MOBO Awards 2009

On Wednesday night, 1Xtra covered the 2009 MOBO awards, which for the first time were held in Glasgow. I was asked to get involved a few weeks ago, and said yes without realising it would involve a 10 hour round-trip train journey, but hey ho. I wasn't producing - that was left to m'colleague Karen who did a wicked job of organising the content and handling the site build. I was there doing one of my favourite things - wielding a Z1 video camera, and churning out backstage videos.

As with all these things, you make plans, but you have to be flexible and you never really know what you're going to get. The intention was to make 3 videos - each a montage of 'backstage party games' like Rock Paper Scissors, and arm wrestling. Just something a bit silly to show stars pratting around a bit, rather than filming straight interviews. Though we did a few of these, the two stand-out videos for me were both opportunistic and made up on the spot.

The first was the moment NDubz crashed JLS's live radio interview with Mistajam - not stunning radio, but a great coming-together of two of the most popular artists on the MOBO scene (we were running a chat room, and they were consistently the two most adored acts). I happened to be nearby and the camera was ready, so I just started rolling. It's nowt special, but it really captures the moment and it was quite genuine.

The second, I'm quite proud of, because it impacted the live event, the television coverage, the website, and the following 48 hours of radio discussion. I'd heard that Trevor Nelson had won the Best DJ Award and that his co-presenter Gemma would actually collect the award for him. Gemma and I get on pretty well, so I shoved her a digital camera and told her she had to take it on stage with her and film it from her point of view.

She wasn't sure, but I just told her to explain she was doing it for Trevor, and she went with that. I had meant for her to use that little excuse if the stage manager got snippy about her taking the camera on stage, I didn't realise she would tell the entire audience. She even struggled with the power button and the lens cap at one point, and I had this sinking feeling my little idea would just end up making her look stupid, but in the end the footage was brilliant. The next day, I cut it in with the BBC Three live tv footage, and it looks even better. I wish more radio presenters were as good sports as her.