11 Brit Awards winners who've appeared at the Southbank Centre
Yes, the Brit Awards are very much still a thing. About to host their 44th ceremony and still going strong.
From Jarvis Cocker’s anatomical heckling of Michael Jackson, to Mick Fleetwood and Sam Fox reading an autocue with the seamless panache of a hostage forced to send a video message home, the Brit Awards have delivered some unforgettable pop culture moments over the years.
But along with the controversy and calamity, the awards have also seen some truly great music and musicians receive due acclaim. We’ve also been lucky enough to host a significant number of those artists here at the Southbank Centre across the last four and ahalf decades, and here are just a few of those notable names.
Emelie Sandé
A four-time Brit Award winner, Emelie Sandé released her first solo single in 2011. Come the 2012 London Olympics just a year later and Sandé was as ubiquitous as Union Jacks, appearing at both the opening and closing ceremonies, propelling her star across the globe. Before those incredible Games we were lucky enough to welcome Sandé here to the Southbank Centre, where she performed as part of Equals Live at the 2012 WOW Women of the World festival alongside Annie Lennox – herself an incredible eight-time Brit Award winner.
Tom Jones
Forgive the shaky blurry footage, as although Tom Jones may remain as evergreen as the grass of home, mobile phone screen resolution was not always what it is now. Whilst it’s not unusual for Brit Award winning giants of Welsh music to play the Southbank Centre – indeed Jones’ fellow countrywoman Shirley Bassey holds the record for longest solo run on the Royal Festival Hall stage – it’s a little less often that we see such musical royalty busking on the riverside. Back in 2008 Jones, who won the British Male Solo Artist Brit Award in 2000, pitched up outside our buildings with a guitarist as part of a BBC Culture Show competition to see which musicians could raise the most money busking for charity. We’re not sure how much Jones raised, but he certainly pulled in a crowd.
watch a clearer clip of Tom’s performance
David Bowie
Just a mere 16 Brit Award nominations for Elton John over the years. His first came at the inaugural Brit Award ceremony in 1977, where he was up for both the Male Solo Artist Award, and the British Album Award for Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, whilst his most recent appearance was as recipient of the Icon Award in 2013. Five years before those first nominations Elton made a special appearance on our Royal Festival Hall stage as he and his band performed their newly-recorded album Honky Château in its entirety. Two months before its release as the album’s first single, this show featured the live debut performance of his iconic ‘Rocket Man’.
Paloma Faith
Paloma ‘funded her MA in theatre directing by working various part-time jobs including sales assistant at Agent Provocateur, singer in a burlesque cabaret, a bartender, a life model and a magician’s assistant.’ If ever a statement summed up the eclectic, eccentric, retro style of Paloma Faith that snippet from her wikipedia entry pretty much does the trick. With a style of her own that slides along the spectrum from soul to jazz, Faith won the British Female Solo Artist Brit Award in 2015, ahead of FKA Twigs and Lily Allen.
Back in 2011, her first year as a nominee, Faith also performed twice here at the Southbank Centre; joining Annie Lennox and VV Brown for Equals Live as part of the first WOW – Women of the World festival, and returning to the stage as part of Ray Davies’ Meltdown. She also returned to WOW in 2015, this time addressing crowds on our Riverside Terrace as a speaker.
Guy Garvey
Despite being nominated just once for the Brit Award for Best British Group – fewer times than Sugababes and Jamiroquai – Elbow strolled away with the accolade in 2009 from a decidedly eclectic field which included Girls Aloud and Radiohead. The band’s frontman Guy Garvey became a familiar fixture at the Southbank Centre in 2016 as curator of our 23rd Meltdown festival. ‘I want my Meltdown to be a party where everyone feels invited and everyone leaves having had the best night out,’ Garvey told the press and there’s no denying he achieved his aim. Garvey’s rich bill included Robert Plant, Femi Kuti, Lift to Experience and another Brit Award winner, Laura Marling.
Laura Marling
Laura Marling was perhaps something of a leftfield choice when she won the Brit Award for British Female Solo Artist in 2011. A singer with her routes in folk music, Marling had performed with Noah and the Whale, and collaborated with acts such as the Mystery Jets and The Rakes before releasing her first album in 2008, the Mercury Prize nominated Alas, I Cannot Swim. In 2009, whilst still only 18, Marling had her own show on our Royal Festival Hall stage; Laura Marling and Friends (which you can enjoy, above). Marling has returned to the Southbank Centre a few times since – most recently for that 2016 Meltdown appearance – during which time she’s become something of a permanent fixture on the British Female Solo Artist shortlist; nominated four further times.
Manic Street Preachers
The 1997 Brit Awards were supposed to be the year of the Spice Girls. Geri wore that Union Jack dress, Mel C invited Liam Gallagher to “come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough” and the proponents of Girl Power were nominated for five awards. In the end they won two, the same total as the much more modest Manic Street Preachers, picking up British Group and British Album, for their emotional first release since the disappearance of Richey Edwards, Everything Must Go. Two years later the band completed the same double, with This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, receiving the award from the incredibly 1990s pairing of Mariella Frostrup and Prince Naseem.
Jump forward two decades and we were finally able to welcome Wales’ finest to the Southbank Centre as they took part in Robert Smith’s Meltdown with a fantastic Royal Festival Hall gig.
Shola Ama
Whilst acts like David Bowie and Elton John may span generations, others are very much evocative of a certain time and place. Shola Ama fits that bill; as synonymous with mid to late 1990s as Beppe di Marco, Tommy Hilfiger jeans and Mo from Driving School. An R&B and soul singer from North London, Ama was just 18 when her biggest hit ‘You Might Need Somebody’ stormed the charts, leading her to win the Brit Award for British Female Solo Artist in 1998. Six years later Ama appeared here at the Southbank Centre as we hosted the 2004 Urban Music Seminar; posing for publicity photos with a decidedly fresh-faced Jamelia and Rhianna – no, not that one, the British one who had a 2002 hit with ‘Oh Baby’.
Paul Weller
Paul Weller is another artist who most likely boasts a separate shelf in his home specifically for Brit Awards. Since going solo Weller has won four Brits in total, picking up the statuette for British Male Solo Artist in 1995, 1996 and 2009, as well as one for his Contribution to Music in 2006. In 2018 he performed a special Live at the Royal Festival Hall concert in, well, our Royal Festival Hall unsurprisingly. The clip above is from that concert, “a night of genuine warmth, a night of genuine musical genius,” according to Dylan Jones for GQ. Which seems as good a place as any to bow out from this list.
by Glen Wilson