Seeing that social networking sites are  all the rave amongst the youth, Safaricom LIVE’s Face-off bash was the place to be write MATILDA NZIOKI and DAVID ODONGO.

The Safaricom Face-off Party over the weekend was characterised by a large turnout, a parade of celebrities, misbehaving bouncers, disgruntled fans and lovely stage performances from the greater East African community. Hundreds of teenagers who thronged the KICC grounds to witness the crowning of the King and Queen of Facebook among other categories left entertained albeit slightly wet from the threatening clouds.

A section of them were angry at what they termed as ‘unfair crowning of already groomed winners’.

The event, which was slated for midday started on time with celebrity after celebrity on the podium, giving their all to the expectant crowd. With Churchill’s attention-grabbing remarks, Alemba’s rib-cracking jokes, G-Money’s sobriety and Debbie Asila’s softness, the event never had a dull moment. With a galaxy of top artistes and singers, the event was top notch considering that all that the Pulsers needed was a Bamba 50 to watch the bonanza.

Artistes such as AY, Mwana FA, Nameless, Daddy Owen, Amani, Juliani, Nonini, Lady B, Wyre, MOG, Madtraxx, Eko Dydda, P-Unit, Mimmo, Proff, Mejja, Allan Aaron and many more were in the house to do their thing.

Nameless’ performance alongside his relentless dancers rocked. Amani came with a fully-fledged all-girl band, the Murfy’s FLaw. Hers was the top-notch performance. The only Bongo Stars in the house AY and Mwana FA got mad love from the crowd as they dropped hit after hit. And the fans got much more than they had bargained for.

Then came the defining moment, when the Facebook King and Queen were announced. Twenty-one-year-old OJ aka John Oballa, a student at Kenya Methodist University emerged winner. The coronation was topped with the crowning of Violet Alubisya as Facebook queen of 2010. They each won a Mac Book pro valued at around Sh100,000, a PlayStation 3, a Huawei Android 3G Smart Phone loaded with unlimited Internet for a year and a party for them and 30 of their friends organised by Safaricom LIVE. "I did a lot of campaigning, sometimes buying my friends airtime to vote for me and ask their friends to vote for me too," Violet, who has more than 1,500 Facebook friends explained her strategy. She is currently pursuing Communication and PR studies at Daystar University.

The good

For the last three weeks, ‘Facebookers’ have been going crazy with publicity messages and campaigns for the various categories on the road to the Face Off concert.

The turn-out was exceedingly amazing. The crowd even braved the light showers and dark clouds to stay till the end of the concert. All through, the youngsters cheered on the Ugandan, Tanzanian and Kenyan artistes dancing all afternoon.

Amani’s performance stood out seeing that many high profile musicians rarely treat fans to live performances.

The set up too was splendid, life size screens projecting the occurrences of the stage and great sound too.

The show again, was star-studded adding pomp and class. Among many stars, there was Shaffie, Pinye, Kalekye, Tero, Homeboyz radio host Kui, The whole of Code Red, DJ Wesley, Corrine, Nameless, AY, Mwana FA, Baby One, Mimmo, Nonini, P-Unit, Lady B, Linet Size 8, Thome of Boomba Clan, Jaguar and Montana to name but a few.

The bad

The crowd looked surprised as the winners’ names were read out. "Who is she?" a young girl with a VIP badge asked around. There was so much at stake, so the anger of some of the youth was understandable. Even on the Face-7

ff wall on Facebook, some Pulsers couldn’t resist expressing their dissatisfaction. Olga Bosibori wrote, "No one seems to agree with your results. If you rigged, shame on you guys..."

Others wondered how Violet won, arguing that she was not nominated in the first place. Another issue raised by the fans was that the king, OJ, was the only nominee who had been given 100 movie tickets to treat fans during the voting period? A group, Face off is a rip off, has emerged on Facebook and is registering brisk membership.

Samson Wanjohi, another disgruntled fan complains that the voting system was faulty.

In another category, a participant who did not wish to be named asked, "How does Sunshine get the best school category, while even when it was announced winner, there was nobody who cheered? They were unrepresented at the concert, and yet they won..." she added.

This notwithstanding, there were some fans pleased with the results. Dan Kimani, a Form Two student commented, "I don’t know about the queen, but OJ deserved the king’s title. It was very fair. He worked harder than anybody to secure the crown."

The electronics too failed more than twice. The microphone at one time was screeching like a melodious cat under the moonlight... The large screens also, which served the huge multitude went off time and again, attracting roaring from the attentive masses.

The ugly

A certain bouncer named Sam, who is believed to be Redsan’s aide proved to be a heavy liability to the organisers. The dude did not pause to listen to anyone’s issues. If you were in his way, he roughed you up, whether you were journalist or participant.

Predictably, as you would expect in a large gathering, there were a lot of sticky hands around. Unsuspecting youth lost their mobile phones, so did some innocent passers-by near KICC. They were snatched in broad daylight and the ‘hustlers’ took off, despite there being policemen.

Some teenagers stole a whole bunch of Safaricom scratch cards from one of the vendors at the entrance. Luckily though, the police nabbed the young thieves.