Noel Gallagher, The Maccabees and Alt-J have picked up major awards at this year’s Ivor Novellos in London.
Gallagher collected the award for Outstanding Song Collection, which was presented to him by Kinks singer Ray Davies. He dedicated the award to his wife, who, he said, once told him she’d never seen him write any songs. “This is proof that I do,” he said. When asked on the red carpet why he wanted to attend the ceremony earlier, Gallagher had replied: “Because they don’t let clowns like One Direction in, so it must be a good one.”
The Maccabees, meanwhile, won Best Contemporary Song for ‘Pelican’, presented to them by Manic Street Preachers frontman James Dean Bradfield. “It’s a nice way to close the last record, coming to this and winning the award,” said the band’s Rupert Jarvis afterwards. “We’re actually in the process of writing the next record, so this is a nice way to take a day off.”
Alt-J won the Album Award for ‘An Awesome Wave’, which was presented by Lily Allen. Speaking afterwards, they said they were celebrating the album’s second win, after the Mercury Prize, by dubbing the achievement “El double-o”. “We expected the album to be a cult thing that some blogs might pick up on, so to be recognised with an award like this is incredible.” The other nominees were Ben Howard’s ‘Every Kingdom’ and Lianne La Havas’ ‘Is Your Love Big Enough’.
Emeli Sande won Most Performed Work and Best Song Musically And Lyrically, while Calvin Harris picked up the award for Songwriter Of The Year. He said “Like my lyrics, I’m going to keep this speech brief and repetitive”, going on to describe the award as “the greatest achievement of my entire life”.
