NME Awards Big Gig – full details

The gig is set to take place two days after the Shockwaves NME Awards ceremony, where Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl will pick up the NME Godlike Genius award for 2011. Everyone who buys a ticket to the Wembley gig will get a free Dave Grohl ‘Godlike Genius’ magazine worth £4.99, available to pick up at the show.

Cee-Lo dropped by the NME office recently to chat about his current album ‘The Lady Killer’ – check out his laid-back interview style at NME.COM/video.

Get the new issue of NME, on UK newsstands and available digitally from Wednesday (19), for more from Grohl and the other acts on the bill. Pictured: Band Of Horses, who are also on the Big Gig bill.

Head to NME.COM/awards for the latest awards news, and to vote for the acts you want to see take home the honours this year.

No Age hail from Los Angeles and consist of guitarist Randy Randall and drummer/vocalist Dean Allen Spunt. Their third album ‘Everything in Between’ came out in 2010, on Sub Pop.

Check out what we wrote about No Age’s current album in September last year: “It’s got weird ugly shit on it, but also some properly beautiful tunes – the new Pavement anyone?” Keep clicking for a brief history of the NME Awards Big Gig.

In 2010, The Specials headlined NME’s Big Gig at The 02, as part of the Teenage Cancer Trust concerts. Frontman Terry Hall was in light-hearted mood: after ‘Doesn’t Make It Alright’, he disappeared for a while, joking he had “to go and put some more Shockwaves in my hair.”

The Cure played the 2009 Big Gig, after they took home the Godlike Geniuses award the night before. Sharing the bill with Franz Ferdinand, Crystal Castles and White Lies, Robert Smith told NME.com, “When you get onstage there is that competitive element – you can never get rid of it. You wanna be the best thing that’s there.”

Crystal Castles played a rowdy six-song set in 2009, during which Alice Glass picked up one of the huge stage strobe lights and swung it around, threw herself across the drumkit and flung herself around the stage. Ethan Kath later told NME, “It was an honour to be able to play with The Cure. They’re definitely an inspiration. They’ve been great for so long – they never stopped being great.”

The 2008 Godlike Geniuses Manic Street Preachers played a triumphant headline slot at that year’s Big Gig (along with The Cribs with Johnny Marr, Klaxons, Bloc Party and Kaiser Chiefs). Before they arrived on stage, an enormous line of kilt-clad bagpipers and drummers opened the set. The band were joined on stage by ex-Catatonia singer Cerys Matthews for ‘Your Love Alone Is Not Enough’.