NME Awards Tour

Slaves kicked off the evening’s shenanigans with their signature poetic hardcore punk. Since the Tunbridge Wells duo played the Gatsby back in 2013 they have had crashed through the British music scene and have returned bagging themselves a well-deserved spot on the NME tour. The crowd shouted back hits like ‘Debbie where’s your car?’, and most recent single ‘The Hunter’ certainly had me in the mood to down my can of Red Stripe, screw up my face and jump around with everyone.

Next up were Fat White Family who are known for their crazy stage antics and authentic rock’n’dontgiveash*t attitude. Thankfully there were no pig heads thrown around, but they still delivered a raw and rampant wall of sound with front man Lias writhing around the stage. I bet they all have filthy fingernails. But the crowd love it! Tracks like ‘Touch the leather’ and ‘Is it raining in your mouth?’ certainly had everyone in the Leadmill gagging for more.

Last on the bill were London boys Palma Violets who were NME’s best new band of 2013 and rightly so. The atmosphere was electric and with the band’s energy levels on max, they bashed and stumbled their way through big tracks like ‘Best of friends’ that had everyone screaming along with them. The intense, guitar-thrashing set created real intimacy with the audience and triggered crowd-surfers aplenty. You could see the band feeding off of the adoration in the room and pouring it straight back into the performance. Top notch, nice one NME!