Bring Me The Horizon have won the Alternative/Rock Act award at the BRIT Awards.
The Sheffield metalcore band triumphed over The Rolling Stones, Blur, Young Fathers and Yussef Dayes in the fan-voted category at the British music industry's premier awards evening, held at London's O2 Arena tonight (March 2).
Accepting the award from actors Luke Evans and Marisa Abela in front of a bored-looking industry crowd who could barely be bothered to look up at the stage or pause their conversations, frontman Oli Sykes paid tribute to the group's loyal fans, saying, "Cheers to the BRITs for making the voting system so complicated that only our fans could be arsed to vote!"
Sykes also went on to thank the band's families and management, casually throwing in some industrial language - an early "Fuck!", an admission that winning the award was "fucking insane... er... bloody insane" - in his acceptance speech to ensure that someone somewhere will log a complaint with broadcasters ITV, because that's how these things work.
For years, there have been complaints about Bring Me The Horizon - and metal in general - being ignored at the BRIT Awards time after time. The band did, however, take part in the 2022 ceremony, performing onstage with Ed Sheeran.
Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong and Tre Cool also appeared as guest presenters at tonight's ceremony, to present the Best Group award to Jungle.
The Last Dinner Party won the Rising Star award, which was not featured on the TV broadcast, while Boygenius won the International Group Award, a category in in which Blink-182, Foo Fighters, Paramore and Gabriels were also nominated.
The Mastercard-sponsored Awards also featured live performances by award-winners Raye, Dua Lipa, Kylie Minogue, Jungle and more, lots of shout-outs to Jesus, several weak jokes about alcohol consumption, and no jokes whatsoever about the use of credit cards in the O2 arena's toilets.
Raye's record-winning triumph in six categories - which included Best Artist, Album of The Year and Single Of The Year - will doubtless cause some embarrassment within the British music industry given that, in 2021, the London R&B singer had to publicly beg on Twitter to be released from her major label deal with Polydor after being barred from releasing an album during her seven years with the label. Released independently in 2023, My 21st Century Blues subsequently became a Top 10 album in 20 countries, including the UK and US.
