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Breakspoll 2009 Review

With all the vote whoring done, and the entries weighed and measured, it was time for this, the eighth international breakbeat awards ceremony; Breakspoll. It's been an almighty year for breaks and this year it was really nice to see some fresh blood performing live as well as being up for nomination.
A photo of Ken Mac and the whole crowd erupting when it was announced that NAPT won Best Best Track for Gotta Have More Cowbell at Breakspoll 2009 held at fabric, London.

After queuing for about fifteen minutes to get in, we headed upstairs to drop our bags and coats in before journeying downstairs to Fabric's Room One to grab a drink and prepare for the evenings shenanigans. Ali B yet again started the night with some fine warm up tunes, preparing us for the night's chaos ahead. With Breakspoll's heavy line up, I decided that the best thing was to stick to Room One for the evening due to my lack of "Groundhog Day"-ness... there was simply too many groups I wanted to see!

Room One played host to Breakspoll's live performance acts, with Diverted performing first. Something I've been seriously looking forward to for ages!  

Diverted started nice and simple with Lee Richardson kicking some fat drum beats before the rest of the band slowly (and casually I may add) joined the stage to provide us with some fresh live breakbeat goodness. Danielle's harmonic vocals and saxophony were a rather jazzy bluesy addition to their pounding breakbeat sound. I have to say I am defo looking forward to the new tracks and album, and would love to see them again somewhere where they were the main event.

After Diverted, A Skillz and Beardyman dropped some rather brilliant party breaks, including A Skillz's rather long awaited remix of the Beatles Come Together which I've been listening to a lot on his Jan 2009 Promo mix. As always he smashed it playing some friendly tunes to get us moving. At one point I stopped dancing like my dad for a bit, just to soak in the fact that there were about 300 people  jumping about loosing their minds to his set!

After this it was all about the main event, the awards ceremony with Janette Slack and Ken Mac doing a brilliant job of presenting the awards this year. I like Ken Mac. He warms the crowd up, and it was good to see everyone jumping up and down to the awards nominations, having a bit of a dance to each othe teaser tracks that they played.

NAPT were obviously going to win something this year, and win they did, bringing home three Breakspoll's including Best Track for Gotta Have More Cowbell, Best Remix for their version of Slyde's Frequency and Best Producer, they pretty much cleared up.

Best Breakthrough DJ was won by Luton/Cambridge based breaks heavyweights; Apply the Breaks. 

Best Vocalist and MC was won by Beardyman, who gave a very funny "oscar-ish" thank you message putting on the crocodile tears and generally having fun with the crowd.

The winner for Best Retailer turned out to be Beatport, and the finalists were all online companies, which is a bit of a concern for traditional distribution methods.

Breakspoll's 2009 Winners

Best Album: Plump DJs - Headthrash

Best Compilation/Mix: Stanton Sessions Vol 3 - Mixed by Stanton Warriors

Best Track: NAPT - Gotta Have More Cowbell

Best Remix: Slyde - Frequency (NAPT Remix)

Best Label: Finger Lickin’

Best Breakthrough Label: Cool & Deadly

Best Producer: NAPT

Best Breakthrough Producer: Lady Waks

Best DJ: Stanton Warriors

Best Breakthrough DJ: Apply The Breaks

Best Large Club/Event: FabricLive

Best Small Club/Event: The Vinyl Touch

Best Live Act: Atomic Hooligan

Best Radio Station: NSB Radio

Best Radio Show: Annie Nightingale (Radio One)

Best MC/Vocalist: Beardyman

Best Retailer: Beatport

Outstanding Contribution To Breaks: Annie Nightingale

Breakbeat Friendlyness and Atmosphere

This is the third year I've been to Breakspoll, and I must say the atmosphere was hugely friendly and everyone was defo up for the night. This is one of the main reasons that I love the scene, people seem more friendly and I would whole heartidly recommend you go next year!

Breakspoll 2009 Set Times

Breakspoll had some heavy hitters playing this year, and I'd already declared "See Who Next" bankruptcy and just defaulted to Room 1! If you were there and are interested in who played when, feel free to check this out... Perhaps it'd help remind you where you were and when!

Room 1

21:00 - 22:00 Ali B
22:00 - 22:45 Diverted LIVE
22:45 - 23:30 A-Skillz
23:30 - 00:15 2009 Breakspoll Awards
01:15 - 01:00 NAPT
01:00 - 01:45 Far Too Loud LIVE
01:45 - 02:30 Bodysnatchers LIVE
03:30 - 04:15 Aquasky feat MC Frilla
04:15 - 05:00 Beat Assassins
05:00 - 06:00 DJ Quest vs Pyramid

Room 2

21:00 - 22:00 Mr No Hands
22:00 - 22:45 Plaza da Funk
22:45 - 23:30 Freefall Collective Live
23:30 - 00:15 Reso vs ID
00:15 - 01:00 Leeroy Thornhill
01:00 - 01:45 Stereo:Type LIVE ft Beardyman, Spyda, Tali, Foreign Beggars
01:45 - 02:30 Jay Cunning
02:30 - 03:15 Specimen A LIVE ft MC Incyte and Miss Trouble
03:15 - 04:00 Drummatic Twins
04:00 - 04:45 General Midi
04:45 - 05:30 J Mekka vs Digital Base

Room 3

21:00 - 22:00 DJ Adsorb
22:00 - 23:00 DJ Icon
23:00 - 00:00 Henry B vs BBB
00:00 - 01:00 Beat Vandals
01:00 - 02:00 Keith Mackenzie
02:00 - 03:00 Equalisers vs Vent
03:00 - 04:00 Afghan Headspin

If you're into your breaks, I'd plan to go next year, because we're in something of a renaissance at the moment. There has been some seriously good breaks over the last 18 months and I only see it getting better. If you wanna go next year, I'd book off the last Friday of February off and make sure you get a ticket in time, cause breakbeat is defanately going from strength to strength!

Author: Keith Wilson

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