Good Gig, Bad Gig.

[HeartandSoul]

got a gig off a cancellation for NYE. The cancelling DJ must have known something I didn't....

Manager told me he wanted funk.... like he gets off spotify... so I prep that up. He says he would dj himself but too busy running the bar...I should have run a mile....
Tells me I must plug into their system, just bring a mixer. sure? yes! Right.

Connection is into a single female xlr socket in the wall...so the best I can do I pull out a 2 rca to xlr connector. Test it when the room is empty, just about ok....bit soft... He tells me there are 2 amps, the original amps not working, so he swapped it round himself between upstairs and downstairs. Right...were they identical? He has no idea. Too late to mess about, so start playing funk and he asks what I'm playing! He decides he wants house, didnt really mean funk, meant funky!

Ok, switch to house, because he now likes that, and as the place fills, this connection is just terrible so volume too low, so he asks if I can go and get my own amps and speakers....at 11.30pm...

Politely declined. He decides to go downstairs and try play his own spotify playlist from his PC connection directly into a properly balanced? connection in the converted cellar. Sounds much louder but the guests all stop dancing because his music is shocking. I Suggest I connect downstairs through the same hook up he is running off, he declines because he wants to play his own mix! Asked me to hang around if I like and have a beer....

Was paid in full, left after 2 hours and left him to it.

[matt the cat]

got a gig off a cancellation for NYE. The cancelling DJ must have known something I didn't....

Manager told me he wanted funk.... like he gets off spotify... so I prep that up. He says he would dj himself but too busy running the bar...I should have run a mile....
Tells me I must plug into their system, just bring a mixer. sure? yes! Right.

Connection is into a single female xlr socket in the wall...so the best I can do I pull out a 2 rca to xlr connector. Test it when the room is empty, just about ok....bit soft... He tells me there are 2 amps, the original amps not working, so he swapped it round himself between upstairs and downstairs. Right...were they identical? He has no idea. Too late to mess about, so start playing funk and he asks what I'm playing! He decides he wants house, didnt really mean funk, meant funky!

Ok, switch to house, because he now likes that, and as the place fills, this connection is just terrible so volume too low, so he asks if I can go and get my own amps and speakers....at 11.30pm...

Politely declined. He decides to go downstairs and try play his own spotify playlist from his PC connection directly into a properly balanced? connection in the converted cellar. Sounds much louder but the guests all stop dancing because his music is shocking. I Suggest I connect downstairs through the same hook up he is running off, he declines because he wants to play his own mix! Asked me to hang around if I like and have a beer....

Was paid in full, left after 2 hours and left him to it.

Sounds like a nightmare no wonder the original DJ let it go

[Excalibur]

Nothing like last year. It was 'all right' They kept complaining about the volume ( I didn't reach four bars on my denon mixer - it was background music at best ) .

Perhaps they were intimidated by the barrage of lighting arrayed on the large gantry?

got a gig off a cancellation for NYE. The cancelling DJ must have known something I didn't....

Manager told me he wanted funk, start playing funk and he asks what I'm playing! He decides he wants house, didnt really mean funk, meant funky!

Funk, funky house, who cares? It's all Rock and Roll, eh?

( Seriously, that's why I never never never try to play requests based on Genres/Classifications, but ask for examples of artists. )



OK, my NYE tale.

For a start, all those of you who have indicated that you had fabulous nights, with appreciative crowds packing the floor, are now officially off my Xmas card list!

I had my regular Social Club, and the normal pattern is a few oldies early doors, then filled with the kiddywinkies till 1 to 1.30, so play all the chart, classics, and thud thud till finish time, when they all trot off across the road to the late pub. Somebody hadn't read the script.

Oldies came in, and half the normal number of youngsters visited on a rotational basis. They were obviously going from pub to pub on a strict rota! I'm left with a fairly sparse crowd of "Over 21's".

Well, for over three hours it was a case of " Join hands, and let's see if we can contact the living!" Dire. So, unsurprisingly, I followed the Mobile DJ's handbook emergency procedure: Play some Tamla. I did a nice longish set, with a few user friendly NS tracks in there, to no discernible reaction. Great! After that, well I'd given up the will to live. Three hours later, up comes a customer with the immortal phrase: " Could you play some Tamla and NS please? " Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. I explain that I've already done a set hours previously, but am persuaded to comply. At last a reaction, and five people throng the dancefloor. Whoopee.

So in time honoured fashion, I've just got people on the floor, a trickle of usable requests coming in, and what next? Yup, over to bleedin' Jake Humphreys on telly for the chimes. Fan tastic. Grrrrrr. When the fireworks have died down a bit, I play Abba-Happy New Year for a smoochy, and back into the dance tracks, a few big chart tracks and other surefire winners. . So what's the next request? Regular readers are already ahead of me, I know. "Can you play some more Tamal? " By now I don't care what I play, so a few Tamla artists who haven't been out of the box for a while emerge yawning into the unaccustomed light, for a little outing.

We run till 1.30, which is good for this venue, as the staff like an easy life, and slope off early if possible, so in that respect the night is deemed a success. It is marred for me a little by a punter who has been absent from the dancefloor all night, and never once approached me, who is now smooching round the floor with his wife uttering the dreaded " Can't you play something good? "

For the sake of his health, and my blood pressure, I adopt the "DJ staring contentedly into the distanceat a happy floor" posture, with added selective deafness. I think he was making a dangerous attempt at humour, but neither his wife nor I were wearing big grins, I can assure you.

Amazing isn't it how such a little thing can take the shine off what ended up being a fairly successful night?

Thanks for following me to the end of this Shakermaker style meisterwerk, and if you want more ( well there's no accounting for taste! ) I've an account going into Chat soon of my eventful New Year's Day excursion.

[Charlie Brown]

Just had an email from the organiser with loads off feedback forms 'the Dj didn't talk a lot but he did last year' was the main one for me.

[theoloyla]

My NYE was fantastic apart from me feelin so ill with a stinkin cold. Function was totally sold out weeks ago. It was my third year at this venue. Dinner from 7.30 till 10 and then a packed dancefloor till 1. Booked again for next year.

[DazzyD]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Excalibur
For a start, all those of you who have indicated that you had fabulous nights, with appreciative crowds packing the floor, are now officially off my Xmas card list!

I can't apologise enough, Peter!!!
...

"Can you play some more Tamal? "[/B]..

Not sure I'm aware of this genre. Does it include Eye Of The Tiger????

We run till 1.30, which is good for this venue, as the staff like an easy life, and slope off early if possible, so in that respect the night is deemed a success. It is marred for me a little by a punter who has been absent from the dancefloor all night, and never once approached me, who is now smooching round the floor with his wife uttering the dreaded " Can't you play something good? "

For the sake of his health, and my blood pressure, I adopt the "DJ staring contentedly into the distanceat a happy floor" posture, with added selective deafness. I think he was making a dangerous attempt at humour, but neither his wife nor I were wearing big grins, I can assure you.

Amazing isn't it how such a little thing can take the shine off what ended up being a fairly successful night?

Thanks for following me to the end of this Shakermaker style meisterwerk, and if you want more ( well there's no accounting for taste! ) I've an account going into Chat soon of my eventful New Year's Day excursion.

By the sounds of the way your gig was going, you did well not to smack the bloke for his attempt at humour!!! Sounds like your patience was wearing a bit thin. And you such a nice chap, too!!!

[Shakermaker Promotions]

D.I.Y. 40th Last Night...

I hope that this is ok to put in here? I wasn't DJing but hired some sound equipment to a guy who was having his 40th Birthday in a local hall.
The enquiry came in on New Years Day and I tried my best to see if he wanted to book me to DJ etc but he was adamant that he just wanted to hire the sound as his mate was a DJ but didn't have that much equipment anymore as he'd sold it. Fair enough. Gave him a price that I thought would make it worth my while and he agreed.

Arranged to meet at the hall at 5.00pm so hired him Crown XLS802 and 2 x JBL JRX125's. More than enough to cater for the 60 guests he said were attending. I was set up and waiting for his DJ to turn up when in walks a guy I recognise from a few years back who used to do a lot of regular stuff around the area. He is carrying some cases full of CD's and has a ruck sack on his back. In the ruck sack is his mixer (2 Channel Citronic whatever) and also a Pioneer Double CD Player. I connect everything up for him and he soundchecks and goes "Wow! that's got some kick!".

Now, as we are getting that sorted, the birthday boy's parents are setting up the tables etc... I have to say that the Mum was very regimental-like. People were trying to help her and she was shouting at them quite aggressively. She shouted over at us to "TURN IT DOWN! I CAN'T HEAR MYSELF THINK!!".
"Uh Oh" I thought, time to make an exit.
The party was due to go on until 11.30pm. Everyone needed to be out with the hall cleared by Midnight. I made sure everyone was happy with the sound and also helped the birthday boy with his lights. He'd purchased a Pro Sound T-Bar and 3 lighting effects from Maplins earlier that day. They were pretty basic to say the least but he obviously didn't want to splash out on his party.

So, I go home and I am sat there with the missus having dinner, watching rubbish Saturday Night TV and trying not to get too comfortable because I know I have to go back out to get the equipment back later on. It felt a tad weird knowing that I was earning money whilst sat indoors....but I liked it!
Surprisingly, my phone rings at 10.10pm and it's the birthday boy. "Hi Gary, We're done here and just clearing up if you want to come and get your stuff" he says.

I'm back at the venue within 10 minutes and the place is empty and cleared and it's just my equipment that needs to be taken out. I speak to the birthday boy and ask if everything was ok. He tells me it was great. Not many people turned up and those that did all had children with them but more importantly, his Mum had, had enough!!?? I felt a bit sorry for the poor bloke to be honest. I was out of there and back indoors with a glass of wine by 10.45pm!

It was good though to see the other DJ again and we traded cards and will speak again soon. He's a decent DJ but just hasn't got the equipment anymore. Strange Night!

Wedding tonight out of town for a young couple who have supplied me with a request list of songs that are a real mixture of Chart and Cheese etc..

[Glenski]

My N.Y.E gig was great very happy, they found and booked me through the SEDA website and as a result they have since contacted me and booked me up for their Halloween party, Christmas party and want me back for N.Y.E. 2012

Happy days

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Did a wedding last night at a venue out of town that I have played at a number of times. Quite encouraging when I walked in and the lady in charge said "Great, it's you! I wondered when you were coming back".

Anyway, booked from 7.00pm - 11.30pm. 100 Guests there already and we kicked off with the cutting of the cake at 7.00pm sharp. First dances followed and the dance floor was instantly packed. I would like to say that it was like this all night....sadly it wasn't the case.
I posted up a few of the requests yesterday in a seperate thread and if you looked at that you would have thought that it would be pretty easy, you'd have thought wrong.

Despite me encouraging the guests to request songs, no'one apart from 2 girls requested anything and these 2 wanted to hear the cheese. First song after the first dances was Pink - Raise your glass. The Bride said that she thought everyone would get up to it....they didn't. Stuff like Black Eyed Peas, Rihanna etc simply didn't work and I thought "Here we go again!".
A bit more encouraging when I played Moves like Jagger and plenty of people got up for that and stayed there for a while as Olly Murs, One Direction, JLS etc kept the dance floor looking healthy.

Track of the night easily was the Five Megamix. At just short of 10 minutes long, I wish I had extended it more! I still had around 2.5hrs to go and was beginning to think I would struggle as it didn't seem like anyone was really interested. I played everything off the request list, announced special tracks that were dedicated for certain people etc etc and it didn't go down that well

Yes, you could put it down to it being a sunday, a long day (they got married at 1.00pm) etc etc but it was quite a young-ish crowd and the majority were just not up for it. There was a group of around 10 people that were dancing to almost everything and the Bride & Groom made sure that they had a good dance but all in all, I felt a bit deflated. It doesn't help that in this particular venue the bar which has a large seating area is seperate to the room and behind where the Disco is set up.

As the night went on, the numbers went down quite quickly. I decided to slow it down to encourage people to get on the dance floor for a smooch and played Bon Jovi - Always, Aerosmith - I Don't wanna miss a thing (requested earlier) and Madness - It must be love and the dance floor packed out. We were approaching the final furlong now so on came the proper cheese as requested and it had a mediocre response. Macarena worked, Cha Cha Slide didn't work. I was starting to lose the will to live at this point as I was honestly struggling with ideas as to what to play. They weren't requesting stuff and the stuff they did request didn't seem to work that well.

Final half hour and I can count around 15 people left in the room. I chuck on Madness - One Step Beyond and all of them get up and start dancing! For my own interest I take a quick look in the bar area and it's empty, this 15 are the last people at the party. A few 80's classics (Footloose etc) and they are mad for it. Strange really when I was playing 80's pre-requests earlier and the reaction wasn't that encouraging. Call me Mystic Meg (minus the wig) if you like but I could see the way this was going.

15 minutes to go and the Bride comes over, she's happy and has had a great night. The Groom comes over and shakes my hand and says that it's been brilliant....They are obviously easily pleased. The Bride asks for Car Wash and Ring My Bell and then I have 2 songs left of their request list which are the arranged last 2 songs of the night...(Bride changed her mind towards the end and just went for one of them).Typical, how am I going to fit all of these in? Then I get the Brides brother come over who is absolutely HUGE (and it definitely isn't all muscle!). Proper cockney geezer who wants me to play Soul Man by Sam & Dave for their Dad. I explain that I am running out of time and he stares at me like he wants to kill me. I tell him that I have a few songs left that the Bride has requested and he says "That's my Sister.... her!!". I can't believe what I have just heard and I say "Are you serious?". He then gets slightly aggressive and says "Play Soul Man for my Dad please mate, he's the one that's paid for everything!". He then walks off.

I announce over the mic that I will try and squeeze in as much as I can as I have some requests left. I play Car Wash and fade it in to Ring My Bell. I play a bit of that and then as it's playing the Brother comes over again. He puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out a wad of £20 notes "Look mate, how much will it cost me for you to play Soul Man?" - I tell him to leave it with me and that it will be on in a second. He shakes my hand, smiles, says thank you and goes off.

I get on the mic and fade out Ring My Bell and announce that I have 2 songs left to play as requested. I say that this next track is for the Father of the Bride and Soul Man starts to play, there's a cheer and everyone starts dancing. I see the Brother (remember, he's a large bloke....20+ Stone easily), get on top of a table and start dancing, within seconds he is on the floor with the table by his side and lots of glasses. It looked like he'd really hurt himself but he simply got up, laughed and went to the dance floor. I thanked everyone and congratulated the Bride & Groom again before playing the last song which was Take That - Never Forget. It went down well for the ones that were left but it's always much better when everyone is there at the end.

I ended up finishing 5 minutes over time. Not a problem with the lady in charge and she said to me "I really felt for you tonight. They were a strange lot". As I said earlier, I knew what would happen.....as Take That faded out, a couple of people started shouting "More!", the lights came on and that helped me out. One girl came over and asked "Is that it?". I apologised and said that I had already gone over time. I thought she would get funny but she didn't, she said "Oh well, thanks very much" and planted a kiss on my cheek.

My New Years Resolution of trying to cut down my long reviews hasn't lasted long has it?

One thing I will be working on this week is my "Get out of Jail" lists. I started them a while back but feel I really need to sort them. I struggled at this gig because they weren't up for much and the playlist that I had really should have worked. This surprisingly concerned me because I thought that I would be able to simply think of tracks that may work and I couldn't. 23 years of DJing and I still don't take anything for granted. I could easily have said that this was a brilliant night, I was awesome and everyone was happy and I gave out 100's of cards etc but what's the point in that? Be honest, best way isn't it!

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Great night for me last night. It was Christmas Party night again and I had 2 Discos on the go. One in the main room with myself and another elsewhere in the venue. The parties were both for Supermarkets.

I went to the venue around Midday and luckily I did because there were a few people there dressing the room with a Casino theme. I introduced myself to the person in charge and the first thing I got asked was "I hope you've got some Rick Astley!". Anyway, I was told that there would be a couple of Casino tables in the corner of the room and also that a member of staff (one of the Managers) was actually doing a 3 Song Miming Drag Act under the name of 'Joyce Champagne'. I thought "That should be a laugh".

Started to get my kit in to set up and then it dawned on me that the Drag Act may bring his own music so I went and spoke to the organiser, gave her a card and told her to get the guy to call me. I was also told that they required a radio mic so that the other Managers could do a few speeches, a couple of games and a raffle and announce the winners of the Casino a bit later on. No problem.

I'd finished setting up and was at home when the Drag Act called me and we spoke about the music. Firstly, I asked how he was going to play it and what format it was in. He said that he had the songs on CD. I told him that I don't use CD's anymore but it wasn't a problem. He said he'd bring a CD Player with him. He didn't need to in the end as I had the 3 tracks he wanted even though he said "I doubt if you'll have them". You could tell from his voice that he was panicking a bit.

Arrived at the venue midway through their meal and was approached by 'Joyce Champagne' and we sorted out timings for later. The idea was to do a song, quick change and then do the next song, quick change and so on so I would need to do a bit of filling in inbetween the costume changes. I did it quite easily actually and impressed myself.

So, I introduce 'Joyce' and the guests go mental for it. The first song 'Get the party started' by Shirley Bassey and 'Joyce' is doing a stirling job. Quick change and then 'Finally' by Ce Ce Peniston and everyone is loving it. One last change and the final song is 'We are what we are' from Le Cage Aux Folles. Very theatrical but great. 'Joyce' has gone down really well and between us we have got the guests well up for a party.

Embarassing moment time - Just as 'Joyce' is finishing and taking in all of the applause, she asks for my radio mic. I hand it to her and she starts to praise me saying that I have gone out of my way to help her etc and she asks me to join her on the dancefloor. She hugs me and plants a couple of kisses on each cheek, leaving lipstick marks. Everyone loves it....I'm a bit embarassed.

After the speeches and a game of 'Kings & Queens', it's party time for the final 2 hours and this lot are up for it. I was asked to play One Direction 'What makes you beautiful' as the first song and it filled the floor. After that it was very easy all evening with the floor busy. Lots of current chart and lots of 80's too. The 'Rick Astley Fan Club' as I called them went mental when I played 2 tracks in a row for them and I thought it would just be them on the floor but everyone carried on dancing. They couldn't thank me enough.

It was one of those gigs where it all went far too quickly and I was in the mood to carry on but couldn't. Lots of thank you's at the end and the organiser said that they'd definitely be back next year which was good. The Manager said to me last night that she had been talking to the organisers who were impressed that I went out of my way to help the Drag Act. I didn't do much really did I? I just made sure that I had the songs she wanted but it made them happy.

More gigs like this please!