Breakspoll 06 :: The after shock
Having won the best radio show award at Breakspoll 2006, Annie Nightingale reflects on another career high.
Check out pictures from Breakspoll Awards 2006
You might think, as you are reading this on a BBC website page, that for Radio 1's only dedicated breakbeat show to win Best Radio Show at this year's International Breakbeat Awards in London would be, perhaps, a given.
And you would be soooooo wrong.
Although my show has broadcast the event every year, and I have co-presented the awards ceremony with the ultra-cool Danny Macmillan, I always felt a bit awkward about entering the competition to win Best Radio Award. Y'know, people thinking its maybe then a bit of a fix, a bit of a fiddle, a bit of a swiz, a bit...'well, she would win, wouldn't she?"
But there are no fixes in the Breakbeat Awards. There have been no 'industry choices'. No insider decisions. All the winning categories were achieved entirely by on-line voting. And there was an in-built device to stop block voting as well! Every year until now Radio 1 has been soundly thrashed by internet radio stations, and I have had no problem with that!
It's the internet that has spread the popularity of this music around the world, and big up to everyone who is doing it. But I don't want to sound all holier-than-thou. I was chuffed beyond belief to win Best Radio Show, and as this year I did ask listeners to vote for me, I'm still feeling overwhelmingly touched that so many did. I really, really didn't know the result in advance.
It turned out that all my team at Radio 1 knew, but they wanted to keep it a surprise for me. Well it WAS! To such an extent, that concentrating as I was on presenting the awards on the stage at Fabric in London, with Danny, that when he opened the envelope and said: "And the winner is...the first lady of ...breaks...."
Well it was like one of those dream sequences in bad straight-to-video movies where the images go all wobbly, like everyone's caught in a heat haze and all the voices go all ec-ho-ey and it all becomes something far away and happening to someone else, you think you're about to have a white-y, and I really was, speechless. Not a great attribute for a radio presenter....
So, two weeks later, still on top of the world, a big, big thank you to everyone who voted not just for me but in all the categories. What has been so impressive this year is that 50,000 people voted in the Breakspoll Awards. Wicked.
Everyone agreed it was the best breakspoll party that's happened so far. After the tension, the preparation, presenting the awards, getting the Radio 1 show broadcast, doing interviews, it took several hours before I could really kick back.
When I did, I really did, and ended up chatting with James Base of i-breaks internet radio station for most of the night, and then unzipped my boots and hurled them across the floor. Running barefoot around Fabric is probably not recommended, but hey! It was a special night till some one pointed at my bare feet and yelled out "Hippy!"
Many congratulations to all the winners and the nominees, big up to everyone who voted and to Mike and Tim who selflessly organise the event every year. You can check out all the results on www.breakspoll.com and I'll be playing more sets recorded on the night by top breaks acts on my show in coming weeks.
Next stop, breaks hits Miami , and from what I hear already there are going to be some right shenanigans happening when those breakbeat bass lines start to roll across South Beach . I'll be bringing you a special show from the Miami Winter Music Conference at the end of March. Listen up!
love Annie x
