After a short rest and many 14-hour photoshop sessions later, I met the gang at the Vancouver airport and we made our way to Toronto. The ten finalists from each heat were flown in to Canada’s biggest city to battle for top spot at the Red Bull 3Style 2009 finals.

After 10 stops in 28 days, over 7,500 people had danced and listened to over 80 DJs do their thing in the hopes of becoming the most versatile DJ in Canada. Months of sweat, blood, and air-miles accumulated to this one night. Here’s the journal of what went down…

Toronto

Spent a lot of time reading the Air Canada magazine - EnRoute. Really good mag, definitely the best airplane one and probably one of the best magazines out there, period.

DJs on a bus like a football team in a city. Final showdowwwnn

When we go to our hotel my brain just about blew up. We stayed at the Gladstone Hotel featuring themed rooms. Mine was the Faux Naturelle - “a woodsy retreat where lesbian separatist commune meets Storybook Gardens . The hotel guest staying in this fairy glen will have a jumb-o-tron view of a bevy of husky wood nymphs frolicking in a forest glade via a giant erotic fun fur canyon scene covering the largest wall in the room.” It was done by artist Allyson Mitchell and it was mind boggling.

3Style Vancouver heat winner P-LUV in the Teen Queen room - “an homage to the young girls we were, feared, wished we’d been or wanted to date. Think purple gingham, wild horses, crimped hair, frosted lipstick, Teen Beat posters and unicorn love.” He is stoked. Hahahhahahahhahahha

Once the hotel adventure was over we visited the Red Bull Toronto office which was like a commune from Mars - a labyrnith of tunnels and spaces with lots of glass. Definitely the coolest office space I’ve ever visited. This naturally meant an impromptu portrait session with raddest guys on the planet and rulers of the universe, Jokers of the Scene.

all day

The next day called for an epic photo shoot with the fantastic Eh! Team. This was one of the most exhausting, but also one of the funnest shoots of my life. I’ll never forget the phone conversation with Aaron aka Grandtheft of Team Canada: “tomorrow is going to be amazing man we rented these full-on body suits they’re gonna look wicked in photos.” ‘wtf? Full-on body suits? What do you mean?’ “Oh we’ve got like a barney one and a killer rabbit one, you’ll see tomorrow I’m really excited.” He may have been excited, but I was flat-out scared.

The location for the shoot was Toronto’s CiRCA, where the 3Style National Finals would be held later that night. In this particular room, the table would light up if pressure was applied to it (note Pump’s foot in the poster above). After this photo was taken they got their costume heads on and….

DJ Canadian Eagle, DJ killer rabbit, DJ Chillin’ Barney, DJ Angry Beaver, DJ Elephant aka Long Nose, and DJ Eddie Murphy i mean Donkeh

bpm.tv documenting the fairytale mash-up

We took it to another room in the gigantic arena that is CiRCA. Here Hedspin pretends to be a donkey

“Hey we should take this shoot outside” - ‘Yeah I’m down. Where would we go though’ -”Ah crap, I duno. Hooters?”

There is no messing around as far as we’re concerned. Straight b-line to…

the land of legs, beer, and chicken wings

With six guys in full body costumes, an entourage of managers, a photographer, and a video crew, you can only imagine how quickly we got kicked out of there

The team revealed. L to R - Jr. Flo, Hedspin, Grandtheft (Team Canada), Pump, Raph (Team Canada), and Illo

And this wrapped up our portrait shoot. One of the most enjoyable I’ve experienced, thanks Eh! Team

A-Rock during an interview with Curtis Santiago at dinner right before the finals. Curtis never stopped preparing - his MCing was always on point. Right after dinner I nabbed a quick shower, met my friend and assistant for the night Ryan Mcclanaghan and headed down to the epicness that was…

CiRCA for the Red Bull 3Style 2009 Finals. This view only shows 1/3 of the main dance floor (complete with escalator). Then there were four floors, all of which had their own spaces and rooms. Basically, the club was monolithic. Over four thousand people made their way through the CiRCA doors that night, bearing witness to a sonic adventure of massive proportions.

P-LUV rockin’ it.

Kid-SL in a gleam of shinyness

The VIP room was definitely a see and be seen kind of place. Not that anyone had an issue with it

Garret Louie aka GMan blawggin to keep readers back home up to date. Hardest working men in the business, GMan and Rizk know what’s up and I was psyched they were there with us

Bryx! He just made a mix for Red Bull which you can download here.

Third place finisher P-LUV repping Vancouver. He destroyed it, as did his 420 break

Mensa landed second place. And first place went to none other than…

man of the hour - Cosmo from Halifax

After a killer set, he performed a tremendously entertaining skit involving a balaklava

and $100 worth of US$1 notes

Congrats on the win, Cosmo! It was incredibly rewarding to see the DJs enjoy their time on stage so much and supporting each other throughout. Nothing but good vibes from the entire competition series.

All in all, it was already a f’in incredible night, but there was more to come for the 4000+ pair of Torontorian ears.

A-Trak. On a table.

And on the decks. He was in top form, playing material from his then-upcoming album Infinity+1. Never get tired of watching him live, talent runs through this guy’s veins

And Neil Armstrong concluded the night nicely, putting to end one banger of a tour that left our minds reeling for a long time to come. Thanks for reading!

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To see photos from the rest of the tour, click:

Part I - Vancouver / Winnipeg / Calgary / Edmonton

Part II - Kitchener / Toronto / Ottawa

Part III - Quebec City / Halifax / Montreal

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Special thanks to Kenny Mac and Red Bull for making this happen.

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To download photos from the tour for content use (courtesy of Red Bull), hit up the Red Bull Photofiles website HERE

Red Bull Canada Facebook page with 3Style photos HERE

Watch and listen to the finalists sets on exclaim.ca HERE

More of my music work HERE