Amy Winehouse_ The Biography - Chas Newkey-Burden [41]
The following month, she was able to atone for her first G-A-Y appearance when she was booked to return to the Astoria for an appearance under the NME banner. During the NME performance, while trying to locate Mitch in the crowd, she suddenly realised she had been singing towards the wrong man. ‘You’re impersonating my dad! I’ve been singing to you all night,’ she laughed. Particular highlights on the night were ‘Love is a Losing Game’, ‘You Know I’m No Good’ and ‘Back to Black’. However, the one-hour set was brought to a punctual end because, following the concert, the venue was turning into another G-A-Y night at which Amy was due to perform, to make up for her premature exit in January. ‘I’m surprised they let me in,’ she quipped with a hearty chuckle. ‘I thought there would be crowds of angry homosexuals at the door, waiting to batter me! I know I look as though I can handle myself, but…’
By the time she bounced back on the stage in front of the G-A-Y crowd, Amy was ready to prove her doubters wrong and was suitably sheepish and repentant when she told the crowd, ‘Thank you so much for coming. I can’t believe you had me back.’
They had her back again, in April, when, wearing a white vest and appearing particularly lucid, she gave a fantastic performance and once more won the audience over. At the end of the performance, host Jeremy Joseph offered her the choice of a bunch of flowers or a bottle of champagne. She quipped, ‘I don’t drink.’
News then broke that Amy had been shortlisted in two categories for the forthcoming BRIT awards. How far she had come since her days at the BRIT Performing Arts & Technology School in Croydon, which was funded by the body that ran the BRITs. ‘Amy is really pleased to be shortlisted and honoured that some are tipping her to win,’ said a spokesperson, adding cheekily, ‘She’ll probably go out now and have a pint or two to celebrate.’ Amy’s first words on the matter were typically down-to-earth. ‘There’s going to be all these really cool people at the BRITs show, but me and my dad will be looking for the Terry Wogans and Fern Brittons,’ she smiled.
On the night, she arrived at the awards wearing a yellow dress. However, once it became time for her performance, she had changed into a fetching red number. She gave a faultless performance of ‘Rehab’. The worst the critics could say the following day was to express their disappointment that she wasn’t drunk or chaotic at all. The evening kicked off with a fantastic performance of ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancing’ by the Scissor Sisters. Ten garishly dressed dancers bopped behind the band and before long the venue was warmed up, with even some of the stiff suits letting themselves go.
Russell Brand was the compere for the evening and he kicked off the proceedings with a joke that the stage set ‘looked not unlike an Amy Winehouse tattoo’, a quip that he later credited to Oasis guitarist and songwriter Noel Gallagher. When it came to introducing Amy, he said she was ‘a woman whose surname sounds increasingly like the state of her liver’. He added that her acceptance speech could ‘easily have come from a London cabbie’.
She had walked a little unsteadily to the stage and said in her distinctive cockney twang, ‘Thank you very much. I’m glad my mum and dad are here, to be honest.’ Later on, looking back at the night Amy was more loquacious, saying, ‘I was flattered to even be nominated, let alone win. It was very exciting, actually. I hadn’t seen my mum in ages, so it was nice to see my mum. My dad was pissed. My dad was so funny. It was a good night, I really enjoyed it.’
Amy got fantastic reviews for her performance of ‘Rehab’ on the night and also for what she and Lily Allen wore to the event. ‘Amy, Lily and the rest of the Brit pack staged a spectacular fashion show on the biggest night