Boxcon - International Beatbox Convention Live Review by Craig Montana

Beatboxing is one of the strange, mysterious elements of Hip Hop Culture. The skill of making music with your mouth, and making it look effortless, is a truly underrated talent. A talent that was celebrated at South bank's Queen Elizabeth Hall on Friday 18th - Sunday 20th April 2008. Beatboxer's from all over the world got together to showcase their skills at the annual Beatbox convention. Taking part in shows, workshops and seminars. (Seminars!) It was great to see this art form being taken seriously. The two days activity was provided by the good folks at the Ether Festival. The Ether Festival combines music, technology and performance to create weeks worth of creative and innovative live concerts. Most of the stuff, seminars, workshops and open mics were free of charge to the general public. SAFE!

So we got to the Queen Elizabeth Hall around 2pm, not really knowing what to expect. Would anyone turn up? Would it be a messy cacophony of randomly hurled beats, breaks and snares, where Beatboxer's jostle for time to shine in front of a disinterested audience? We were pleasantly surprised to find a very civilized and rather large group of individuals of mixed ages silently captivated by the sounds emanating from the stage. The whole event ran smoothly. With a host on hand to call up each Beatbox artist in turn, a soundman on hand to make sure the levels where constantly to the artists liking and an open minded and accommodating crowd keen to hear Beatboxers of varying standards.
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