The 2013 MK Awards: My 2 Cents

The 2013 MK Awards ceremony was held at the State Theatre in Pretoria last night. I had the privilege of attending my second award ceremony and I must say that I had a blast.

We arrived at the venue just after 5:30 PM and quickly booked into the 2013 MK Awards. It was fun sharing the black carpet with SA musos like Tamara Dey, the Graeme Watkins project, CrashCarBurn, Die Tuindwergies and others as we made our way up the stairs for some free champagne.

The setup was pretty schweet and you could easily spot the starstruck individuals who were attending their first 2013 MK Awards ceremony. Eventually we settled into the theatre just before 7 PM after repeated warning signals went off ushering everyone to make their way there.

The 2013 MK Awards ceremony was only 75 minutes long and the theatre was quite packed. Awards were handed out in 10 categories this year and there were a few surprises.

Here are the 2013 MK Awards Winners:

Best Newcomer: Gangs of Ballet – Hello Sweet World – One of the surprises. I really expected Goodnight Wembley to walk away with this MK Award.

Best Group: Van Coke Kartel – Dis ‘n Land – I had a feeling that they would win this MK Award. Van Coke Kartel are definitely one of the best groups in the SA Music Scene today.

Best Solo: Jeremy Loops – Howling – I kinda expected this to happen and he definitely deserves this MK Award. If you’ve seen him live you’ll agree with me.

Best SFX/Animation: Haezer ft. Lark – Brave – There were some brilliant videos in the category but this one was my favorite. Pretty amazing stuff.

Best Dance: Johnny Neon – Hearts – One of the most unique videos ever made. The best thing of it all is because it only cost R15 to make. Nothing wrong with strapping a Go-Pro to your dog to record a music video.

Best Rock: Van Coke Kartel – Dis ‘n Land – Seeing that Van Coke Kartel has a huge fan base, I wasn’t suprised that this happened. The music video is also pretty friggin’ epic.

Best Indie: Shortstraw – One Long Day – Another surprise, but I’m extremely happy for this band. They played an absolutely awesome show at RAMFest 2013 Johannesburg and they owned Park Acoustics in Pretoria a few months ago.

Best Live Act: The Black Cat Bones – The Citizen confirmed this a few years ago and now it’s official thanks to the 2013 MK Awards. These blokes are insanely energetic on stage. The Black Cat Bones definitely has the craziest bassist and one of the most passion-driven lead vocalists in SA Music. I’m extremely happy for them.

Best SA Music Festival: Oppikoppi 2012 – No surprise really. Oppikoppi 2012 Sweet Thing was bigger than Rocking The Daisies and RAMFest. Over 20,000 people attended the festival near Northam in Limpopo last year.

Best Video: Van Coke Kartel – Tot Die Son Uitkom – Expected result. One of my favorite songs and music videos of 2012. One of the most beautiful Afrikaans songs written in the history of SA Music.

After the whole ceremony was done it was time to party and mingle with some of the brightest and bestest in the SA Music Scene. The booze was a bit expensive this year. I’m not used to pay R20 for a beer and R52 for a double rum and coke in Pretoria.

It wasn’t a bad thing though, the next day was a Monday after all. The food at the 2013 MK Awards was pretty tasty and the atmosphere was pretty cool outside (thanks to the awesome pumping tunes that Johan and Misha were playing).

It was nice bumping into a ton of interesting folks on the night like @rudi_cronje, George from Taxi Violence, the okes from the Black Cat Bones, Franny, Jedd, Gareth Wilson, Tammy Wilson, @Liesldb, @StellaTeleur, @ShellsPembroke, @chrismaider, Sean Brand and a whole bunch of others. The MK Awards will always remain one of the highlights of the SA Musical calendar in my books.

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