Klaxons win Mercury Music Prize

Congratulations to Tunetourist favourites the Klaxons who won last night’s 2007 Mercury Music Prize. We won’t mask slight disappointment that it didn’t go to Bat For Lashes who, along with Amy Winehouse, gave the performance of the night but no doubt the prize’s mandate to award innovation is as well served by the Klaxons as anyone.

It was a clear surprise, though, to both band and the assembled industry throng, the room letting out a gasp as Jules Holland announced the winner. Jamie Reynolds – with sutured and strapped foot from his recent stage dive misadventures - James Righton, Simon Taylor-Davis and Steffan Halpern were by turns endearingly touched, shocked and awed, pathetically gurning and aimlessly posturing, as they collected the award. It was as if midway through their natural response the amphetamines kicked back in and they remembered an earlier pact not to ‘do a Gwyneth’ if they won, but completely forgot how they'd planned to make a rock’n’roll impression in the first place.

"I think they have rewarded forward thinking music," Jamie Reynolds said after the event. “We have made the most forward thinking record since I don't know how long.” Somehow we failed to feel quite the same thrill as when Dizzee Rascal surprised the event in 2003, winning with his genuinely radical “Boy In Da Corner”.