The Mercury Prize winner was announced on The One Show last night.

September: now six months since Bojo clamped down on all things fun and populated, and gig-less we remain. In half a year, no one has felt the bass of a speaker thud across their chest, nor begrudgingly sacrificed next month’s rent for a pint of ‘whatever’s cheapest’. Withdrawal symptoms settled in across the nation: better hearing, fewer crowd-induced bruises… nasty stuff, really. Thankfully, just before bucket hats began to see a new life as makeshift face coverings, we were gifted a taste of what once was.
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The Mercury Prize Album of the Year is an annual excuse for any British melomaniac to spend the night in with a few drinks, a few mates and quite literally some of the finest new music around. While watching the ceremony often risks major audience-envy as the crowd screams applause after each set, this year was significantly more personal to watch. Naturally, live performances were out of the question, but many of the shortlisted artists were able to deliver pre-recorded sets specifically for the BBC’s coverage of the event: an hour-long compilation of these performances, presented by Lauren Laverne and uploaded to iPlayer. Not a bad deal, all in all – in fact, many of the videos made it feel like I was standing at the front row of an actual gig, too engrossed by the musicians to notice anyone else around. It’s as close to a concert as I’m getting, anyway, so here are the highlights from The Mercury Prize 2020.

he fireworks came early on Monday evening as Palace returned to Glasgow with a bang. Promoting the release of their latest album, Life After – a beautiful and progressive sophomore – the quartet received a hefty Scottish welcome in the church-turned-music-hub of St Luke’s.

It was, by all accounts, the perfect venue for them: sound echoed through every corner, filling the walls and rumbling through the wooden floorboards; you feel so close you’re practically in the music. With house lager at just £4 a pint (can I get a yee-haw), the crowd was as alive as it could be for a band singing about dying.

As for the performance itself, any hesitations I had swiftly dissolved. For a group whose sound isn’t necessarily what you’d call ‘upbeat’, I was prepared for a couple hours spent in the presence of four guys gently swaying behind their instruments. Not so. Emotive, tender and powerful, Palace did exactly what a band should do at a gig: they breathed life into their records. The source of most surprise (pleasant though it was) came undoubtedly from frontman Leo Wyndham – the dude sang like he might never sing again. Blasting out lyrics over an impressive range, delivering them with more heart and soul than we could have hoped for, it was truly difficult to unglue your eyes from him...