Q awards: Wilko Johnson receives icon award following battle with cancer

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/22/q-awards-wilko-johnson-kasabian-kate-bush-cancer

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Guitarist Wilko Johnson said he has been “cured” of cancer a couple of years after being told he only had months to live, upstaging double prize-winners Kasabian at the Q awards. The Dr Feelgood star picked up the Q icon award at the ceremony in central London and spoke rousingly about his recent pancreatic cancer, getting a standing ovation from the audience.

“The beginning of last year I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told it was inoperable and told I had 10 months to live,” said Johnson. “I thought blimey, we’d better organise a farewell tour. Somehow at the end of the tour I was still on my feet and we got to FujiRocks festival in Japan. It was pouring with rain but as we walked out on stage, the clouds opened and the sun came shining down and I remember thinking, this might be the last concert I ever do. And that’s quite a kick I can tell you.”

He continued: “But then came along this doctor, called Charlie Chan, and he was curious why I still wasn’t dead. So I went down to Addenbrooks hospital in Cambridge, and they ran all the tests again and told me they thought they could operate on it. And they did it, man. It was an 11-hour operation, they took this tumour out of me that weighed three kilos. I was carrying that thing on stage with me every night. But they got the whole thing out of me. They cured me. So I’m hoping to get all my strength back soon and get back on the road. So the moral of this story is, you never know what’s going to happen.”

Kasabian walked away with two of the top accolades as the ceremony handed them the prizes of best act in the world today, and best live act. The Leicester rock band, who this year headlined the Glastonbury festival, beat Kate Bush in both categories, defying predictions that she would win the awards following the success of her recent successful comeback tour.

Embracing the Libertines band members Carl Barat and Gary Powell, who presented the award for best live act, Kasabian’s frontman, Tom Meighan, said: “Can I just thank for everyone who helped make this record and touring and all that kind of shit. You know this year I ran over my dad and he survived, so this award is for my old man. I love you dad.”

Picking up the band’s second award, he added: “Best Act in the world? Fuck yeah.”

The Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr was presented with the Gibson Les Paul award by Bradley Wiggins, the champion cyclist. “This is an amazing thing,” he said. “When I was a little boy I always thought that guitar bands were the best things in the world and I thought the best thing to be in a band is a guitar player. I still think that, so I’d like to accept this award on behalf of all British guitar players. It’s amazing to spend every day doing something you love, and so to get an award for it is fab.”

Other artists recognised at this year’s Q awards included Sam Smith, named best new act, Ed Sheeran, best solo artist, and St Vincent, given the Maverick award.

It was also an occasion that paid tribute to various lead acts of the British music industry. Picking up the award for classic album, given to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, the band’s drummer, Nick Mason, said: “There is that figure that one in three households in England has a copy of this record. But we’ve done our own research and [We] reckon it’s one in 50 [households in Britain owns this record] but it’s owned by the sort of people who drink and use class A drugs so they forget they’ve got it so go out and buy it again, so end up with 25 to 50 copies of it.”

The Inspiration award was given to the Scottish Rock band Simple Minds and the Hero award went to the Charlatans, who dedicated the award to the former band members Rob Collins, who died in 1996, and Jon Brookes, who died last year.