Better get this party started!

It's twenty-four hours and counting until the party of the year: the Hot Press Irish Music Awards, coming this Thursday night from the BBC's Northern Ireland studios in Belfast and being broadcast to an expected audience of 20 million. Luminaries as diverse and impressive as U2, The Corrs, Ash, Westlife, The Frames, David Kitt and Samantha Mumba, just to name a few, will be battling it out to win the various honours at stake, representing the best Ireland had to offer in 2001. The night will also play host to live performances from some of the finest Irish and international bands and artists in music today... and at this eleventh-hour stage, the excitement among the Irish music industry, the music-listening public and the Hot Press/hotpress.com readership is palpable.

Ireland's perennial favourite sons, U2, have been nominated for 6 awards this year - not surprising given the huge critical and chart success of their 2001 album 'All That You Can't Leave Behind', and the overwhelming affection with which the listening public embraced this most down-to-earth of U2 releases. The categories in which they received nominations are Best Male Singer (Bono), Best Band, Best Single ('Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of'), Best Songwriter (Bono), the Rory Gallagher Best Musician Award (Edge) and Best Live Gig By An Irish Act (their two landmark dates at Slane Castle, August 2001).

Ash, who had possibly their best-ever year in 2001, with chart and critical successes unsurpassed since the heady days of their early singles, are up for 5 awards, including Best Band, Best Album (Free All Angels), Best Single ('Shining Light') and Best Live Gig By An Irish Act (Witnness Festival, August 2001). Ash are also among the special guests who will be playing live at the Awards.

The Corrs - fresh from their jaunt through the United States showcasing their new DVD, VH1 Presents: The Corrs Live In Dublin - have been nominated in 4 categories: Best Female Singer (Andrea Corr), Best Band, Best Pop Artist and the Rory Gallagher Musician Award (drummer Caroline Corr).

This is to name just a few of the stellar nominees. (For a list of the categories and nominees in full, click here.)

In addition to handing out gongs to the most highly-lauded bands and musicians of 2001, the Hot Press Irish Music Awards will feature live performances from some of the most exciting musical talent around.

- Suede, the band who gave Britpop a much-needed swathe of glamour in the 1990s, have chosen the Hot Press Irish Music Awards as the perfect setting to unveil their new-improved band line-up and to debut much of their forthcoming album. This is a world exclusive.

- Multiple nominees Ash - whose live performances are so gobsmacking they have been nominated, aptly enough, for Best Live Gig By An Irish Act 2001 among other things - will be regaling television and net audiences with a special live set.

- Again-multiple-nominee David Kitt, who had a thrilling 2001 in Ireland and abroad following the release of his critically acclaimed and much-loved debut album The Big Romance, will also be playing live on the night. Kitt is up for Best Male Singer, Best Album (The Big Romance), Best Single ('You Know What I Want To Know') and Best Songwriter.

- Also-multiple-nominees and near-legendary live performers The Frames, whose 2001 release For The Birds has already won Album Of The Year laurels in both the Hot Press Critics' Poll and the Hot Press Readers' Poll, and who have just returned from a by-all-accounts stunning appearance at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas leaving a vapour-trail of excited next-big-thing murmurings in their wake, will also be playing a special live set at the Awards.

- Other surprise guests (which, naturally enough, must remain just that) are also on the way...

Possibly the most contentious category of the evening will be the Best Single category, populated as it is with such strong nominees that it will be difficult for viewers to choose whom to root for, and well-nigh impossible to predict a winner. The nominees represent, not coincidentally, the four Irish bands who arguably had the most eventful, exciting and successful years at home and abroad, and who most put their stamp on the cultural zeitgeist of Ireland 2001. The nominated songs are: Ash's 'Shining Light', U2's 'Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of', David Kitt's 'You Know What I Want To Know' and The Frames' 'Lay Me Down'.

The Hot Press Irish Music Awards are being overseen by historic Live Aid producer David Croft and will be broadcast on BBC Northern Ireland on Friday, 26th April at 10.30pm and BBC Choice on Saturday, 27th April. For music fans who cannot wait that long, Hot Press will also be covering the Awards live on Thursday evening (25th April).

Check hotpress.com over the coming hours for webcast details.

For more about the Hot Press Irish Music Awards, click here.

For a list of the categories and nominees in full, click here.