forward, as well Kanya [King, MOBOs founder] and the MOBOs team. Working alongside Kanya, we have been in awe of how fiercely she fought for what she believes in, while keeping the MOBOs thriving and evolving. We hope this new category helps give future artists more options, allowing them to be whatever musician they want to to be – be it in hip-hop, rock, pop, punk, R&B or anywhere in between, the choice is theirs.”

Bob Vylan's critically acclaimed second album, The Price Of Life, was released earlier this year. They play London's Electric Ballroom this Saturday, December 3.