If there’s one place attendees want to be other than necking free booze in O2 Brixton Academy’s main room, it’s the elusive Winners’ Room. If you make up there – with a brand new shiny gong in hand – then you know something is going right: you’re a master of your craft and at the top of your game. Or you’re train enthusiast TikTok hero Francis Bourgeois and doing hand-stands with Sam Fender and the gang. The more the merrier, we say!
Last night’s BandLab NME Awards 2022 (March 2) was a triumphant return and recognition of the best and brightest in music, film, TV and gaming, peppered in with the right amount of chaos, huge name performances, previously-unseen collaborations… and Dick & Dom! And there to capture it all was NME‘s Zoe McConnell, who invited the prizewinners and presenters into the Winners’ Room to snap some gleeful moments…
1Bring Me The Horizon
Before their incendiary closing set, the band picked up Best Band From The UK Supported By Pizza Express.
2Griff
NME Radar winner Griff styles it out in the Winners’ Room.
3Neneh Cherry
Icon winner Neneh Cherry has already been thinking about how to use the gong to her advantage: “I’m wondering how I can bribe my family with this. Like, ‘Don’t fuck with me, I’m an icon! Do the bloody washing up, girl.’” Watch out, Mabel…
4Sam Fender and Francis Bourgeois
Big night tube energy, this.
5Foals
Foals toast their win for Best Music Video. Cheers, lads.
6BERWYN
The Winner Room set repping the same colours of the Trinidad & Tobago flag that Best New Act In The UK winner BERWYN took with him to the stage.
7Rina Sawayama
Iconic stuff from Rina Sawayama, as ever.
8Bob Vylan
It’s Bobby Vylan and Bobbie Vylan of the band… Bob Vylan!
9CHVRCHES & Robert Smith
A legendary snap of the once-in-a-lifetime collaborators.
10Fontaines DC
It’s the Best Band In The World, don’t you know?
11Francis Bourgeois
Bourgeois is back, swanning around in the Winners’ Room.
12Lady Leshurr
A rapper, comedian and now bad-ass host of the NME Awards: the Brummie talent can do it all.
13Fontaines DC and Aisling Bea
Ireland – represent!
14Sigrid and Griff
Best Collaboration winners Griff and Sigrid having a muck around with their Awards. At least their collaborative nature wasn’t threatened by fighting over just one trophy…
15Nova Twins
Nova Twins joined Bring Me The Horizon for a raucous version of their collaboration ‘1×1’ to close the night. Nice one.
16Jazzie B and Sadiq Khan
Two London legends, here’s Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B and The Mayor of London hanging out.
17Nia Archives
The face of someone who’s just been named Best Producer Supported By BandLab. Expect to see this Award in pride of place in the DJ booth next time out.
18Mabel and Neneh Cherry
A powerful mother-daughter combination, this.
19Amelia Dimoldenberg, Aisling Bea and Munya Chawawa
A lot to ponder in the Winners’ Room, apparently.
20Leigh-Anne Pinnock
The Little Mixer presented Rina Sawayama with the award for Best Live Act Supported By Grolsch.
21Big Zuu and Aitch
Big beats, big personalities… it’s Big Zuu and Aitch!
22Tkay Maidza
The Aussie star channelled Brixton hero David Bowie for their lightning-bolt makeup.
23Abby Roberts
Speaking of… here’s TikTok make-up guru and musician in her own right, Leeds’ Abby Roberts!
24Daisy May Cooper
A bang-up job from debut NME Awards host Daisy May Cooper, we reckon.
25Bastille’s Dan Smith and Natalie Imbruglia
Natalie Imbruglia made her triumphant return to the Awards – she’d previously won the coveted Pop Personality That You’d Most Like As Your Doctor back at the 1999 ceremony. OK, then.
26Jessie and Lennie Ware
Table Manners hosts Jessie and Lennie Ware – another mother-daughter power-couple from the evening.
27Adam Lambert and Bimini
Royalty in the room: drag queen Bimini, and, er, Queen frontman Adam Lambert.
28The Cure’s Robert Smith
Smith popped by the Winners’ Room to drop some tasty exclusives around the two(!) upcoming Cure albums.
29Aisling Bea
Winner of Best TV Actor, Fontaines-stan and all-around haver of good times, Aisling Bea.
30FKA twigs
Godlike.