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It
was Wednesday the 14th of October 2009 when Delson, Boyd and Jade set off
to Sydney for Indigenous Australia's night-of-night's, and you guess it, it was
the 15th annual Deadly Awards! ....
It had taken The Yabu Band 16
long hard year's to be nominated for these coveted awards... but hey, not one,
but two. The boys were nominated for both, 'Most Promising New Talent in Music
& 'Band of the Year'!....
.. ..
Drummer Jade Masters say's, "I
remember sitting in the Sydney Opera House at the start of the awards hoping we
could finally get up and win a Deadly, then the time had come, the
first category was 'Band of the Year' and the winner is, Saltwater
Band from the NT! In my mind I'm thinking oh no there it goes!!!....
.. ..
At this stage I was just so happy to
be amongst all these wonderfully talented people, I mean come on, "The
Man" Anthony Mundine was there, Patrick Johnson, Shane Howard and of
course Jessica Mauboy! We had grown up in ore of these people... life just
couldn't get better then this!....
.. ..
As the awards went on I was feeling
very nervous as both Delly and I had to present two awards including; Female
Sports Person of the Year & Most Promising New Talent in Sport... this was
to be directly after Jessica Mauboy had finished her performance so you could
imagine how I was feeling!....
.. ..
Well after many awards were given
out and time had gone by, a lady from backstage told Delly and I that we had to
be backstage in five minutes to present... "not to sure how Delly was
feeling but hey this made me very very nervous"!....
.. ..
Well within that five minutes the
category for Most Promising New Talent in Music was being read out "I was
so scared, please be The Yabu Band please, please" and the deadly
award goes to, wait for it, 'The Yabu Band' "I was so happy that I just
wanted to cry of happiness, I mean we had achieved something so great for our
fans, our families, for Western Australia and of course ourselves!....
.. ..
There were cameras in our faces as
we were walking to the stage, there was our song Willy - Willy being played, it
was just an amazing feeling all round... ....
.. ..
Delly thanked lots of people from
home and WA in general as for me, well I was speechless as to what to say... I
even forget close family, not good at all! but hey these things happen!....
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So Delly and I presented the awards
to both Rohanee Cox and Jamal Idris. What a great feeling to be handing over
such a massive awards to great sports stars of our Indigenous community.....
.. ..
At the end of the awards Shane
Howard from Goanna Band performed one of my favourite songs of all time, 'Solid
Rock'!!! well from there it was one big party, it was the 2009 Deadly's after
party and yes there was plenty of cordial for everyone... haha.......
.. ..
As I arrive back in Perth I felt a
great sense of achievement, Yabu had brought home a piece of history
to WA's Goldfields and boy did it feel good!....
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Yabu Band Drummer
Jade Masters.......