Elbow's Mercury Win

Manchester band trump favourite Burial, Radiohead

09 September 2008 - Elbow won this year’s coveted Nationwide Mercury Music Prize, fighting off tough tough competition from the hot favourite, Burial.

The award, worth £20,000, was presented to the Manchester-based quintet at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel by Jools Holland, for their fourth album, The Seldom Seen Kid.

Gary Garvey, Elbow’s singer, said:
“This is quite literally the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I know I’m supposed to be cool but this is one of the best things that’s ever happened.”

The band was previously nominated in 2001 for their debut, Asleep in the Back. They dedicated tonight’s award to Bryan Glancy, a Manchester musician and friend of the band who died in 2006.

On the night Elbow performed The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver from The Seldom Seen Kid, a record that also features former Mercury nominee Richard Hawley on the track The Fix. Its release was delayed for two years as the band changed record labels.

Garvey told 6 Music:
“Literally all day today I’ve been thinking I don’t mind who wins. I was over the moon as it was, and this takes the cake. It’s like a really good Kate Bush record, my life at the moment.”

Ahead of the announcement, Burial was the clear favourite among the bookies, with Radiohead and Elbow joint second-favourites. Neither Burial nor Radiohead performed on the night, and Burial didn’t attend the event.

Dubstep artist Burial’s identity had been a closely guarded secret until he was announced as one of the nominees for tonight’s award. Shortly after he unmasked himself on his Myspace page as South Londoner Will Bevan.

Radiohead were beaten to the award for the fourth time. They missed out most notably in 1997 when the universally acclaimed OK Computer lost out to Roni Size’s New Forms. Bassist Colin Greenwood and Guitarist Ed O’Brien were at the awards bash and told 6 Music before the result was announced that they didn’t expect to win:

"I think it would be so embarrassing if we won. We’ve just been on tour and people told us we made a great record, but we don’t need that. Someone else does."

Radiohead’s In Rainbows, the seventh studio outing for the band, attracted worldwide attention after the band chose to release it online and allowed fans to choose the price they paid for it.

The most dramatic entrance to tonight’s event was undoubtedly that of Neon Neon – the collaboration between Super Furry Animals’ frontman Gruff Rhys and American producer Boom Bip. The duo, whose Stainless Style album was based around the life of John De Lorean, arrived in two De Lorean cars.

Klaxons won the award last year for Myths of the Near Future, beating off competition from Amy Winehouse and two former winners, Arctic Monkeys and Dizzee Rascal.


Rodrigo Davies