Good Gig, Bad Gig.

[Shakermaker Promotions]

My corporate gig last night was..er...a bit different.
Set up in the morning so that I didn't interrupt their AGM. I was booked to do the Disco from 7.30pm - 11.00pm and arranged to get back to the venue for 7.15pm.
I quietly walked in to the room and was greeted with a round of applause (erm, ok slightly embarassing but nice to know they think well of me). Made sure everything was turned on and ready to go for when the meeting finished. They finished their meeting at 8.00pm. This was followed by a quiz (which they did themselves) and then a raffle (they also did this themselves). It was now 8.30pm and I hadn't played a song as yet. Well, that's a lie. As they were waiting for the quiz teams to get the answer sheets in, there was 1 team that were taking their time so everyone else was hurrying them up. I quickly loaded up the Countdown 30 Second Clock from my Jingles and Effects folder and everyone was in stitches.

I was advised in advance that the turn out wouldn't be that great and I counted 48 people whilst I waited to start.
Once everything was done and dusted half of them left. The rest of them drank and visited the buffet.
As soon as I started playing I got people on the dance floor but gradually the numbers were dropping as people left and at 9.00pm there were 9 people left. I then got the nod at 9.15pm to call it a night and they couldn't apologise enough to me.

Very strange night but as always, they enjoyed themselves and said they'll see me again before I do their Christmas party.

[djdave01]

got a bit of a scare last night.

I run from a laptop, through an American Audio DP2 controller via USB, the sound comes from the DP2 to the mixer. At last nights wedding, I played the 1st dance, then followed by a 2nd slow song for the bridal party. Half way through the 2nd tune, a distorted screeching noise suddenly came over the music. I quickly loaded another copy of the same track to the 2nd deck on virtual DJ, but the same noise was there. I apologised on the mic the switched to the backup Cortex player, which was fine.

Over the next few minutes I worked out it appeared to be the DP2's sound card that was making the noise. Only way I could carry on the night from the laptop was to run a single audio cable from the laptops headphone socket to the mixer. I could still control Virtual DJ from the DP2. Due to being wired this way, I had no headphones to cue music, but that didn't really cause any hassle.

I got though the rest of the night ok, and re-played the 2nd slow song near the end. Luckly I know the bride personally and she was ok about it.

Ive got a Karaoke event this afternoon, so don't have time to look further into this today, have to run without headphones again for this one.

[Jonathan Ford]

Pretty rubbish weekend for me, with polar opposite gigs on Friday and Saturday.

Friday was a wedding in a miners welfare club. The room was pretty grim, and looked like it hadn't had a lick of paint since the pit closed! Home made buffet too, which they set out on a couple of tressle tables right in front of the small stage I was set up on....proper Phoenix Club affair! Anyway, 122 pre-requests lasting 8.5 hours, and all of it the kind of wedding cheese you could probably get away with for half an hour at the end of the night.

It's always god to start the evening off with a disaster, and Friday night was different. Two and a half minutes into the first dance, there was a loud crack from behind me...then silence!! It took me ages to work out what had happened (well...it felt like ages!), but the socket had popped and the surge protector on my extension had kicked in. Because all of the faders were open, and VDJ still running due to laptop battery, it really confused me! The couple were understanding that it wasn't my fault, but stil not a great start from the evening. From that point on, I couldn't kick the evening into top gear, and restricted by the cheesy playlist that would only work when everyone was jarred, I really struggled. Because they self-catered, the Groom grafted all night. Every time I looked up, he was doing something with the buffet, and by the time I was in my last 20 minutes, he was moving furniture!

Saturday was a different kettle of fish. A regular, really smart venue. No pre-requests at all for this one except the first dance. Despite me asking for pre-requests, I didn't get any, and from our meeting all I knew in advance was that they didn't want me to play The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Queen or Bon Jovi, but did like David Guetta. A good number of guests were fully refreshed by the time I got there, and were pretty demanding. One particular guy really managed to get on my nerves, and fortunately walked away mid-sentence as I was just about to (wholly unprofessionally) unleash around of 's at him as he'd been in my ear every ten minutes for the last three hours!! This gig wasn't so bad, but again I felt like we didn't really hit top gear. To round things off a treat, the woofer in one of my passive speakers cashed in its chips at 2300, and with no replacement speaker with me, I had to limp through the last hour on one speaker. Merde.

So, despite venue electrical shenanigans, and my equipment failures, what is the theme of these two gigs, both of which I classify as unsatisfactory? The answer I've arrived at is client input. The Friday gig was booked by the father of the groom. I didn't get to meet the couple in advance, and didn't even know their names when I arrived. The playlist was too big, but didn't cover a wide enough range. I did get to meet Saturday's couple, but their input was so minimal, it was almost absent. I think I need to revisit this going forward, and be a bit stricter with my clients in terms of requests and playlists. And buy some new speakers!

[funkymook]

So, despite venue electrical shenanigans, and my equipment failures, what is the theme of these two gigs, both of which I classify as unsatisfactory? The answer I've arrived at is client input. The Friday gig was booked by the father of the groom. I didn't get to meet the couple in advance, and didn't even know their names when I arrived. The playlist was too big, but didn't cover a wide enough range. I did get to meet Saturday's couple, but their input was so minimal, it was almost absent. I think I need to revisit this going forward, and be a bit stricter with my clients in terms of requests and playlists. And buy some new speakers!

I know a couple of courses that'll help you with this

[DJ Jules]

Something a bit different for me on Friday night. I'd been booked to DJ at a 50th birthday party for a friends Mother and I'd been looking forward to it for a while. I'd been to family parties with the friend and their family before (with no DJ's) and they're a lively bunch so I was expecting some good dance floor action from the off. The friend told me that the event would be fancy dress, there would be quite a few kids there so she wanted some kids games until the buffet at 9:15 and then some games with the adults afterwards. She also said that attendance would be good so I was reckoning on a good night - not one of the usual boring family parties where it looks like a handful of people have only turned up for the buffet and everyone goes home at 9:30.

Sadly, I was wrong. Venue held 80. About 40 turned up - 6 of which where kids (not enough really to get good momentum on the kids games) and about 12 of the adults (unfortunately the livelier ones that I was counting on to get the night going) immediately all grouped round a table and started playing drinking games - and then stayed there until the end of the night, only pausing to get the buffet, and then to move to an empty table closer to the back of the venue when the music got louder later on, completely ignoring the music and games.

One of those nights that had potential which sadly was not to be realised.

Julian

[Jim - Scotland's Party DJ]

Had a belter of a wedding on Saturday night.

It was the sister of a mate I work beside. They had been looking at getting some guy that the groom played fives with for £120 and drink on the night then decided that this wasn't maybe the best of ideas as they didn't even know if this guy had a PA never mind a clue about what he was doing.

My mate and his brother are in a band so the plan was to have them come up and do a short acoustic set through my PA which wasn't an issue but as it got closer to the date, they decided it was going to be too much hassle (and to be fair there wouldn't have been much in the way of room onstage) so it was kai boshed.

Got there nice and early only to be hassled by the caterer as a. they were running late and b. they were set up where I was going to be loading my gear. After telling him to chill out and I had no intention of hauling gear past a hot food set up in a tiny corridor he calmed down but I'm sorry mate, your stress is not my problem so don't be taking it out on me.

I set up at the bottom of the stairs so when they were done I could get my stuff up and running asap. Had a bit of an issue with power on the stage so had to run drums from a socket at the side of the room and I was just about set up when they started letting people back in.

1st dance went down a treat and they had a 2nd dance with family and the wedding party.

After that I had people dancing in small groups until the buffet after which the floor was packed all night.

Was the first time I'd done this venue - Colzium House and it's a nice big room with space right through it for dancing. There were still people sitting about but the floor was packed until the end.

They wanted to finish with I Gotta Feeling so everyone could have a final big dance so I suggested they do a slowie ( Caledonia ) just before it so everyone would get up and then kick straight into it. It went down a treat and even though the caretaker had fired up the room lights, everyone was still bouncing about mad.

No drama except for one drunk tool who was so out of it he thought I hadn't played his request and then decided that I had played one of the band's songs but not the one he wanted (both were wrong) he then came up as the final dance was going on asking for a bit of Oasis. A pest but no real hassle.

Bride and groom were very happy and they handed me an envelope with £30 in it which was much appreciated.

If only they were all as good and easy as this. one of my mates was out with a bridezilla who was apparently raging that he wasn't playing her song list even though no one had been dancing to it and he'd filled the floor with his choices.

[Excalibur]

Hello. My name is Peter, and I'm a

I've just been moving kit between cases, my mics and soundcards have left their plastic case, and taken up residence in a larger wooden one. A wooden one very similar to the one containing a Cortex and DDS drive. The more perceptive amopng you will already have guessed where this is heading. Yes, I put the wrong box in the van, and arrived at the venue for a kids party to find I had no soundcards for the laptops, and the Cortex box wasn't yet functional! Oh poo.

Fortunately for me, I had two "get out of jail" cables in the box, 3.5mm jack to two 1/4" jack plugs. I did the night playing tracks on alternate machines, and didn't really have a problem. Phew. A spot of case labelling looks to be imminent.

[JAMdisco]

Had a belter of an evening on Sunday (26th May), they booked me about a year ago after a recommendation from an old band mate who is now a pro photographer and doing their wedding photo's. Got a nice fee for it too but I won't go into that....

Arrived at venue at 5:30pm (having visited previously for a look around) for a 7:30pm start. Good job I was early as the car park was packed and the load in was up about 14 steps to the patio area, across the large patio area, through 2 sets of double doors and in, luckily I got a parking space near the steps. Anyway, before I set up I went and introduced myself to the bride (I met them when they booked), the groom was elsewhere at that point (maybe sleeping lol).

Got setup for around 7pm and had background music whilst the evening guests arrived then the usual waiting around for the B&G to give me the nod for the first dance. It was nice to meet the photographer who I've known for years and (as previously mentioned) he was my drummer for quite some time - nice to have a catch up.

So we got to the first dance around 8:15pm which was 'Jason Mraz - I won't give up', I got all the guests on about half way through (as agreed earlier with the B&G) and I though, this is going to be a great night, second song was 'Barry White - My First, My Last, My Everything' which saw some people leaving the floor and by song three which was Valerie by Amy Winehouse, the floor was empty... (I think they weren't drunk enough yet lol)

I eventually got quite a few people back up with some modernish chart stuff, the likes or Rihanna, David Guetta, Calvin Harris etc. I did get requested to play some One Direction and JLS by the Brides daughter (I reckon about 7 or 8 years old so I'll let her off lol). Surprisingly this went down very well with all ages and soon the dancefloor was packed again.

They had a surprise dance routine at about 9:45pm from some of the B&G's friends young children - it was really good, apparently they'd been practicing for months and it showed - think Diversity without all the throwing around. The dance was to 'Let's Get Ready To Rhumble' then another surprise that only the groom, photographer, hotel staff and I knew about which was a firework display in the hotel grounds in front of the 'Eye of York' (big wheel). That was again spectacular.

All guests back in for around 10pm then a packed floor right until 12:30am (all the usual cheesy disco songs kept them up).

Got packed up and gear in the car for around 1:45am (again horrible load out down the steps again) then went to get my car park ticket validated (so I didn't have to pay to get out - I arranged this previously with the Event Manager) and an hour later I was home happy but knackered... Glad of the bank holiday on Monday

[Excalibur]

Good news. Thanks to one of our largely unsung heroes on this forum, I acquired some Ultimax trusslite 500mm long, some 165mm drop Ultimax clamps, and a matching bracket for my second EFX this week. ( Mind you, the price of the Coffee I bought him in the services did make my eyes water, and my wallet tighten!! Next time, it's Burger King mate. )

So, with a couple of Ebay purchases, I was now the owner of 3metres of truss, two lasers, two EFX 500s with matching brackets, and correct drop clamps, and a Powerbar. That all fits on three meters with inches to spare, and photos of this may appear in the gallery later.

So, a 21st in a Marquee, local, for some friends with a penchant for partying into the wee small hours. Knowing what access was like, I set the kit up in the morning, for san unhurried start to the night. Early on, we had speeches, a Tombola, a Casino, and a Fish and Chip van around 10pm. Did I mention the free bar? Ah. Well I have now, and regular readers may easily be able to forecast the Grrrrrrr.

For a couple of hours, I couldn't move them, and somebody requested Fleetwood Mac. No problem, as I didn't have a dancefloor to clear, so I bunged a couple on. The floor filled instantly! Funny old game this, isn't it? It stayed pleasingly well populated for the rest of the night, and at around 1am, the inevitable happened. Glass and alcohol all over the dancefloor, and ladies dancing barefoot. Makes me cringe. The wreckage was cleared without further mishap, and we got back to the job in hand. At 2am, the Police told us to turn it down ( no surprise really, cos we were in the middle of the village. ) and we carried on at a lower volume till 3am, when I switched off, unplugged, and went home, with the laptops over my shoulder. 9am saw me back at the venue, which was surprisingly tidy, considering the last of the revellers went to bed around 5.15 am. ( there was a time when I'd still have been playing at that point, but not any more. )

So, all loaded up, kit back home, and time to prepare for an all day wedding at the seaside next week.

[Jonathan Ford]

I'm just off the back of one of the most complete and diverse stretches of work in my 20 years of DJing.

Thursday was an Anglo-Indian wedding in a country house hotel in the centre of Nottingham, with a grand entrance. They were running horrifically late when I arrived, and the entrance that was supposed to take place at 1930 actually happened at 2050. I'd had to to quite a bit of research for this one, as I have exceptionally limited (i.e.: no) knowledge of Indian music. I only agreed to take it on after being clear with the groom that I'd need some guidance. Anyway, arrived, loaded, played background music for what seemed like an eternity, entrance, cake, first dance, couple of Bhangara records starting with Panjabi MC's...and the floor is immediately rammed to capacity. You can imagine how delighted I was to then have to drop back to background for the food! Got going again after around 40 minutes, and the first record I played was met with a limited reaction. My spidey-sense immediately started tingling....worrying that I'd shot my bolt with the first 3 records after the first dance and that was it...the night was now circling the drain. By the 3rd record after the buffet, the dance floor filled (and I mean filled - not in a "yeah man, packed dance floor, gave out 40 business cards and got the next Royal wedding gig" kind of way ), and remained so until the very end. It was especially pleasing as Roger and I had put a lot of working into getting the Asian music right. At the end of the night, one of the punters commented that we'd worked out perfectly when to play western music, when to play Indian music etc. All in all, a really satisfying night, especially for a Thursday when everyone is at work the next day. I'd go as far as to say it was my most enjoyable gig for years....until the next night!

Friday was a lesbian civil partnership at a hotel in Derby. I've worked there a few times over the years, and always have trouble uplighting the room. The cables have to run across the kitchen door, but they're so securely taped I'd bet my house on them not being a trip hazard. The way the Duty Manager goes on every time, you'd think I was installing a crocodile infested swamp!! No wedding breakfast for this one; it was a late ceremony, so they just had a big, early buffet. I was playing background music for around an hour and 3/4, and it was pretty clear that the crowd were getting a bit restless. When I'd met the couple, they had said that they didn't want to do a first dance, but dropped on one me on the fly! "I Am What I Am" by Gloria Gaynor for around a minuted and a half, then Shania Twain hard in (so to speak...). The second Shania hit, the dance floor filled (see my comments above) and again stayed full pretty much all night. I can only think of two occasions when it thinned out a bit.

The early part of this gig was spoiled slightly by a cousin of one of the brides who had clearly been very thirsty at some point during the day and was now fully feeling the effects of it. During the background music she staggered over to us, and fell into Roger before asking us when we were getting going. I explained that we were waiting for them to do the first dance, so half an hour or so. Twenty minutes later she was back, but this time she fell flat on her arse, and Rog and I had to pick her up! During the first 45 minutes, I'd say she fell on the dance floor on 6-7 occasions. Initially, she was wearing massive heels, so we gave her the benefit of the doubt, but after she took them off she was still dropping every few minutes. I had a word with the hotel, but they weren't keen on removing her, so it was a very pleasant surprise when she disappeared of her own accord around 2200. She's probably still lying in a bush in the hotel car park.....

I was booked until midnight, and had given them "one more" which I generally never do, but this was one of the best nights in my career. When I went over to apologise to the bar staff for playing the extra song and delaying them, I found that the bar was open until 0100. I was a bit unsure as to how to handle this, as even though I was really enjoying the night and the crowd were loving it, I wasn't going to play on for free. Equally I didn't want to float the idea to the couple, as I thought I'd seem a bit mercenary. Fortunately, one of them saw me chatting to the hotel staff and came over to ask me how much I wanted to play on until 0100. Result!

With hindsight, I would say that this was probably the best night of my career as a DJ. Absolutely everything I did worked. Very, very happy with our performance, and the clients were absolutely over the moon.

So, on to Saturday, and on this occasion we had three gigs. Rog was doing a wedding in a converted mill in Nottinghamshire, Leslie Ball (don't know if he's a member here or not?) covered a joint 21st/50th birthday party for us in Nottingham, and I did an all day wedding in a marquee set in the grounds of a windmill. Set up pretty quickly, and sound checked...all good (notwithstanding the usual issues of marquees leaking sound). 5 hours of background music during drinks and the wedding breakfast, before providing wireless microphones for speeches. Seeing as I've got final examinations in a weeks time, I'd decided in advance that I was going to set up a playlist, then chip off to the car to do a couple of hours revision. I took the sandwiches and drink that the caterers had left for me to the car....and found the plate and glass still there when I got home on Sunday morning : muppet: !! Anyway, time for speeches, and I do the usual patter with the speakers on mic technique etc. Fling the fader open....and the noise is dreadful. Though it was fine when I sound checked earlier, now it sounds like a coffee grinder in everyone's ear!! They persevered through the first speech, but then abandoned the mic. All I can think of is that the caterers generator wasn't running when I sound checked - any thoughts?

After two absolutely belting gigs, I didn't have particularly high hopes for this one. Being a beautiful sunny day in a bright marquee, I thought I'd struggle to keep people. They'd asked for song requests with invitations, so the playlist had some great records on, but some you'd struggle to dance to (like Toto - "Africa" and Prince - "Raspberry Beret"). A very pleasant surprise then, when I had another night with a really, really busy dance floor. Again, very happy with the way things went.

Yesterday was another Anglo-Indian wedding at a banqueting centre in Nottinghamshire. We arrived to do an early set up by 1500, but we didn't need to do anything until 1745, so being the consummate professionals that Roger and I are, decided to chip off to the pub for a pint and a roast! We didn't know anywhere local, so had a bit of a drive around until I spotted something a little familiar and set off for a pub I knew served good food and was just a couple of miles up the road that we were on. Well, 15 miles it turned out to be! As soon as we pulled up, I put the return journey into the SatNav, as I was sure there'd be a quicker way back to the venue. Indeed there was, so worked out that we had plenty of time to eat, catch some sun and make it back to the venue in plenty of time. All was going swimmingly until we found a level crossing on the return journey with "road ahead closed for level crossing repair" signs everywhere ! The diversion was another 4.5 miles until the next crossing, then 4.5 miles back the other side! In the end, we screeched up outside the venue, still in jeans and T-shirts in a cloud of dust and tyre smoke at 1742 for a 1745 start! Rog quickly flung on a playlist while I went to change, which I did in record time, before emerging to do the cake cutting...how trouser browning! Another big old session of background music for this one, from 1745-2100. There was supposed to be a pause after main while we did the speeches, but the caterers made a hash of it and started serving dessert in the middle of speeches, so I get the feeling that they were cut pretty short in most cases. The wedding breakfast overran a bit, and some guests were starting to leave before the first dance, which was disappointing for the couple.

The first dance was a choreographed/surprise thing . "Wonderful Tonight" ---> crap sound effect ---> "Danza Kuduro". By 90 odd seconds of "Danza Kuduro", nearly all of their friends and family had joined them on the dance floor. Followed this up with half an hour of Bhangra, and the place was jumping! This couple had requested Bhangra, R'n'B, Michael Jackson, and a genre called Reggaetron, which I'd not heard of before. Therefore, I was especially pleased with the way we mixed genres. During the last record of the first Bhangra set, the bride came over to ask us to switch to Western music...it was nice to point over to the laptop screen that already had Kanye West loaded as the next record! Perfect timing!

THe bride and groom did something pretty cool in my book. Before I'd even started, some guests had started leaving, and the father of the bride had already mentioned that a number of people had a long drive at the end of the night, and work on Monday morning. I was booked until 2300, but by 2215, there were only 20 or so guests left. By 2230, "We Found Love" was playing, and pretty much every remaining guest was dancing to it, when the B&G came over and said "It's not going to get any better than this. If we carry on, people will fritter away until there are just four of us here. Can you make this your last song, and we'll go out on top"! I'm sure we've all had gigs over the years when the evening fades into a damp squib, I thought it was a nice touch that chose not to let that happen to their party. Plus, I was home by 2340...bonus!!

Four fantastic gigs over four nights....and now I'm done until July 5th!