Rock N Roll? Hardly

You can almost see the meeting now can't you?

A couple of months ago, perhaps?

Picture the scene: the executives in charge of the Brit awards sat in their meeting, facing falling audience figures, and faced with the fact that the TV Quick Soap Awards were attracting more public attention, it was time for crisis talks:

"We need to make the whole event a bit more, you know, rock 'n roll, that will win back serious musical credibility and get us a bigger audience" pipes up one exec..
"Yeah, you're right"
"Give it that edge back again"
"Yeah, back to some old school Rock 'n Roll sensibilities"
"The key word here, people, is danger. We want the Brits to have a dangerous edge again"
"I know, why don't we give Oasis an 'Outstanding Achievement' award - you know them Gallagher boys, they're bound to court some controversy, do some of their trademark swearing and Manc attitude, that'll bring the audience. That's 'dangerous'"
"Yeah, high five to that."
[Sound of slapping palms round the room]
"Also, we could get a controversial host"
"Hmm yeah you're right, someone with an air of danger."
"Good, good, yeah, but who?"
"How about that lanky one from Channel four, you know the one with the mad hair, who's always talking about his 'Dinkle' and 'pulling down his trousers and pants', that one who won the 'shagger of the year' award"
"I know who you mean.. err.. what's his name?"
"Got it. Russell Brand"
"Yeah that's it, yeah he fits the part, didn't he used to do drugs at one point?"
"That's right. Wow that's so rock n roll, he'll be perfect."
"Yeah. Great. Is that dangerous enough?"
"Hmm.. well maybe.."
"We're missing that magic factor still, aren't we?"
"Yeah.. something's missing"
"I know, we'll do it live again!"
"Really?"
"Yeah, bring the danger of live television to the whole thing"
"Are you sure, remember the last time we did that? You know we had problems with that tit"
"Sam Fox"
"Yeah, and the other one?"
"Er.. her right breast?"
"No, Mick Fleetwood"
"Oh yeah, yeah, that was terrible wasn't it? We couldn't afford a bad show like that. They still play those clips on shows like 'The Top 100 worst television'".
"Well we'll just stage manage it so that we can ensure that nothing goes wrong.."

And they did, in fact they stage managed it to the point where the CBeebies Children's Television awards were probably more rowdy and rock 'n roll. They reigned the marvellous Russell Brand in, giving him only seconds to speak between each gong was handed out, (and let's not forget that this man at the NME awards had some of the best links ever, particularly his retort to being called the 'C' word by Bob Geldolf (sorry, I mean Sir Bob Geldolf) where he famously said "No wonder Bob Geldolf is an expert on famine, he's been dining out on 'I don't like Mondays' for twenty years"), the winners were ushered off the stage as quickly as they were ushered on. The only nod to rock and roll excess was where, at their tables, winners were doused in what we were lead to believe was champagne (but was probably Panda Lemonade such was the controls placed on the celebrities by the organisers).

All in all it was about as dangerous as a bouncy castle and despite some worthy bands actually being nominated (Snow Patrol, The Killers, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc), the whole thing felt as like it may as well have been the TV Quick Soap Awards. Only Simon Pegg and Nick Frost managed to inject any real 'humour' into the whole proceedings (at least they managed to refer to the last live Brit awards). The whole thing was santized to the point of bland boredom. What a waste of an opportunity.

Still at least it had a few more laughs in it than the ITV comedy that followed.. "The Abbey" reached a whole new low for ITV 'comedy', it almost made their other recent effort 'Benidorm' look like a laugh riot.

It's a pity because music can still court amusement and comedy, as was clearly evidenced on the beeb again last night with "Never Mind the Buzzcocks", which has reached whole new levels of humour since Simon Amstell took over hosting duties. Last night was the episode where Preston stropped off after what could only be described as some "gentle ribbing" from Amstell, and it was hysterical...

Maybe the execs should watch a couple of episodes of that before organising next year's Brits. And let's get Amstell to host.. now that could be funny.