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The Agenda Info awards for 2009, awarded according to the votes of 14005 people in the Netherlands and Flanders, have been announced.

Sziget has won the Best International Festival Award for 2009.

Check out the rest of the winners here.

After playing Sziget 2009, it seems that 08001 will be at Sziget this year, too. This wonderful news is confirmed on the 08001 official website (thanks, Fantomas).

In case you don’t know who 08001 are, we’ll just tell you that they are quite a very interesting project, combining the inspiration of a line-up of artists from all around the world, that meet in Barcelona to create their music.

08001 live shows mix the performances of a large number of artists with a visual screen show.

08001 are set to play Sziget Festival 2010 on August 15.

Yes, that’s right, another important act has confirmed its presence at this year’s Sziget Festival. The band that has confirmed its presence in Sziget 2010’s lineup is GWAR. Oderus Urungus’ men were supposed to be at Sziget Festival 2009, this didn’t happen, but they will be here this year.

GWAR is known to be a great live act, so we can’t wait to see them at this year’s Sziget. GWAR will play Sziget Festival 2010 on August 11 and their presence is announced on the GWAR official website. (thanks Jari!)

Here’s an update on the earlier Rise Against rumor. We tried to confirm this with their staff, and we got an answer a few minutes ago from Missy Worth, at their management.

This is what it said:

We will not be playing- we won’t be in Europe in august

Sorry to give you this news, but the information on the last.fm page is inaccurate.

We also got some good news from the Rise Against management – the band will play in Budapest in June.

Very good news today! Infected Mushroom have confirmed their presence at this year’s Sziget Festival.

Infected Mushroom will play Sziget Festival 2010 on August 14, according to their official website.

Thanks to our reader chudo_pahan for the tip.

Finally, we have the first confirmed bands for this year’s Sziget Festival. These bands have already confirmed their presence via their official sites or MySpace pages and, although they’re not very big names, it’s still good to know about them.

Here we go, then:

• Eslam is the first name and the way he describes himself is quite interesting:
  

  An ex Lebanese Mafia affiliate turned overweight entertainer, after an 8 Million Dollar sale of a stolen Mammoth tusk from a Siberian excavation went wrong… Born to Syrian and Lebanese parents, Eslam Jawaad (real name ‘Wissam Khodur’) left his mafia past in Lebanon and came to London in October 2003 where he quickly caught on to the vibrant music scene of the bustlin’ city. He found his way into the underground music scene, linking with British acts UK Apache, Visionary Underground, Fun-Da-Mental and Asian Dub Foundation.

His music is old-school hip-hop and he has worked with Damon Albarn’s The Good, The Bad and The Queen. Check Eslam out right here. Eslam will be playing the Main Stage.

• Blues Trappers are next – they’re a Hungarian blues band, that wants to bow before the Blues Brothers. The date is confirmed on their official site.
• Kaido Kirikmäe is an electronic music act from Estonia. According to his MySpace page, he mostly creates electronic yet organic music with experimental beats that is mainly built on loop structures. His presence is confirmed on his MySpace page.

Here’s a cool souvenir from this year’s Sziget Festival. The Editors, playing their song “Bricks and mortar” at Sziget 2009. Even if winter’s coming, remembering this great summer always feels good. Enjoy!

Organisers of this year’s Sziget will provide a clinic specialising in respiratory problems on-site, as well as a round-the-clock pharmacy for those who might feel unwell during the week-long event, Hungarian Health Minister Tamas Szekely and head of the festival Karoly Gerendai told reporters on Monday, according to caboodle.hu.

The clinic will have 60 beds and will help those with flu-like symptoms. Music fans with other medical issues will be treated at the first-aid points.It is important that possible A/H1N1 patients are isolated, the minister said. He added that 122 new flu cases had been registered in Hungary up to now.

400 health professionals will be working at this year’s Sziget.

The minister noted that health facilities on the festival grounds will be staffed by a total of 400 health professionals.

The festival will be “absolutely safe and people don’t need to worry as long as they observe basic rules of personal hygiene,” Szekely said.

Here’s a live performance by Miss Platnum, for the ones of you who want to get a preview of her show at Sziget Festival 2009, on August 13, at 15:00 hours, at the Main Stage. The songs are “Give Me The Food” and Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy Back”.

English political rapper Lowkey, that is also known for working with Reverend & The Makers and with the “political indie-supergroup” Mongrel is confirmed on his MySpace to play Sziget’s Rock Against Racism Day, as our friend Mellowmaniac tells us. It’s still not clear if he’ll be a part of the “all-stars” band or if he will play as solo act.