Vive Le Rock Awards 2024 – Full review by Dawn Osborne

What an enormous amount of fun the Viva Le Rock Awards were .. again!! Although Eugene Butcher announced they were going to be the last… say it isn’t so … he’s said that before and somehow it has happened again and we were all very glad it did. Beki Bondage was one of the most hard working compèring and performing and bringing her inimitable energy, doing a good job to propel things along with a raucous shout when things weren’t moving fast enough for her liking. Amazingly well organised given all the characters involved, the night flew by even though doors were at six pm, and it lasted for about five hours. There were two different house band sets led by the stylishly Mariachi clad Paul Ronney-Angel with some very famous guest singers and awards between. Then three special featured bands to finish off the night.

Highlights of the first house band set included Lily from the Meffs doing Joan Jet’s ‘Bad Reputation’. With its fifties Rock n Roll vibe it easily lent itself to a Punk version and she made it all her own.  Alan Clayton did the The Dirty Strangers classic ‘Gold Cortina’ also right up my street and always a crowd pleaser. I am not a Pogues fan myself, but no one could deny that a tribute to Shane McGowan was well placed and marked by not one, but two Pogues songs: ‘The Old Main Drag’ and ‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’.

A really special moment was Charlie Harper from UK Subs coming on to get a birthday cake for his imminent 80^th birthday. And as you can see from my photo his eyes were sparkling just looking at it. He stayed onstage to perform ‘C.I.D.’   to hoots of approval from the crowd.

Chris Spedding got the Guitar Legend Award presented by Neil X of Sigue Sigue Sputnik.

Then Eugene Butcher himself presented the New Blood Award to a band hitherto unknown to me, Grade 2, the members of which were at least thirty years younger than everyone else in the building. They told everyone how much it meant to them to be recognised coming from a small town on the Isle of Wight.

I had no problem recognising Spike though and, ever the wag he began by saying I last met Beki 35 years ago when I was 5, and looking at the crowd followed this up with the observation “Being here makes me feel young”. Ever the opportunist he did not fail to mention that he was the singer of THE Quireboys (those in the know will have got his emphasis there) and that they had a new album coming out ‘Wardour Street’ (a famous street which was ground zero for the old Soho Glam scene in the eighties of which I was a part). He promptly reeled himself in “But it’s not all about me”, only for a moment though as the punchline was .. “well it is.” He hung onto the mike as long as possible, but eventually conceded to Monty Oxymoron from The Damned who was actually receiving the award on behalf of the band for the Album of The Year ‘Darkadelic’. Dave Vanian and Captain Sensible were absent and, with humour I think they would very much have appreciated, Spike quickly interjected “they’re in the care home” as his parting repartee.

Not to be outdone Segs and Ruffy of The Ruts had a few gags of their own such as “I can get down man.. I just can’t get up again anymore” and proceeded to ennoble Kirk Brandon of Theatre of Hate and Spear of Destiny as the ‘Voice of A Generation’.

It was then the turn of Saffron from Republica to present Toyah with the ‘Icon’ award. As we have seen a few sunbeams of late (before the weather turned arctic again) Toyah was wearing an orange sundress which was a surprising contrast to her Sunday Lunch outfits, although she was wearing peep toe leather bondage lookin high mules to give it a twist. Smiling and hugging Saffron she did a few punk poses, a Dio set of horns and pretended to eat her award before leaving the stage.

Beki Bondage came on to sing Killing Joke’s ‘Requiem’. Like all the ladies tonight she’s still got it!!

Chris Spedding did a couple of his numbers ‘Silver Bullet’ and the ubiquitously well known ‘Motorbikin’ (with a couple of strikingly glamorous backing singers Tommi Rae Brown and Millie Watson who almost stole the show). One of the biggest cheers of the night was when he was introduced as a member of The Wombles (including by me, who doesn’t love the Wombles if you were there for it first time around?). Motorbikin’ is such a great song and the energy of the night was definitely building.

Saffron took the baton and ran with it with her mega hit ‘Ready To Go’ giving it some real welly.

Toyah then came on to do ‘I Wanna Be Free’ wowing with every gesture. I think I sang every word with the crowd to both songs and everyone in the house was a fan boy or girl. Classic after Classic doesn’t even do enough to credit it.

There’s no stopping the momentum now and Eugene and Gizz Butt from the Prodigy had everyone headbangin to ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’. The guitar was electric in more ways than one!!

Beki made her second stage appearance of the night with Tina Turner’s ‘Nutbush City Limits’ making it look easy, again!

In a very natty western black shirt with red fringing Jim Jones paid tribute to Wayne Kramer who died recently  MC5’s Punk Classic ‘Kick Out The Jams’.

And as if that was not enough we still had the three featured bands to go.

Voice of a Generation winner Kirk Brandon fronted Theatre of Hate for a short set containing their top 40 hit ‘Do You Believe In The Westworld’.

Still laughing and joking The Ruts, now Ruts DC, received their award for Best Live Band biting on it to check if it was gold (it wasn’t) and finished on a high with ‘Babylon Is Burning’ with Zak Starkey of Oasis and The Who playing guitar (not drums).

Oh my goodness Sham 69 took me back to my ‘Smash Hits’ days. Jimmy Pursey still looks the same to my eye.

Making  looking gormless deliberately  an art form with a bare shoulder and bondage clothes with sleeve pulled over the hand, wagging a single finger at and then slapping himself on the side of the head, doing Kali warrior poses and throwing water everywhere he and Dave Tregunna  belted out hit after hit ‘Hurry up Harry’, ‘Horsham Boys’ and ‘If The Kids Are United’.

And although he shouted “We always were a shit band!“ they are undoubtedly the Legends of these awards (along with so many others on stage, we were quite spoiled!).

Eugene, thanks so much, but that’s not the last one, not on your nelly! :-p

Dawn Osborne