Being a Queensland Music Awards first timer, well a first timer at any kind of official industry award event ever, all my expectations going into the ceremony were based off Buzzfeed’s coverage of the Grammy’s and brief whiffs of the ARIA’s that happened to appear in my various feeds. The QMAs bore all the trademarks of an arts awards night with a suite of solid performances, presenters ranging from the awkward to the affable and a pleasantly surprising amount of political stands taken by both the night’s winners and some of the presenters themselves.

First thing’s first: Blank Realm took out album of the year with ‘Illegals in Heaven’ in an unexpected but well deserved turn for the most coveted award of the evening. Even Daniel and Sarah Spencer didn’t see it coming, whilst accepting their trophy Daniel quipped, “We probably wouldn’t have gotten so pissed if we knew we were gonna win,” before promptly dropping and breaking the thing. At that moment it felt like the most natural point for a dopey drunken act, it seemed the night got gradually more relaxed with each award. This was definitely aided by the casually hilarious Gen Fricker, the Triple J host and comedian entrusted with emceeing the event. She persisted through mic difficulties to yell about her acne, mispronounced the name ‘Sam,’ forgot to introduce the pop award and the crowd still (rightly) ate it up.

In a surprise to exactly no one, Brisbane’s, scratch that, Australia’s favourite underdogs Violent Soho took out both the Rock category and Song of the Year with ‘Like Soda’. You get the feeling these guys should get working on some trophy cabinets for the almost inevitable onslaught of awards their third full length ‘WACO’ is sure to reel in. Contrary to frontman Luke Boerdam’s assertions, they already have the humbled acceptance speech thing down pat.

All the winner’s “thank yous” were pretty great across the board. In fact I’m going invent a new category of award for best acceptance speech just because Caligula’s Horse lead man Jim Grey is so damn deserving. After taking out the award for best Heavy song, Grey got up and unwaveringly delivered some hard hitting poetry, slamming Australia’s stance on refugees. His words seemed to encourage others to take up various other causes, with Katie Noonan calling out Sheppard, who won the Export Achievement Award, for not bothering to leave their writing stint on Stradbroke Island to attend. Album of the Year presenter and one of 4ZZZ’s Music Coordinators Chris Cobcroft took his time on stage to re-affirm Grey’s stance and shore up anti-lockout law sentiment flagged earlier by QMusic President Michael Crutcher, as well as calling for more arts funding.

The night’s live sets came courtesy of The Belligerents, Amy Shark, Emily Wurramara, Balloons Kill Babies, Ayla, Astro Travellers and Stand By Empire, with Billy Thorpe Scholarship and Indigenous Award winner Luke Daniel Peacock closing out the night. As honestly great as all the performances were, it was almost more entertaining watching industry types and nominees bound to their round tables and antipasto platters, passively absorbing each set with the polite detachment these events necessitate. It definitely added to the feeling that the QMAs was a gathering of riffraff from the Valley scrubbing up real good to legitimise their profession. It worked a treat, everyone was all smiley camaraderie as opposed to competitively side eyeing each other. I guess that’s the benefit of working in an industry of passion projects in a big country town

A complete list of QMA 2016 winners can be found here.

-Grace Pashley