Sometimes, music requires more than merely combined star power to make it work, as Watch the Throne, the eagerly-awaited alliance between Jay-Z and Kanye West, seems to confirm.

"This is the official start to the festival season," announced London rapper Example from the main stage of the Scottish Highlands' flagship music festival, "and you're the type of crowd I like to see. The further north I go, the crazier you get." He has a point. The weekend's most well-received acts will struggle to repeat the response they enjoyed here this summer.

Reformed Take That made their first public appearance today since Robbie Williams rejoined as the group collected a prize for their years of success at the Q Awards.

"We made it to the point where UK music is the hottest thing right now!" screams Tinie Tempah, the 21-year-old London rapper who, in the last four months, has made a rapid rise to pop supremacy, not least thanks to his frolicking hits "Frisky" and "Pass Out". Both were proof that for all of urban music's false starts, Tempah and his comrades (Dizzee Rascal, Chipmunk, Tinchy Stryder) could finally boast of developing a profile big enough to sit in the mainstream and allow them to perform at cool shows like tonight's latest gig in the iTunes festival series.

By the time Paolo Nutini swoops into "High Hopes", the third song of a rousing and beautifully chaotic evening, it's clear that any sense of decorum that the Royal Festival Hall exerts is hanging by a thread: nervous stewards (and bizarrely, or not, depending on how hard you care to think about it, ushers with mops), shepherd grinning, swooning dancers back to their seats.

Lily Allen broke down in tears as her song "The Fear" scooped three prizes at the Ivor Novello Awards yesterday.

Lily Allen broke down in tears as her song The Fear scooped major prizes at the Ivor Novello Awards today.

The Dizzee and Lily Show is becoming one of the staple double acts of the modern British music scene. First they became the standout male and female solo artists of their generation – garnering critical and commercial success in equal measure. Then this year, they made off with his-and-hers-matching Brits before embarking on a series of dual headline concerts together. Now they look set to dominate yet another prestigious music awards ceremony, this time for songwriting, after being nominated yesterday in four categories for the 55th annual Ivor Novello Awards.

Senior Labour figures were embroiled in the first scandal of the election campaign today after a candidate was sacked for making offensive comments on Twitter.

That a concert venue in a major city should make it to 20 years old is a feat, but hardly unique. For Glasgow's King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, though, the sense of history accompanying today's anniversary is well-earned. This was where, in May 1993, Creation Records boss and native Glaswegian Alan McGee first saw Oasis play, deciding to sign them before they had finished their second song. And so the 1990s, Britpop and Cool Britannia all sprang from a 300-capacity upstairs room just off the M8.