Dave Grohl crowned Godlike Genius at Shockwaves NME Awards

Foo Fighters and Nirvana man accepts honour

Dave Grohl has been awarded the Godlike Genius award at this year’s Shockwaves NME Awards 2011.

The Foo Fighters frontman was handed the trophy at the O2 Academy Brixton in London, before playing a surprise 23-song set that saw the band premiere their new album ‘Wasting Light’ in full.

A host of musicians and stars including Paul McCartney, Jack Black, Josh Homme and John Paul Jones paid tribute to Grohl in a video montage that played as he took to the stage, and the crowd gave him a standing ovation as he accepted his award from The Who‘s Roger Daltrey.

Clad in black, Grohl was clearly overawed by the reception, and stood smiling for a few seconds before stating: “You guys realise they gave this one to a drummer, right? This one’s for the drummers!”

He then spoke about the time he snuck into the awards venue, the O2 Academy Brixton, to see Pixies with his Nirvana bandmates, then said the award was “for Kurt [Cobain]”.

He added: “Oh, and by the way, they asked us to play tonight and we thought, ‘Yeah, OK, sure.’ And they said, ‘Why don’t you do four or five songs?’ And I said, ‘Fuck that, why don’t we play for two fuckin’ hours?'”

Foo Fighters then played a full live set, kicking off with a cover of The Who‘s ‘Young Man Blues’, with Daltrey on vocals.

The band went on to play their new album ‘Wasting Light’ in full, before Grohl declared: “That was the new album… this isn’t!”

He then led Foo Fighters through a number of their best-known hits including ‘Monkey Wrench’ and ‘Everlong’, stating that the band wanted to carry on performing “all night long”.

After playing ‘Times Like These’, Grohl again geed-up the audience, stating: “I don’t think we’re gonna fucking stop until you turn off the lights!”

‘My Hero’ saw him leave the stage to finish playing the song from a table-top in the middle of the crowd.

Before playing final song ‘This Is A Call’, Grohl paused to reflect on the evening before exclaiming: “It’s been a really great 16 years. I’m totally appreciative of this award.”

Foo Fighters played:

‘Young Man Blues’
‘Bridge Burning’
‘Rope’
‘Dear Rosemary’
‘White Limo’
‘Arlandria’
‘These Days’
‘Back + Forth’
‘Matter Of Time’
‘Miss The Misery’
‘I Shoulda Known’
‘Walk’
‘All My Life’
‘Times Like These’
‘Generator’
‘My Hero’
‘Stacked Actors’
‘The Pretender’
‘Learn To Fly’
‘I’ll Stick Around’
‘Monkey Wrench’
‘Everlong’
‘This Is A Call’

NME.COM is coming live from the Shockwaves NME Awards 2011 ceremony at London‘s O2 Academy Brixton tonight. Keep checking NME.COM/awards for news, photo galleries, blogs, video interviews and more.

Tune into NME Radio and NME TV for further coverage throughout the week.

Get next week’s issue of NME for the ultimate report on the evening’s events. It’s on UK newsstands or available digitally from next Wednesday (March 2).

Watch the ceremony on Channel 4 on Saturday night (26) at 11.20pm (GMT). Earlier in the day, at 11.25am on the same channel, T4 will broadcast their coverage of the ceremony.

Buy music by tonight’s award winners at Amazon.co.uk.

The NME Awards Big Gig takes place on Friday (25). Godlike Genius Dave Grohl‘s band Foo Fighters headline, with Cee Lo Green, Band Of Horses and No Age also on the bill.

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