As is often the case, July has been the most hectic month in the Qube Records calendar. On Saturday 6th, Clyde Love and his band (Atti, Perran and Kai) travelled up to Birmingham for the national finals of Music For Youth Festival at the CBSO Centre. The band played a jaw dropping, 3 song set of songs from Clyde’s forthcoming album Garden In The Woods Part 1. The set was stunningly performed, and elicited incredible feedback from the industry panel, with long time Qube Records supporter Katie Chatburn blown away, even suggesting that Qube Records should be rolled out to every school in the UK! It was yet another reminder that what we do with Qube Records is genuinely industry leading, in the UK, and potentially worldwide..
Speaking of which.. 36 hours after we returned from Birmingham, we jumped on a coach and set off for France! 40 students, 6 members of staff, 2 years of hard planning and enough luggage to relocate for about a year headed out on the 10th Anniversary European Tour, and after 27 hours on the road (and sea) we arrived in beautiful, baking Sommieres. After a quick refresh and eat we were straight into playing a warm up show in the gardens of our lovely accommodation. Whilst not without it’s hiccups and technical gremlins, the performance gave us an opportunity to get straight into “work” mode, and also featured the first ever performances of new music from some of our most high profile artists, with Otis debuting live incarnations of tracks from his amazing album The Almanac, and the first new music from Qube Records queen Angelina for nearly a year! We also debuted some of the classic Qube songs from days gone by that we have brought into the live set to help us mark 10 years of the project. It was a good, useful evening and set us up well for the rest of the week.
The next morning we headed out to the Port Du Gard for some sight seeing before heading back to base for some final rehearsals. We loaded the coach and set off for the lovely town of Lunel. The whole group were spectacular at setting up and rigging the stage in record time, with everyone mucking in and getting involved. We played a set in the glorious sunshine that was immediately one of my favourite ever Qube Records gigs. The people were dancing in the park, everyone had loads of fun, the new songs went down a treat and everyone stepped up into tour mode. It was an absolute triumph of a show. We had a similarly brilliant and helpful pack down, and the atmosphere on the coach after the show was amazing.
On Thursday we head to the beautiful town of Nimes, and visited the incredible roman coliseum which has famously hosted legendary performances by Metallica, Rammstein and many other acts. After exploring the town we headed back for lunch, and then set off for Saint-Gilles to perform at the ancient monastery. Temperatures were peaking at 39 degrees and the group were struggling to function. Everyone rallied together to look after each other, and those who were able to shuttled all the kit up the hill to the venue. When we got there it was certainly worth the trip, we were greeted by probably the most epic and beautiful venue we’ve ever performed at. We performed a very special 10th anniversary set, full of old Qube songs by students from over the last ten years. There were so many highlights, but Sophie and the band’s interpretation of Happy Place by Senara Rendell, Angelina’s reworking of Eden Oliver’s Beef Joint and Reuben opening the show with I Don’t Mind by the Cold Six Hundred were all performances that will live long in the memory. The show was covered by a local newspaper who interviewed Angelina and myself, and the amazingly complimentary review appeared online the next day calling our performers the “successors of the Beatles!”. In 10 years of Qube shows it was arguably the most memorable.
The last full day in France saw us head to Montpellier to explore and do some baking! We had a patisserie workshop which was equal parts informative and hilarious, and all managed to make something vaguely resembling Chouquettes! After a bit of shopping and lots of food we headed back to base in Sommieres to perform in the stunning town square. The final show was all the things you would hope it to be; sun kissed, energetic, emotional (like, very emotional) and above all the best musical performance of the tour. So many highlights across the evening, with Immi, Lilah, Amelie and Emily all delivering above and beyond versions of their new music. Perran, Conan and Atti paid tribute to absent friend Will with a performance of his song Outbreak, and William performed Oscar Brown’s My Life Changed. It was just a lovely way to end the tour.
After a morning exploring the markets in town we said goodbye to beautiful Sommieres and started to the long journey home. The journey was mercifully uneventful and we arrived back at MBA on Sunday afternoon to lots of very appreciative parents!
On Tuesday we all came together for one final dance at the annual Qube Records Awards. The evening featured a more or less full performance of the show we were playing in France, but with added songs from some of our Year 7 and 8 performers who weren’t with us. It also saw the triumphant return of The Lost Angels! It was a huge celebration of the year and of everything we’ve achieved, not just this year but over the last decade, with lots of Qube alumni in attendance to celebrate and reminisce. A run of shows that began in November at the Royal Albert Hall fully culminated at home here at MBA, and it was a stunning end to our 10th birthday celebrations.
There were big award wins for Darcie, Elodie, Ruby and Lucy in Year 8 who took home Song Of The Year for A Song That Goes Like, Otis Harper won Record of the Year for The Almanac, and The Lost Angels again claimed Band Of The Year! Angelina won the Outstanding Contribution Award for everything she’s done to elevate the level of Qube Records since she was in Year 8, and the biggest prize of all, Artist Of The Year, went to the untouchable Clyde Love.
At the end of the show we said goodbye to all our year 11 leavers, and it’s such a strong group to be losing in one go, we will miss them immensely. But as we know, you never really leave Qube Records, and we know we’ll be doing plenty more music with them all in the future.
Full list of award winners:
- QUBE RECORDS 2024 SONG OF THE YEAR A SONG THAT GOES LIKE – DARCIE CARE, LUCY CARE, RUBY OSBORNE, ELODIE UNDERHILL
- QUBE RECORDS 2024 BAND OF THE YEAR THE LOST ANGELS
- QUBE RECORDS 2024 INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR ATTI EVANS
- QUBE RECORDS 2024 BREAKTHROUGH STAR SOPHIE UREN
- QUBE RECORDS 2024 ARTIST OF THE YEAR CLYDE LOVE
- QUBE RECORDS 2024 RECORD OF THE YEAR THE ALMANAC – OTIS HARPER
- QUBE RECORDS 2024 OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION ANGELINA FOEY
1) QUBE RECORDS 2024 YEAR 7 ICON CHARLIE SHARPE
2) QUBE RECORDS 2024 YEAR 8 ICON LOLABELLE MCCALLUM
3) QUBE RECORDS 2024 YEAR 9 ICON RIDLEY LONG
4) QUBE RECORDS 2024 YEAR 10 ICON TOBY HESSELL
5) QUBE RECORDS 2024 YEAR 11 ICON PERRAN JACKA
6) QUBE RECORDS 2024 THE 4TH PERSON AWARD KAI PRENDERGAST
7) QUBE RECORDS 2024 TOP TECHIE ROSIE GEYMAN
