CityLife Club Awards 2010: The winners
AWARD ceremonies today are about as fun as being beaten around the face with a bag of bricks and offer a contribution to culture marginally less relevant and meaningful than the average Ke$ha lyric.
Most shows are seven hours long, comprising a cavalcade of tuxedoed clichés patting each other on the back as if trying to wipe mediocrity from their palms, while even the supposedly cool ’n’ edgy ones are unlikely to throw up more controversy than Kanye West running onstage to rant about some imagined injustice like a mad uncle at a wake. BORING.
Not so the CityLife 2009 Clubbing Awards, which represent singularly the most exciting thing to happen to the planet since they first put condiments in squeezy containers.
These awards are here to reward only the best floorfilling action our fair city has to offer, with no credence paid to averageness or tedium.
So, without further ado, let’s get on with dishing out the gongs.
Best Club – Clique
This was the year that Clique hit full gear. After settling into its new Mint Lounge home, the club went weekly and welcomed guests including Flo-Mash and the Mystery Jets while fleshing out one of the city’s most defined and distinctive musical policies. More special guests and further domination are on the cards for the night, which also gets the nod for Best Looking Crowd.
Best Indie – Now Wave
With an edict stating that only new music gets played, a summer switch to free entry and on-the-pulse live bookings including the likes of the xx, the club had a great year. Expect even better in 2010.
Best House – Venus
Venus kept the faith in 2009 with the help of its funky house fanbase, with a no-nonsense focus on commercial sounds making the night more popular than ever. More of the same is predicted when they open in their own premises later this month.
Best Rock – Jilly’s Rockworld
Still smashing it almost every night of the week, Jilly’s (pictured below) gets the nod for its long-running Friday All-nighter, at which four rooms of genre-specific carnage await. Makes metal fun for everyone.
Best Commercial - Pure
Still Got It – Funkademia/Smile
After running for a combined total of over 30 years, this pair epitomise longevity. Perhaps the key to their success is the adoption of timeless genres – funk and soul for the former, indie for the latter, both of which are about as likely to go out of fashion as shoes.
Best Door Staff – The Star & Garter
In keeping with the venue’s permissive and friendly clubbing atmosphere, the security at the S&G are more helpful and reassuring than a parachute during a skydive. Never afraid to eke out trouble or refuse entry to its instigators, the staff are nonetheless laid back enough to ensure that you don’t feel like you’ve done something wrong just in turning up.
Best Name - Underachiever Please Try Harder
Best Sound and Light – Sankeys
The Radium Street superclub celebrated its 15th anniversary with a slew of additions, complementing its deafeningly powerful sound set-up with new lights including LED equalizers, which made it feel like you were dancing inside an Eighties hi-fi. This was the year that the Sankeys experience really did justice to all the big name guests.
Best Blub – House 9
The bar/club hybrid launched this year with a superb upstairs space programmed by Iain Taylor.
Best Bookings – The Warehouse Project
The WHP has been accused variously of acting like a crazed gannet and stifling the citywide scene with its booking power. Which is nonsense, of course – if anything, the stellar shows during 09 merely forced the club’s competitors to up their game. La Roux, Aphex Twin, Major Lazer and Doorly were among dozens of other coups, making Store Street the place to go for big guests.
Best Tune – Dizzee Rascal, Bonkers
Best Remix – Bat For Lashes – Daniel (Duke Dumont remix)
The Duke’s annihilation of this excellently named record nearly blew our car doors off when we first played it, and remains his best work behind his jaw-dropping Mystery Jets remix from 2008.
Tip For 2010 – Disco/Dubstep
Sadly Missed 2009 – KML
The electro/indie masterclass shuffled off this mortal coil in 2009 and still leaves a gap in the lives of those who went for its NO NOSTALGIA, NO THROWBACKS promise.
Published: Fri, 08 January, 2010
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