So, that was a long weekend! As Im sitting on the train heading back up to Seoul after a week in Busan, it allows me a bit of time to reflect over the week that was. Firstly, I love Busan, I would love to live there if the Seoul DJ scene wasn’t so good. The weather while I was there was almost perfect, had plenty of time to relax, catch up with friends and oh yeah, compete! So in case you missed it, on Saturday was the 3rd BeFm DJ comp, after coming second the previous 2 years, this year I finally managed to get that elusive first place that I had narrowly missed out on the years before. Now while the victory did have a small hollow point for me, overall it still felt pretty good and a relief that I managed to clinch first this year. Going into the competition as a pretty strong favourite wasn’t exactly a fun feeling for me, I’ve always preferred the underdog status and have been pretty used to that in the years now since Ive been in Korea, so knowing coming into this comp that I should win was def a bit of added pressure that didn’t really allow me to relax as much as I normally would before such a comp.
Anyways this year was a good group of DJs, we mostly knew each other already so at least before the comp it was easy enough to hang out, joke with each other while hanging around on a hot ass day in Busan. The weather was seriously great thou esp. compared to last year! However we were still waiting and waiting for Pinnacle to show up, which he finally did, just as he was due on stage! Poor bastard, gets on stage and then has a huge equipment fail, yeah that really rounded off his night, so the order got bumped and he got relegated to performing last.
So, quickly thru the DJs.
First up was ColdChillin, I remember his set from the first year where he managed to get 3rd place, this year again he came again with a nice set, struggled to get the crowd into it (an on-going theme all night) but still managed to set a nice medium ish bar.
Next was myself, after making a bit of a meal of my intro… (stupid CDJs, again, another on-going theme all night) I settled into my set well enough, I sold my soul and played Coco… which ended up being a total flop (fml so that pissed me off) but that was where my set abandoned being too technical and went straight to crowd service which worked exactly how I expected it to. With the exception of that stupid coco song, everything went exactly how I planned
After me was the Chinese entrant, DJasce, again he played a nice set with some good tracks and good transitions, but once again struggled to get the crowd into it, for his first outing thou Im sure he will learn from it
Next was Idub, another Seoul DJ and also his first year in the comp, again had some good tracks and nice set, managed to get the crowd a bit at times but again struggled to really keep them but did enough with his set to come in 2nd place
Next another top DJ, in his second year competiting, Kiredmik was up and came with a pretty intense set, something like 28 tracks in 9mins, dude playing like the world was about to end! However that kind of play style was quickly lost on the crowd and the medley style of set fell a bit flat and just never gave himself a chance to impress on the crowd
DJ Rell back again was up and again had some nice tracks and had a set a bit more crowd orientated and managed to pick up a few cheers along the way but once again nothing sustained and failed to maintain it throughout but had a couple of good moments up there which was enough to get him 3rd
And finally Pinnacle got back up this time with little technical difficulties aside got to try and bust out his set. He started out with the Next Episode juggle routine made famous by Jazzy Jeff, while I applaud the effort, it is a difficult routine to pull off and he struggled to make it work leaving the crowd standing there just gawking. The rest of his set didn’t bode much better either and in the end you could tell he just wanted the hell out of there
And so that was it, I was only partly paying attention to everyones sets but the overall theme of the night was poor track selection and an inability to get in the crowds face and really control them from start to finish. Oh and shitty CDJs… seriously, one of these years can we get the proper and reliable equipment, just once?
Anyways, after the winners announcement I was called to play a set on stage.. yeah all the preparation! But still I was in the ‘I don’t give a fuck’ stage of mind, just happy that I won so jumped on, played a heap of bangers, had more fun with the crowd, trolled them a little bit cause I now could! Got the other DJs up on stage with me, took a mean selfie that Rell missed out on and overall just rocked out, should prob have planned a set before hand but it didn’t matter in the end.
After the comp we all went, had a mean feed, then basked in free drinks at a club down the road before heading to another club where a couple of us were playing. Overall it was a dam good night!
So that is pretty much it, a great week away of chilling and DJn by the beach, catching up with friends, eating some good food and enjoying life! Here is a copy of my final set, its a rough version I just used so I could practice it in my head.
Also waiting on a copy of my interview with Chad on Nightrider on Busan eFM on Monday night. It was nice to finally get in the studio with him and hang out. As for next year, will I enter again… Well we shall see, I was thinking after this year I would like to make way for some other DJs to enter and try their luck but at the same time, the prize money and the chance to come back to Busan again is a pretty good incentive!
akadjblaze 