The DJ Awards celebrated its 15th birthday last night, launching in 1998, the year that France beat Brazil to win the world cup, we said goodbye to Frank Sinatra and Faithless told us that ‘God Is A DJ’. Tonight Pacha will be full of DJs, all nominated for various awards, all secretly hoping to pick up the green kryptonite trophy while outwardly doing their best ‘not really bothered’ impersonations. From humble beginnings, the DJ Awards has become one of the most anticipated end of season events, where DJs and producers fly into Ibiza especially for the awards and where almost as many film crews and photographers descend, able to catch up with many of the season’s protagonists at the one time.
Jose Pascual and his team work tirelessly throughout the year to ensure that the event goes off without a hitch, talking to Australian sisters Nervo before the actual ceremony, they told me they had no idea of the magnitude of the occasion. Ocean Drive was the pre-award venue and last year it saw heavyweights from all dance music genre’s hanging out, talking about the season and sitting in front of numerous cameras. The atmosphere was very informal, which made it easy for both journalists and artists to do their thing. This years pre-award gathering promises to be much more of the same as we arrive at Ocean Drive hotel, the perfect place for the event as it is also known as the DJs hotel, where many of them request to be staying when they are in town.
The converted Red Bull vehicle belts out house beats, which we can hear walking along the promenade, people stop and pose in front of the huge advertising board, I can see the facebook profile pics changing as we walk up the steps and into the cool hotel. DJ Awards workers are busy working the crowd, matching journalists and artists with great precision, making sure that everyone gets their ten minutes. It’s not an easy task but one that they perform expertly. The first name to jump out at us when we seen the list of attendees was Eric Wahlfross, co-founder of Soundcloud, we grabbed a quick chat with Eric as he got ready to collect the Cutting Edge award. First question might be the most obvious but it was one I definitely wanted to know the answer to, where did the idea for Souncloud come form?
“Soundcloud really came out of our own need,” he explains, with the confidence of someone who has clearly been asked this question a hundred ties before. “As users of different tools on the web, I was doing music and my co-founder was doing sound production for films, we wanted to solve the problem of sharing a sound simply across the web. When we met each other we were studying engineering and I had been working with the web quite a lot as well and it basically started as this very simple idea of sharing a sound a simple way across the web and it sort of grew from there.”
(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW)
Like London buses, you wait an hour for your first interview and two come along at the same time, next up is Nervo, talented Australian sisters Miriam and Olivia who have just enjoyed their first full season living on the island and playing alongside David Guetta in Ushuaia before taking over the reigns themselves for the last four weeks. The girls admit to being shocked at the size of the event, confessing they were expecting to bump into a couple of journalists for a chat, not a wall of cameras more like the red carpet of a Hollywood blockbuster! Having been regular Ibiza visitors over the last few years, this was their first summer living on the island and it’s clear they have loved the experience, Miriam said, “It’s the first time that we’ve actually managed to live here and we’ve had the best time. I think you pick up the Spanish vibe because when you’re bouncing in and doing a couple of gigs, even if you have a day or two either end, which is lovely, you don’t quite get the same Spanish vibe that you get when you live here.” Before Olivia added, “We’ve become hooked, I mean we were already hooked, but we never lived here and I think it sucks you in but it’s for the best.”
(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW)
After finishing up in Ocean Drive we take the quick walk down to Pacha but not before stopping into IPIZZA for a slice of the best pizza on the island. Bellies full, it’s tie for the 15th DJ Awards and Pacha is packed full of faces from around the island, those who have spent the summer making sure you are entertained. Andy Baxter delivers a cool background set that, if the stage wasn’t taking up most of the floor, would have surely started the dancing early. If he doesn’t get best Ibiza DJ this year they may be a riot. The music stops, the lights dim, the green lasers burst from the stage and the presenters replace the dancers and get the awards underway. You can check out the full list of winners below but a few worth mentioning include best producer for Solomun, who has had an amazing season, Vagabundos and Enter share the best club night, fitting after the recent Richie Hawtin/ Luciano collaboration, Tomorrowland in Belgium picking up best international festival and for the second year running Nightmares On Wax picking up the downtempo award, perfect timing as the closing of his Wax da Jam follows later tonight. Aimee Sophia provides the half time entertainment with a live performance.
Comedy highlight of the night came when Nervo accepted the Dance Nation of 2012 award on behalf of Australia and declared that they hoped everyone got a chance to go down under at some point, granted the sniggers were mostly coming from the juvenile males but nevertheless, comedy gold! The awards draw to a close with all the winners back on stage for the traditional picture, another year of planning finishes with a flawless ceremony. Hopefully the DJ Awards team can allow themselves a few days off as a reward for a job well done before they start planning next years event. Congratulations to everyone nominated, you have all played your part in making Ibiza 2012 a huge success.
Full List Of Results:
Tech House DJ
Seth Troxler
Best International Festval:
Tomorrowlands Belgium
Dubstep/ Bass (First Ever appearance at awards)
Chase & Status
Newcomer
Arty
Media Award
Pacha Magazine
Deep House DJ
Maceo Plex
International DJ
Armin van Buuren
Trance DJ
Armin van Buuren
Cutting Edge Award
Soundcloud
Techno DJ:
Carl Cox
Dance Nation of 2012
Australia
Downtempo Act
Nightmares On Wax
Track Of The Season
Perupa ‘Party Non Stop’
Electronic Live Performance
Faithless Sound System
Ibiza DJ
Andy Baxter
Ibiza Night
Vagabundos & Enter joint winners
Ibiza Live Performance
Lenny Kravitz Ibiza 123
Producer
Solomun
