One of these nights, last year’s October, I was attending my monthly 1st Saturday residence at Bairro North, then came Ferdie, the energetic owner (and local top party-goer), telling me about a contest that the bar was to host – Corona Movida.
He told me that was a Worldwide house music Djs contest, that aims to find out fresh talents and offers, among the prizes opportunity to play in the top clubs of the world, and produce a single with their resources. ’09 was the 9th edition and it happened along thirteen countries – Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and UK(England, Scotland and Wales)
The contest starts locally, with heats in different parts of the involved cities, then local finals, regional finals, national finals and world finals.
That sounded really nice for me when he invited me to represent the bar in the contest – “to check out how I’d go…” “that’s just a half-hour set, you came here and basically play what you usually play on the bar and I’m sure you gonna be fine…”
On the Tuesday night of the first leg of the contest I were impressed to see the bar crowded as early as 9pm for the event. Corona’s promo team worked hard, it seemed. My set was based in a rather easy listening house music, as I know the bar quite well, and specially on a Tuesday night, that crowd couldn’t be up to more hardcore beats. It worked, and I’ve passed thru the first stage, among 8 other runners.
Then it came the North London finals, as well at Barrio North, this time with 4 other contenders. I’ve bet all my coins on the same formula of the week before, and despite the level of the opponents was clearly higher than the 1st leg, I’ve been thru again, heading to the London Finals:
The London final, despite being a regional Final, is a huge event. That’s the regional final involving more contenders of all countries. It happened at top-club The Den (formerly The End). All the opponents had won their legs in East, West and South London. I was representing North London. Started really luckily on the drawing to define the playing order, as I’ve chosen last – playing to more people.
The sets were 30 minutes each, from 10-30pm.
The first and second DJs played really strong tech-house sets, with really good reactions from the crowd, specially the second one, who had taken a lot of noisy guests from home. Then the third on came and executed really well a deep-house set, but the crowd really wasn’t ready for that yet, and most of them left the dance-floor.
So I started playing at 12:30, for an empty floor. I began playing the cream of the set I had played at Barrio North to bring people over. In less than 10 minutes there was already a good atmosphere in the room and I started queuing fine yet heavy tech-house hits, and a couple of covers to see the crowd sing along – Micha Moor’s “Space/Klass Club remix”, with samples from the original Max Romeo’s – “Chase the Devil” (used as well by Prodigy’s “Out of Space”) – and a very precious Hardwell remix for Robin S classic “Show me love”. At this point I figured the whole club was at my dance-floor, shouting loud enough to make me hear them from my booth, despite of the huge sound-system shouting floor-fillers anthems.
After my set, we waited for 1 hour, while guest DJ CJ Machintosh developed a smart set that kept the vibe I’ve left on the room. Then came the results and I found out I had won the London finals, and I would go to the National Final at Ministry of Sound. As if wasn’t enough, I’ve got back home with few quids, a Corona’s bicycle, and 200 bottles of the beer…
5 DJs got to the National Finals – regional winners from London (me), Leeds, Brighton, Midlands, another contender from Leeds, the “Wild card” winner – card that offered shortcut to the finals from any point of the contest.
Corona crew offered to the contenders a dinner on a boat cruise on the Thames, before heading to Ministry of Sound, at Elephant & Castle. A really pleasant evening.
Ministry got absolutely packed in that Tuesday night, as it is usually one of the busiest nights in the week, and plus all the crowd that came over from all the country for the finals. I wasn’t that lucky on the drawing and played in second, rather early at 11-30. But the club was already busy and the dance-floor had an absolutely brilliant reaction during my set – very similar to the one I played at The Den.
At the end, all sets were nice and well executed, some of them filling the room better then others, but everything definitely quality. I had no clue who would win, but was confident that my really good crowd reaction could make the difference again.
And represented UK in the world finals, won by Spanish DJ Milutxo.
The contest is absolutely well organized, and indeed offers opportunity to talents to arise. Despite the level of the finals is no less than professional I highly recommend the contest to DJs of all ages and experience.
My experience was absolutely incredible as I had never run a contest before, nevermind a that big and worldwide. It’s a completely different feeling to play as a contender, that differs from any other gig I’ve made in my already long road. Maybe a bit stressful, but really worth it.
To win the London finals were absolutely fantastic and above my expectations.
And at the National finals, I knew would be hard job for me – as a Brazilian – to represent UK in a worldwide DJs contest finals …
;o)
(sem acentos por problemas tecnologicos, e nao por analfabetismo ou protesto contra a lingua mae)
Uma noite dessas estava tocando na minha noite mensal no Barrio North – badaladissimo bar em Angel, Norte de Londres – quando o dono, figura chamado Ferdie, baladeiro de plantao, comecou a me falar de um concurso de DJs que o bar iria hospedar, o Corona Movida.
Dizia ele que era um concurso mundial de DJs de House que busca revelar novos talentos e oferece como premio a oportunidade para atuar em grande clubs do mundo. Que aquela (out./09) era a nona edicao e rolava simultuaneamente em treze paises – Dinamaraca, Franca, Alemanha, Grecia, Irlanda, Italia, Latvia, Lituania, Noruega, Portugal, Espanha, Suecia e Reino Unido (englobando Inglaterra, Escocia e Irlanda do Norte).
E assim, de conversa mole, ele me convidou para participar do concurso representando o bar. “Eh so vim aqui e tocar meia horinha” – dizia ele. Topei, ne? Fazer o que…
O concurso comeca local, com eliminatorias em diferentes zonas das cidade envolvidas, ate finais locais, finais municipais, nacionais e mundial.
O set era de meia hora, e eu optei por tocar, nesta primeira triagem, coisas mais acessiveis, pois conhecia o publico do bar e sei que nao se tratava de um publico especializado em musica eletronica, e a reacao do publico eh o primeiro criterio de julgamento do concurso. Deu super certo e passei por 8 concorrentes rumo a final de North London, tambem no mesmo bar.
Na final de North London o nivel dos concorrentes cresceu muito, mas a formuleta da semi-final vingou de novo e passei por mais 5 concorrentes.
Entao fui a final municipal, da cidade que tinha mais inscritos no concurso, Londres. A final rolou na The Den (novo nome do The End, club top 10 do mundo pela lista da DJ MAG). Foram concorrer comigo os campeoes de South, East and West London. Comecei com muita sorte no sorteio, pois fui escolhido para tocar por ultimo, com mais pessoas no club. Porem apos sets de alta qualidade do primeiro e segundo candidato, o terceiro tocou um deep house muito pesado para o publico que debandou da pista, e comecei meu set com a pista vazia. Na meia hora que toquei a pista encheu e esquentou de vez, e assim a entreguei para o Top-DJ convidado CJ Machintosh, que tocaria durante a apuracao. Uma hora depois saiu o resultado e descobri que venci a perna de Londres cheguei na final nacional.
A final nacional aconteceu na Ministry of Sound (outro club top10) e dela participaram 5 candidatos – os vencedores de Leeds, Brighton, Midlands e Londres, adicionados ao vencedor de um chamado Wild Card, que daria acesso a um determinado concorrente a final nacional, mesmo que nao ganhasse a regional. O concorrente que veio pelo Wild Card veio tambem de Leeds, alem daquele que ganhou a eliminatoria. A organizacao ofereceu aos concorrentes, alem de transporte e estadia em Londres, um jantar em um barco pelo Rio Tamisa, com a presenca do Staff da Corona. Tudo foi muito bem organizado, uma noite realmente agradavel. As 10 da noite chegamos a Ministry, onde tocariamos meia hora cada, das 11 a 1 e meia e eu fui sorteado para ser o segundo dos cinco a tocar. Todos tinham um nivel bem alto, e o meu set sinceramente empolgou muito a pista de danca, mesmo mais cedo do que eu gostaria de estar tocando – as 11 e meia. A Ministry lotou na noite de terca feira e o que chamo de mais vazia eram umas 400, 500 pessoas ali.. Todos os candidatos tinham um nivel altissimo e ao fim dos sets eu nao tinha ideia de quem ganharia, mas confiava na minha excelente reacao de publico, como havia confiado outrora.
O concurso eh ate que bem organizado, apesar de meu nome ter sido publicado errado algumas vezes, inclusive no cartaz principal da final nacional, apos minha reclamacao (chamaram Limao de Lemao).
A experiencia foi de qualquer forma incrivel, e, alem de sido uma experiencia fantastica, ate ganhei premios por faturar Londres ( 200 libras, uma bicicleta da Corona – mais colorida do que bonita,que ja foi vendida na caixa, e 6 caixas de 24 Coronas, que abasteceram minha dispensa por algum tempo…) e na final nacional eu ja imaginava que teria problemas… sempre achei que nao iam escolher um Brasileiro pra representar a Inglaterra em um concurso de DJs… Com tanto DJ muito bom aqui… seria como um ingles representar o Brasil em um concurso de futebol…
;o)
Limao is 31, male, Brazilian born, professional DJ and Producer, lives in London, plays gigs specially in England and Brazil, is happy to be resident at the bigger (is better!) Brazilian club outside Brazil in the whole world, proud to be lined-up in most good house music venues at London, always tries to mix-up really old school grooves between it all; Besides all that, he blogs and posts pictures at least weekly here about his and others' gigs, and about the music scene he is part of. 
Limão, 31 anos, brasileiro, DJ e Produtor profissional, mora em Londres, toca principalmente na Inglaterra e no Brasil, tem a sorte de ser residente no principal club brasileiro fora do Brasil no mundo e o orgulho de tocar regularmente nas principais noites de house em Londres, sempre tentando mixar raridades e antiguidade. No meio disso tudo, escreve e posta fotos aqui sobres as noites em que toca - ou não - e sobre a cena musical em que está envolvido. 