Guests and nominees had already started to arrive at the London venue including Sam Fender and Little Simz who had been rehearsing their performances. The show was scheduled to be screened on BBC Four, however, the BBC’s regular programming was interrupted to focus on the declining health of Queen Elizabeth. The organisers had already axed the red carpet segment of the event and they were moments away from opening the show, until being forced to postpone as a mark of respect.“Tonights Mercury Prize event has been postponed at this time of great national sorrow. We know everyone involved in the Mercury Prize will understand,” the organisers said in a statement.

The nominees for this year’s Mercury Prize also included Self Esteem, Wet Leg, Harry Styles and Gwenno. Harry Styles was nominated for his critically acclaimed third solo album but was not due to attend as he is currently on tour in America. The ceremony was set to include performances from Jessie Buckley, Wet Leg, Nova Twins and bookies’ favourite to win, Self Esteem.  

If anyone near the Hammersmith Apollo can collect hot food and blast chill it please reply or dm me for more info. The other food has been hooked up with the local church. Pls rt.

— Rebecca Lucy Taylor (@SELFESTEEM___) September 8, 2022

Self Esteem, real name Rebecca Taylor, had arrived at the event before the postponement was announced. Upon hearing the show would not be going ahead, she took to Twitter to seek help in donating the food and drink that had been prepared for the event. “If anyone near the Hammersmith Apollo can collect hot food and blast chill it please reply or dm me for more info. The other food has been hooked up with the local church. Pls rt.” she wrote. After much sharing, Under One Sky and Punjabi 1946 came in to freeze the food and distribute it to those who need it. “Ok we did it!!” she Tweeted, “@amritmaanldn is picking it up and getting it in a freezer to be distributed tomorrow!!! Thanks Jackie Joseph for your help. And thanks Twitter for the rts! Everyone hit up Amrit’s restaurant in cov garden asap. Love you all.”

The BBC Proms were also set to begin at 7.30 pm yesterday. With the announcement of the Queen’s death an hour earlier, they too decided to cancel as a mark of respect.

JUST ANNOUNCED@buckleyxbutler UNPLUGGED + SIGNING

The vital folk duo of Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler will perform songs from their Mercury Prize shortlisted album ‘For All Our Days That Tear the Heart’, out June 17th via @emirecords.

TICKETShttps://t.co/ABeMIiRiku pic.twitter.com/aLZF2IfTiJ

— Rough Trade (@RoughTrade) August 18, 2022

Their album was nominated along with offerings from Little Simz, Sam Fender, Harry Styles, Nova Twins, Self Esteem, Wet Leg, Joy Crookes, Fergus McCreadie, Gwenno, Kojey Radical and Yard Act. Asked what it was about All Our Days That Tear the Heart that got them shortlisted for the prize, Buckley told NME: “I don’t think you can ever be objective from the inside out. It’ll probably be 20 years down the line and we’ll put the album on for the first time in 20 years and be like, ‘Oh, that’s what it was!’ But I don’t know – it’s nothing to do with me!”

In a statement reported by NME at the time of the release of the first single from the album, “The Eagle And The Dove”, the duo revealed the genesis of their collaboration: “It all started with a FaceTime call from Butler’s North London kitchen to Buckley’s mountaintop residence in County Kerry, with their friendship growing from an unlikely shared love of Killarney and the small island of Valentia where Butler would go on holiday as a boy.

The statement continued: “Buckley had been listening to ‘Old Wow’ by Sam Lee, produced by Bernard, in the downtime between rehearsals for the National Theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet. Butler had seen Jessie perform a song on an American chat show in promotion of 2018’s Wild Rose”.

Talking about hearing Buckley singing, Butler told NME, “I remember clocking just how much character there was in her voice and how freely she expressed it.” The musician finished talking about the album, “More than anything, I wanted it to be joyous – properly joyous – because there is such joy in Jessie, there really is. In spite of the darkness and the intensity in these songs, I’m just flying when I listen back to them.”

Buckley chimed in: “Right now, I feel like I’ll never make another album again, because I can’t imagine another album happening the way this one did. It’s amazing that it even happened once. This obscure, organic, odd little thing that just found us.”

Butler and Buckley will also be playing at Whitley Bay Playhouse on August 25, tickets are available here.

Upcoming shows:
24/08/2022 – Rough Trade West – London
25/08 – Whitley Bay Playhouse – Whitley Bay