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From the moment Wyclef Jean entered the stadium on camels, wearing an the finery of an oriental sheik and with a swathe of bellydancers before him, you could tell this was going to be a spectacular show.  Wyclef was lowered onto the transparent glass stage, where the music began, and before anyone could think to blink, the outfit had already been whipped off!

The result? An extremely buff Wyclef … in a lycra Australian-themed bodysuit, dancing wildly with surfboard in hand. And if you thought you knew Wyclef before, nothing could prepare you for the intimate sight you now got, as the Fugees fastrider flipped his man bits, danced and sung for all to see.

It was a spectacular beginning to the MTV Australia Awards 2008, and you could tell from the start that nothing at all about this show was going to be ordinary. With a speed more evocative of a party bash than a dreary ceremony, the action whipped from centre stage to the VIP bars that lined the crowd space, in presentations and performances that were unconstrained by tradition and heavy on the action.

A weightlifting Wyclef announced bad boy 50 Cent, and soon Kisschasy cranked the party in hairstyles that took centre stage – drummer Karl Ammitzboll’s was the wildest, whipped into a topknot and punctuated with a feather. Eve skipped out for a funky showcase of her greatest hits in the form of a medley, where a girly troupe in sexy costuming formed a Japanese businessman’s dream - maids in frilly outfits rocked the ruffles and had legs, garters and white panties flying everywhere, while the funkiest chick DJ juiced the beats that got the audience into an even bigger spin than Eve’s half-clothed male dancers.

By the time The Veronicas stepped on the stage, the crowd was slick and screamed the whole act through, as the girls, flanked by band and 4 cellists, delivered their latest gothic groove Untouched. It might have been a metaphor for their performance, if Juliette and the Licks hadn’t followed it up with something so damn high in energy. Performing their addictive old-school rock song Hot Kiss, Juliette threw herself around the stage with all her trademark power, showering the front row with the wild sweat of her geometric acrobatics and tribal throttle.

While Kim Kardashian and Jason Dundas got it on (Kim said she couldn’t help herself, as Jason was “as hot as balls!” (?)) the Best Television Moment Award was awarded by sister Khloe. Eve next announced Wyclef once more, and this time he had some seriously strong dudes carry the buff boy through the audience before performing his brand new single Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill). With band members sporting themed Carnivale masks, Wyclef showed his musical prowess, starting on a piano and then moving to a stiff performance on the guitar, where he capably played it behind his head Hendrix-style, then played off his fellow band guitarist in some freakin’ awesome fingerwork.

Yet perhaps “the” highlight of the show were local kids The Potbelleez. These guys (including most notably, one girl, super-rapper MC Blu!) summoned the love of beats in the entire audience when they performed their classic club track “Don’t Hold Back”. And the audience didn't. Harnessing the love of 6,000 people, the group worked the crowd into a slather, standing on turntables, urging the entire audience to sing along to their anthemic chant,  and riding firework explosions to the climax of their performance. All hands were in the air and the crowd was riding high throughout, which clearly left both band and audience feeling that they’d experienced a kind of mass music orgasm when it was finished – there were stacks of elated smiling faces and heaving chests exchanging mutual moments both on-stage and off it. Even Wyclef couldn’t “hold back” when it was his turn to compare after the performance: he just had to sing it again into the mike. It was a too-perfect introduction to the Good Karma award.

Following more presentations, Dizzee Rascal next bounced out for a thumping performance of his new hit Sirens, which saw the lines between hip hop and hard metal blur in crazy fashion. And if such a thing is unimaginable to the uninitiated, who else but Dizzee to show us just how it was done? Showing no sign of fatigue from the awesome MTV Mile High Gig the night before, the spinner and his posse worked the blue-lit buzz to engage in everything from earnest high-speed rhymes to running man. It’s no wonder fellow hip hop hero Scribe couldn’t help but rave that it was the “best MTV Australia Awards ever”.

Australia’s most fantastic spectacular ended with the Vines coming together for the first time in a long time, to burst the cherry of a brand new single that had never been heard before by the public. They were accompanied by a laser show that was nothing short of jaw-dropping, as it painted three dimensional beams in eye-burning lime around them, and gave the audience the sense that they must have tripped into the sixth dimension.

All in all, the MTV Australia Awards was something like an Awards show, but something more like a massive party, where you didn’t need Corey Worthington to grab 6,000 wild and crazy party people and bring them together around a selection of cranking performances.   And unlike last year’s Video Music Awards in the US, there was not one person who didn’t put their heart and soul into bringing you right into the centre of them.

It was breathtaking to be there, and you can still catch it all on OverDrive. So if you missed it once, don’t miss out forever – just watch it.

by Jade Maitre