Robbie Williams, Skepta, the 1975 and more – every Brits 2017 performance reviewed

Little Mix – Shout Out to My Ex

Thanks to their infectious realness, at least one solid gold banger per album and athleisure outfits seemingly taken from a pornographic remake of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Little Mix are the biggest (only?) pure pop group in the UK right now. Ditching the X Factor final ensembles that made Jesy look as if she’d urinated on herself, they instead plump for frosty silver numbers last seen on a Star Trek Beyond mood board. After screaming like banshees at the audience, they arrive on mirrored sedan chairs, before heavily channelling some Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation military-industrial vibes alongside some silver-coloured Blue Man Group wannabes. They perform Shout Out to My Ex – the solid gold banger for this particular album – and its blend of Appalachian hoedown and pep rally for jilted One Direction exes gets the evening off to a brilliantly bombastic start.

Bruno Mars – That’s What I Like

The wrongest the Guardian has ever published – wronger than How Not to Let Kale Ruin Your Marriage – is this review of Bruno Mars’s Superbowl performance, in which Hermione Hoby, instead of admiring it as the irrepressible pinnacle of pop entertainment that it is, said it was “almost as dull as the football”. But where once these Bruno haters proudly walked among us, three years on and Uptown Funk later, their numbers have dwindled to almost nothing and they are forced to live underground, listening to London Grammar. The rest of us can revel here in his sensual bedroom funk, and his utterly ridiculous shirt (last seen in a Kettering indoor market circa 1992). That’s What I Like is another of his recent 80s pastiches, this one straight from the Galaxy/Flake advert school of love jams. Bruno tells us a series of things he likes – sex by the fire at night, silk sheets and diamonds all white – that are utterly unsurprising, but it’s fine because they’re things that literally everyone else likes as well. There’s a nicely harmonised breakdown, and while the sight of a three-foot Hawaiian thrusting his crotch doesn’t really do it for me erotically, it’s certainly on beat.

Emeli Sandé – Hurts

As the patron saint of the battling-with-adversity montage, Emeli Sandé’s performance should probably come backed with a slo-mo multipanel video of the Brownlee brothers, those baby iguanas from Planet Earth and Michelle Obama at Trump’s inauguration. Instead it comes accompanied by jagged moves from a troupe of clapping dancers. Outside of video editing suites though, her latest album slid off the zeitgeist faster than a lubed blancmange – but don’t underestimate major labels’ doggedness in making it A Thing, as here she is with a live performance at pop’s top table, following her best British female solo artist win earlier in the evening. And this performance of Hurts is a reminder that the Long Live the Angels LP was – while uneven – unjustly overlooked by most flesh and blood Brits. Her nimble flow shows she has one foot firmly in the world of rap, with the other in the balladeering she’s known for. Blending the two is no mean feat, but she does it with clear-eyed conviction on Hurts – here’s to more of the former on her next album perhaps, rather than more beige montage fodder?

The 1975 – The Sound

Like a priapic Irish water spaniel let loose in Zara Men, frontman Matty Healy has led the 1975 to the edge of stadiums, and tonight they continue their pan-generational charm offensive. It’s a bit like watching your sister’s boyfriend talk to your dad about football while playing footsie under the table with your mum – with their INXS guitars, Duran Duran synths, and Healy’s Dionysian charisma, no one is immune to their erudite soft-cock rock. They play The Sound with a full gospel choir – classic 80s white band move! – and while Healy’s vocals start out a little high in the mix, everything coheres a bit more when he starts bantering with the world’s neatest mosh pit. The comment section disses from the video get flashed up amid it all in a pleasantly vanilla bit of culture jamming, and the exquisite guitar solo carries the whole thing home. Still an absolute jam – now where’s my girlfriend?

Chris Martin – A Different Corner

Every bit of me was clenched ahead of watching Adele do Fastlove for the Grammys’ George Michael tribute – how could a dance song about queer sexuality sung by a weed-smoking bacchant get a string section added to it? But it was quite classy in the end. And so is the Brits’ effort. Here we have Chris Martin performing A Different Corner, its warm wash of synths transposed into Coldplay’s quintessential Christmas-lights piano – along with George himself in a compelling duet from beyond the grave. The way their voices chime together shows how Martin has quite a debt to pay to Michael’s earnest baritone – his ability to distil complex, messy emotions into universal lighters-aloft moments is surely drawn in part from George. There’s a deservingly resounding round of applause.

Katy Perry – Chained to the Rhythm

With its lyrics about rose-tinted glasses and living in a bubble, Chained to the Rhythm sees Katy Perry ushering in the “woke” phase of her career. Do we want the architect of perfect boozy escapism to suddenly start pulling on your sleeve and pointing at Ta-Nehisi Coates articles on your iPad? Perhaps not, but rest assured Perry’s brand of resistance is as non-specific as a placard at a Corbyn rally. After her “Freedom is good, yeah?” unveiling of the Declaration of Independence at the Grammys, she appears here amid a wee town made of cardboard houses, as a pair of giant, besuited skeletons – HERE REPRESENTING CAPITALISM – come out to dance like Boris and Theresa at the Conservative party conference. It’s a decent song, but then again the lead song off a Katy Perry album should be, and she looks about 14% as arsed as she was at the Grammys.

Skepta – Shutdown

After Kanye West brought on every grime MC in a 10-mile radius for his 2015 performance, the Brits managed to ignore absolutely all of them the following year, deservedly resulting in much #BritsSoWhite hashtaggery. But better late than never, as Skepta delivers Shutdown here in a pulled-up hoodie. As he lifts his fists aloft to the racist complaints made about that very Kanye performance being played over the PA, it’s a big symbolic win for grime in the mainstream – but he should still be able to deliver “wha gwan sexy” at the climax of the final verse. “Ring ring pussy” doesn’t get past the ITV censors, so congrats to them. A shame perhaps that there was no cameo from fellow grime nominee Kano, who has come out at Skepta’s recent live shows, and indeed recent London tourist and collaborator Drake, though at least we didn’t have to listen to the latter’s chat about “on road” and “ends” and “pengest munch” in a bid to win some UK cred.

Coldplay and Chainsmokers – Something Just Like This

Chris Martin’s back! Following A Sky Full of Stars with Avicii, Chris Martin’s “collaborations with EDM bros who’ll take me to bars and get me waved with 22-year-old sportswear models” phase continues. It’s what George Michael would have wanted. In a synergistic marketing push that must have involved a lot of passive aggressive emails between Warners, Sony and Spotify, Coldplay’s collaboration with the Chainsmokers, Something Just Like This, dropped just before the Brits ceremony. It actually makes a lot of sense – the two groups share earnestly uplifting, entirely generic neon-hued feels – and I would happily bound around to it on my fifth mixed-berries Kopperberg at Wireless this summer. Chris Martin stagedives into the crowd, who follow the presumably stern talking-to they had before the performance, and keep their hands where we can see them; the guitar soloing lifts the final minute just as it did the 1975. It could be a Closer-sized hit, but whether the Chainsmokers can sustain their single songwriting style – tongue-lolling, molly-friendly buildup crashing into three-note instrumental chorus – beyond one spring break cycle is very much up for debate.

Ed Sheeran – Castle on the Hill / Shape of You

Organisers of awards shows must love Ed Sheeran, because he can blow (well, mouth-breathe) everyone away with an acoustic guitar and a mic while they get on with erecting a candyfloss zebra for Katy Perry to flirt with. But here he’s got a full band, covering the Mumford & Sons classic Castle on the Hill. Then it’s a much more robust Shape of You than at the Grammys – it’s good to see him connecting with the song’s full dancehall vibe, rather than craning his neck downwards to check if his vocals are looped properly. Screams abound for Stormzy, coming out for a brand-new guest verse and instantly obviating the unofficial remixes from Yung Bxne et al – studio version please! This is far from the clunky Rihanna-Klaxons Brits juxtapositions of old – lest we forget, Sheeran has an improbably robust grime pedigree via his early mixtapes. The Brits, pleasantly diverting as it often is, rarely nails the best of British – but this performance is the beating heart of the nation’s homegrown pop.

Robbie Williams – The Heavy Entertainment Show/I Love My Life/Mixed Signals

Across the periodic table from the inert gases that most British male singers are formed from (eg James Bay, Ben Howard, even Rag’n’Bone Man), Robbie Williams is made from a violently unstable element, his charisma doing tequila shots with his ego and id until they come up with genius or Rudebox. This performance can draw from 20 years of solo material – and a host of Take That hits perhaps. Much of that material is of course guff, so does he control his volatility and pick out the pearls? Quite emphatically not. Underwear models parade past him to the strains of Welcome to the Heavy Entertainment Show like TFI Friday never happened; he promises us that we can go home soon, but not before submitting us to songs that only the most craven performer would include in a lifetime achievement segment. He segues into I Love My Life, a 12-step affirmation bolted on to a Coldplay B-side; like Jeff Goldblum in Annie Hall, his is a mantra that is instantly forgettable. He then channels Jon Bon Jovi’s nasal wondering for Mixed Signals, a guitar anthem so anti-anthemic it’s entirely evaporated from my mind just seconds after hearing it. In the crowd, five people point fingers to the sky while the rest stand stock still like characters contemplating their imminent death in a Roland Emmerich movie. It ends. Angels, She’s the One, Let Me Entertain You … all remain ignored by a performer who, for better but more often for worse, is at least convinced of his own unwavering brilliance.