Friday, April 17, 2009

Mobos go North

In what I'm going to be generous and put down to a well-conceived plan to raise the profile of the MOBO awards - the annual music event where prizes are given to people whose music is, in some way, black - has decided to hold its prize-giving in Glasgow this year.

Lemar - for some reason - was given the announcement to make:

"Bringing the MOBO awards here to Glasgow, a city with such a strong and vibrant music scene, is the perfect fit," the singer said. "I love touring in the UK and the welcome I receive when I come to Scotland is incredible."

That'll be why it's Glasgow, then. Because Lemar likes playing in Scotland. Similarly, the locations of the Grammy awards were fixed on using 'where would David Crosby most like to have breakfast the next morning'.

It's not because the event's partners this year are Event Scotland and Glasgow. Oh, no, no. This is nothing to do with chasing subsidy.

There's no reason why a major event should automatically be held in London, although in these straightened economic times, the London-centric music business might be a bit reluctant for people to run up expense bills traveling north for a second division event.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Clearly the organisers wanted Tim "obsessed with breakfast" Westwood as this years host and he'd only appear where he could be guaranteed his favourite breakfast of porridge

Robin Carmody said...

They probably also feel that "music of black origin that hasn't been lost in the mists of time and the cultural inbreeding of rock culture" (which is what they should really be called) isn't as popular in Scotland as it could be, which it probably isn't, whereas it's already as dominant in London as it could be.

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