Q Awards 2008

Coldplay have crowned their comeback by leading the field in the shortlist for this year’s Q Awards as the nominees were announced today.

Among their haul of four nominations in the annual celebration of the year’s greatest music is a chance of winning the title of Best Act In The World Today, a prize they last won in 2005 as they basked in the glory of X&Y. To land the trophy in 2008 they face competition from Oasis, Muse, Metallica and Kings of Leon.

Coldplay also compete in the prized Best Album category for their global chart-topping album Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends. The band’s fourth release lines up against self-titled albums by Fleet Foxes and Vampire Weekend as well as The Age Of The Understatement by The Last Shadow Puppets and Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!! by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds.

The awards take place at the Grosvenor House Hotel, in Park Lane, London on October 6 and will, as always, draw an array of glittering names from the world of Q.

The full list of nominees for the Q Awards with Russian Standard Vodka is as follows:

:: BREAKTHROUGH ARTIST:
Duffy
Adele
Santogold
Bon Iver
Gabriella Cilmi

:: BEST NEW ACT (sponsored by Red Stripe):
Fleet Foxes
Glasvegas
The Ting Tings
The Last Shadow Puppets
Vampire Weekend

:: BEST TRACK (sponsored by SingStar):
Keane – Spiralling
Duffy – Mercy
Coldplay - Violet Hill
Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl
The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name

:: BEST VIDEO (click on the nominations to view the videos):
Hot Chip - Ready To The Floor
Coldplay - Violet Hill
The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name
Vampire Weekend - A-Punk
Goldfrapp - Happiness

:: BEST LIVE ACT (sponsored by Fly 53):
Kaiser Chiefs
Kings Of Leon
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
The Verve
Rage Against The Machine

:: BEST ALBUM (sponsored by Nixon):
Coldplay - Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!!

:: BEST ACT IN THE WORLD TODAY (Sponsored by Russian Standard Vodka): Coldplay
Oasis
Muse
Metallica
Kings Of Leon

They are among the hottest tickets of the year - and now the newly announced support acts make our Q Awards: The Gigs shows even more unmissable

Hotly tipped Esser (pictured) will be on the bill with Bloc Party on September 30, while Razorlight will be joined by Kid Harpoon (aka singer-songwriter Tom Hull) for their show on October 2.

The Sugababes' show on October 1 features Liam Bailey and VV Brown, a guest on this week's Later With Jools Holland on BBC2.

Support for the Keane gig on September 29 will be announced shortly. Each of the concerts takes place at the Forum in north London and you can still buy tickets to the Sugababes show although the rest of the concerts are already sell-outs.

The inaugural series of Q Awards: The Gigs are designed as a curtain-raiser for our annual awards bash, the Q Awards With Russian Standard Vodka, which take place on October 6 at the Grosvenor House Hotel in central London. You can read the shortlist here.

Mystery Jets have signed up to complete the bill for our inaugural Q Awards: the Gigs with Russian Standard Vodka shows.

The band will play support for the sell-out show with Keane which opens the season of concerts at north London venue The Forum next week (September 29). The gigs are a curtain-raiser for the Q Awards with Russian Standard Vodka which take place the following week, on October 6, and see the cream of talent celebrating the best in music from Britain and beyond.

Keane will be unveiling tracks from their imminent third album Perfect Symmetry at the Q show. Other shows in the series are:
:: September 30 - Bloc Party
:: October 1- Sugababes
:: October 2 - Razorlight

You can still buy tickets for the Sugababes show (with support from VV Brown and Liam Bailey) here

Comedian Alan Carr, presenter of Channel 4’s Sunday Night Project and one of Britain's funniest stars, is to host the 2008 Q Awards with Russian Standard Vodka.

Carr will be officiating at the event on October 6 - after all but stealing the show at last year’s ceremony - which is renowned as one of the most raucous and prestigious dates in the music calendar.

The presenter, who is as provocative as he is charming, will be calling the shots as the cream of the rock and pop world from the past, present and future gather at the Grosvenor House Hotel.

Carr was a guest at last year’s awards event, presenting an award - alongside his fellow TV host Justin Lee Collins – to Kylie Minogue, and with his hilarious off-the-cuff comments proved to be the life and soul of the party.

He said: "I'm gonna make sure it's the most rock ‘n’ roll event in the music calendar. Cos you don't get more rock ‘n’ roll than me. As Gloria Estefan said 'the rhythm is gonna get ya.”

The event will see the likes of Coldplay, Duffy, Muse, Adele, Rage Against The Machine, Kaiser Chiefs, Last Shadow Puppets and Vampire Weekend among a host of acts fighting it out for a Golden Q on the day.

The Q Awards are unlike any other UK music ceremony. With only 450 guests, the event is a unique and intimate celebration with arguably the world’s highest concentration of musical talent and fame.

This year also sees Q Radio playing host to three exclusive shows, the ONLY place to get all the news and all the backstage gossip.

This year Q Radio will be the only place to hear the Q Awards with Russian Standard Vodka on radio. The station has exclusive access - making it the ONLY place to get all the news and backstage gossip - to the most prestigious music event of the year.

Here are the shows:

• 12 - 3pm: Samanthi is exclusively LIVE from the Q Awards with Russian Standard Vodka. Talking to the biggest names in music as they arrive on the red carpet and all the Q Award winners as they come off stage. Adam Catterall is in the studio.
• 6pm - 8pm: Q Awards with Russian Standard Vodka Special featuring highlights of the day and more backstage gossip, misbehaviour and general rock and roll tomfoolery.
• 8pm - 10pm: Q Awards Gigs with Russian Standard Vodka live at the Forum. Highlights of our series of shows which featured Keane, Razorlight, Sugababes and Bloc Party.

You can hear Q Radio on DAB radio in London, as well as on digital TV at Sky Channel 0181, Freeview Channel 716, and Virgin Channel 873, as well as online here.

Rock superstar Meat Loaf will collect the Classic Song prize at the 2008 Q Awards With Russian Standard Vodka next week, it was announced today.

His epic 1979 single Bat Out Of Hell – taken from the album of the same name, recorded two years earlier - will be honoured with the title at a star-studded bash at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel.

The incomparable rock track follows previous winners such as Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks. Weighing in at nine minutes and 50 seconds, the track was unlikely single material but made it to number 15 in the UK charts and has gone on to become a timeless classic.

Paul Rees, Q’s editor in chief, said: "There are some songs that transcend such things as time and genre, and Bat Out Of Hell is assuredly one of them. It sounded extraordinary when it was first released, and it appears no less so now- - like something beamed in from another planet. Extraordinary, and magnificent too, thanks in large part to one of the great vocal performances on record. For all those reasons, Q is delighted to award it - and the mighty Meat Loaf - the Classic Song award at this year's Q Awards with Russian Standard Vodka. I, for one, have already tuned my air piano especially for the occasion."

Meat Loaf – who has sold more than 70 million albums during his chart career - will be presented with his awards on October 6.

He said: “I am honoured to receive this award and owe it all to the fans who think “Bat Out Of Hell” is such an extraordinary piece of work that it has sustained its place in the charts for so long - and to Paul and Q. I really enjoyed working with Todd Rundgren. Thanks to him for his genius work and vision that we don’t need a real motorcycle, I can just do it on my guitar.”

Rundgren produced the album, although the song itself was written by Jim Steinman.

You can visit our awards mini-site here. And you can catch all the winners as they are announced on October 6 on this site.

To find out how you can hear all the action on Q Radio, click here