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Thread: Good Gig, Bad Gig.

  1. #2291
    Dinosaur Excalibur's Avatar
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    Right folks, the account of my 250 song playlist 18th last night. Upstairs in a rugby club, no roadie, and a playlist that was well outside my comfort zone. To say I was apprehensive would be spot on. Anyway, I carried subs and tops upstairs, and mindful of what someone had advised me, I took the big ones which will stack straight on each other, rather than using poles or tripods. Good move. I took the smaller of my playout cases up. Bad move. On plugging it in, the mixer had no power, so rather than trying to take it to bits, I carried it down, and brought up the big ( heavy and cumbersome ) case. That reminded me why I like the Denon 500 mixer so much. I haven't used it for a while, and it's a great piece of kit. I plan to replace the mixer in the small case with a denon soon.

    So, I got all the kit upstairs and working, and set about the playlist. By dint of spending over twenty quid on downloads, and raiding my daughter's CD collection,( good job I've got a CD drive attached to the Cortex, eh? ) I walked in with over two hundred of the songs on the playlist, so felt reasonably confident. I said earlier that the playlist was outside my comfort zone, but that's not wholly true. Lots of it was stuff I'd played heavily in the past, and my only total ignorance was some of the Metal, and a new one on me, Skapunk!! ( I quite like some of it, I've got to say )

    I'd spotted a few bunches of songs where I could play related stuff I'm fully conversant with, and for the early part of the night did exactly that, since many of the punters were slow to arrive. ( And many never arrived at all. The place was never packed. ) When we got onto the buffet, a few more folk had arrived, and suddenly, one track set them off dancing, Wheatus-Teenage Dirtbag. I quickly followed that success with some I'd been holding back for such a moment, Limp Bizkit-Rolling, Bloodhoung Gang-Bad Touch, Papa Roach- Last resort, and we were away. At times, I feared for the kit, cos this "Moshing" puts me more in mind of third fifteen rugby without a ball, rather than dancing. The trusty DSB proved resilient enough, and my speaker placement turned out to be sensible.

    The crowd were brilliant, and I got asked for Gangnam Style very early on, closely followed by Barbie Girl!! Both went down a storm, and with me being guided by requests, the playlist, and a bit of intuition, things went well. I was short of about half a dozen songs on the playlist that were requested, and a couple that weren't on it, so I'd say that was more than acceptable. Quite a few punters complimented me on my music library, and song selection, so that was nice. At times, it even looked like I knew what I was doing, especially when I followed the requested songs from H.I.M with a couple of my choices from Rammstein, Du Hast, and Buck Dich. They went down a storm, as did Prodigy. ( I'm getting a bit worried though. I'm beginning to like Rammstein. ) Nicki Minaj, Kanye West, LMFAO, and Pink proved floorfillers, so nothing out of the ordinary there, and when the birthday girl requested Mud, Mott the Hoople, and Bowie, I could coast for a while.

    A couple of songs surprised me, particularly one I've had in my collection for ages, Andrew WK-Party Hard. I got that on a compilation, and have never played it. Wow! The floor filled with everyone doing a sort of Punk macarena, at double speed! Weird. I don't know if this is normal or not.

    All in all, a very satisfactory gig, very enlightening and educational. The punters were well behaved and suitably impressed, The paymaster ( Dad ) was very very happy, asked for some cards, and gave me a twenty quid tip. Nice. Turns out the Mott and Bowie comes cos he was good friends with some of the Spiders From Mars, and also Ian Hunter.

    Only downside to the night was carrying a full rig up and down the stairs.
    Excalibur. Older than the average DJ.

    www.excaliburmobiledisco.co.uk

  2. #2292

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    Glad it was a good night for you Pete. I may have been lost with the music selection but then I would have had to purchase quite a lot more than you I expect.

    I had a Christmas corporate gig last night but after the meal finished, rather late, 80% went home. It was booked as a Retro Disco with nothing later than '89 but those that stayed, around 18, enjoyed a good night.

  3. #2293
    Daryll's Avatar
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    Not bad last night.
    Football x-mas disco and karaoke in my local club , the only difference was I was to set up in the bar area as opposed to the hall , no problems except the floor is carpet covered wood. and has a huge void underneath , so the bass was boomy at the far end to say the least.
    Karaoke was very slow to start , with nothing much happening until 11:30 pm , I am sure that perceived singing ability and alcohol intake are linked.....
    there are two brothers in the village , who know they cannot sing a note , always give it a go , people cheer at them, and take the micky to the point that it is embarrassing , but I always say it take guts to get up and sing , they only sing three songs , well I say three but they have their own way of singing , no matter what key or tempo the song is in , they start singing when they want , and finish when they want.
    Only played two x-mas tunes , The Pouges and Mariah Carey , most asked for song , yep.............gangnam style , funny thing was there was people from 8 year olds up to 70 year olds that knew the dance........
    finished at 12:45 , my standard rig , which you all know so no pics.

    Cheers

    Daryll
    darylldj.co.uk , serving hampshire , Surrey and sussex

  4. #2294

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    Best of gig of this year for me was playing under the wings of the mighty CONCORDE @ Yeovilton Museum......
    The night also had a band,sit down meal and auction.......The band finished early so i took over and it went wild !!
    Was due to finish at 1am but played on (for free) until 1.30am, there's no way i could end at 1am.....It was one of those nights..
    Last edited by Excalibur; 09-12-2012 at 12:23 PM. Reason: Edited typo

  5. #2295
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    At The Grand Hotel in Brighton again last night, I thought it was going to be a boring night when all the guests arrived in bow ties and ball gowns, Far from it, Dancing did not stop until I said goodnight at 1am. First song that I put on was Gangnam style lol and played it another 3 times during the evening.

    Back at The Grand tonight doing college lecturers, Could be fun.

  6. #2296
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    Last nights gig Surprise Party for a friend of the missus at the British Legion, i was all set up with my newly aqquired d2 and it was about ten minutes to kick off when i decided i wasnt overally confident it MY abity to use it to gig with all night, so decided to stick to my trusty lap top and omni, much manic unplugging of cables and reconnecting of cables i then noticed an almighty hum coming through the speakers which i traced back to the base unit of my wireless mics, never had a problem with it before same cables position etc as always so switched to the wired mic for the night and will investigate again at next gig.

    The surprise went off with out a problem had pople up and dancing throughout the night a great finish to the night with hi ho silver lining, angels, hokey cokey, nellie the elephant, new york new yorkand fairy tale of new york etc (not in that order), a round of applause at the end of the night and lots of people cominmg to say what a great night it was.

    I love the d2 but its going to take some playing around with till im gig confident with it i think it may land up just being used as back up.
    Bournemouth Disco's
    Making Your Night A Good Good Night
    http://www.bournemouthdisco.com

  7. #2297
    Jim - Scotland's Party DJ's Avatar
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    Christmas parties have the potential to be terrible because what you've essentially got is a room full of people, a lot of them who very rarely if ever get a big night out so they go absolutely mental on the bevvy.

    Don't get me wrong, they can be great but these parties can bring out the worst in people and some of the abuse I've had from what I'm sure are otherwise nice, respectable people is shocking.

    My gig last night was great. It was a 30th for a girl I met at a wedding fair.

    I was playing a bowling club in a fairly affluent village half an hour away. It's in the middle of nowhere and my satnav died. I was getting a bit panicky because I doubt phoning the client and saying,"I'm a bit lost, I'm on a country road that looks like every other country road, where do I go?" would have been much help. Luckilly the thing came back to life on its own :idk: and I got there no problem.

    The stage was tiny. It was around 9x4 ft, away in the corner. I spent a good deal of time working out how to set up since I couldn't get anything except my 4ft table and a single speaker stand on the stage.

    I ended up with one speaker on the stand, one sitting on the floor pointing at the dancefloor, an ADJ Dekker sitting on that in sound active, a Revo 4 sitting on my table (I had to sit my mixer side ways to fit it on) and 2 par 36s gaffa taped to the wall behind me to uplight since I couldn't use my usual backdrop that hangs off the t bar.

    I've just bought an ADJ Mega Bar RC and had that underneath the table uplighting the scrim. It was a bit wasted since I was away in the corner with people sat right in front of the table but it looks amazing and the sound to light on it is ridiculous. I've been thinking about going DMX but having those fixtures on sound to light all night looked great and was much easier to deal with.

    I was paid by the girls fiance without having to ask at the start of the night which was nice and the night went off without a hitch.

    The crowd were great. I recently formatted my laptop and when I tried to put the stuff from my external back on it, I've lost 1,000s of songs. They're listed on VDJ but the files aren't actually where the directory is so I couldn't play a few requests but everyone was really nice and understanding about it.

    During the buffet I went around asking everyone if they were enjoying the music and if they had any requests. It's a nice way to get my face out there and do a bit of ninja promoting at the same time and at the end of the night a few people I spoke to said they liked that I'd done that.

    The girl wanted some old school 90s dance / rave music which I love. I started playing some big hitters of the genre after the cake and her and her friends were up dancing but the rest of the room weren't really interested so I dropped in Gangnam Style and the dancefloor was packed for the rest of the night.

    It was about 25 past 11 (midnight finish) before I even noticed I should start thinking about the wind down as I was still playing big modern dance numbers. Threw on a bit of ACDC, Summer of 69, the Gambler and then finished the last 15 minutes with the Proclaimers, Loch Lommond and the girl asked for the last tune to be I had the time of My Life so I did a big cheesy spiel at the end of Loch Lommond thanking everyone, having them cheer the bar staff and the birthday girl and then said, "Did you think I was going to leave it at that?" Hit play and when the Dirty Dancing tune came on everyone went mental. Lots of theatrical dancing going on

    I got a tonne of compliments as I was loading out and a few people asked for cards and said they'd be booking me for anything that had coming up.

    Great night overall.

    Best part: After the hassle with the satnav, when I got back to the car on the first load out run, I realised I'd left my drivers side window all the way down and it had been sitting there in the car park with the sat nav in grabbing distance. No one had touched it. If that had happened in another part of Glasgow the satnav, stereo and steering wheel would have walked.

  8. #2298
    Dinosaur Excalibur's Avatar
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    Country Park Inn, Hessle last night, as Roadie, tech ops, logistics* and PA hire for Twinspin.

    Hull University Music Society. HUMS. Second year I've helped John here, and this year's weather was a vast improvement on last year's. The lad's been having a few kit related niggles, some of which only require a squirt of Servisol, and others which are proving harder to identify and isolate. Normally, we'd run John's laptop and MC6000, with my laptop into the two spare channels. Simples. Sadly, he'd had a bad experience at his last gig with a very annoying noise which had crept in, and threatened to mar the evening for him and his punters. Thus, we set up his 6000, and my laptop, but running into my big Behringer mixer, ready to take the 6000 out of circuit if it misbehaved, and feed his spare laptop and soundcard into the Berry. Guess what? The Denon was faultless all night. I have a ssuspicion that I may have an idea where the problem lies, but we'll have to see.

    Right, the gig: Fabulous night,nice venue, affable staff, and lovely people, really up for a party, filled the floor to a wide range of styles, Gangnam style, Time Warp, Footloose, Xmas songs ( every single one worked superbly ) Indie, Dubstep ( I'm worried about this. I think I'm beginning to like some of it. I soundchecked to Skrillex and Rudimental!! ) Packed up at 12.30, loaded up, dropped a bemused John off at his residence, and headed home, where I saw bed at 3am. Tonight won't see me catching up on my beauty sleep, for I'm heading North to Catterick, to assist the Superstar Radio DJ, one Mr A Neen ( Deltic ). Apparently we've got a band on, so I forecast I'll have to carry upwards of twenty 15" drivers in tonight. Sigh.



    *Van driver.
    Excalibur. Older than the average DJ.

    www.excaliburmobiledisco.co.uk

  9. #2299
    Dinosaur Excalibur's Avatar
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    Last night, I headed North to Catterick to see Andy Neen at a gig In the garrison there. Well, where do I start? What an experience.

    Across the M62 for a while, and head North onto the A1/A1(M). Heavy traffic, and when I hit the A1, thick fog. I was thankful that I had set off early, as progress was slow. On arriving near Catterick, I was somewhat baffled by my satnav's insistence that I turn away from the Barracks named on the big signpost, pointing towards Catterick, and head off into the wilderness. I was cheerfully following instructions, when the big Road Closed signs started appearing. Oh poo. Despite hoping that perhaps the closure was after my turning, I was greeted by the big barrier about half a mile from where I needed to be.

    I turned round, and followed the signs, and was delighted when not only did the diversion appear to be taking me in the direction I wanted, but also a big sign appeared bearing the name of the barracks I wanted. I arrived at the gates, and since I was ahead of Andy, parked up in what turned out to be a Taxi Rank!! I rang Andy, who was struggling with the fog, and settled down to wait for a while. I was sure that he was going to arrive from the opposite direction to me, and was amazed when I rang him and worked out that he was on exactly the same route as I had taken. ( Memo to self: Never pay for a taxi if Andy's navigating. It will go the really really pretty way ) We arrived at the camp, and Andy signed us in, and five minutes later we found the venue.

    The band had beaten us to it, and were set up (quite rightly ) in prime position. Nice lads, Hot City Nights. So, Andy and I moved a bit of furniture, and set up in a corner. It's always good to work with someone else, especially someone as prolofic with ideas as Andy. His prewired lighting overhead containing his Poor Man's Powerbar ( 4ADJ Mega Pars ) really is brilliant. A cluster laser in the middle and cables for an LED effect at each end.

    So, we rigged up the discreet PA (remember there was a band on, so two plastic twelves wasn't going to be happening. ) and then the fun began. Andy had brought two PV2600 amps, so hadn't brought an active crossover, because we had crossovers to spare in the amps, didn't we? Cue a heavy duty fault finding/jerry rigging session. Out of the four crossovers in the amps, we had one and a half working. We aslo worked out exactly what we needed to bypass the problem, and were short of one tiny cable, button or facility every time. We ended up runing the bins full range as well as the tops, as the least worst solution. There was a very healthy debate about possible solutions during the band's set, believe me.

    The band were very good, but we we were woefully short of punters. What they lacked in numbers, they made up for in attitude! We had wall to wall characters, believe me. Andy's interpersonal skills are second to none, I can assure you. I was seriously impressed. Anyway, Andy entertained them brilliantly, and when night came, we derigged at some speed. All loaded up very quickly, and off we went. Then it just got better. The gates we had entered by were on sensors, and Andy went through through the first one OK, and found the second one locked, thus trapping him securely. I caught him up, which raised the one behind him, and we executed some formation reversing to eextricate his van without the barrier panel beating the roof of his van. We were then direected to another gate, and released without further problems. What a night!!!!!!!!!!



    Andy, many thanks for the experience, it was Educational. Very. We must do it again.



    When I've recovered a bit.
    Excalibur. Older than the average DJ.

    www.excaliburmobiledisco.co.uk

  10. #2300
    marting's Avatar
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    Last night saw me at the xmas party for the guys I work with in my day job for the second year running, half way through setting up the Hotels Resident Dj turns up and starts demanding to know who had booked me etc etc to which I explained I was booked directly by the the party organisers as I work with them, obvously some lack of communication between the DJ and Hotel and booking agents.

    Horrendous ground loop hum when I plugged my laptop in, which was strange as i haven't been using the isolater recently as have had occasions when it appered to be cutting out one channel thankfull it did the did the trick and behaved its self all night.

    Once the meal was over the Hotel staff started to clear the tables from the dance floor and most people went to the bar, i thought im going to be fighting a losing battle before I even begin.

    once the dance floor was cleared I had 40minutes to fill before the tribute act in the main bar, I intended to start the night off slow so played some slow songs to dance too, strted getting requests at 5 to 10 for something more upbeat just as I was about to finish for an hour.

    11pm and the tribute act finished, decided to crank it up from the start beggining with Hello Solvig and yeah X 3 had some requests for older stuff so went in to 50s and 60's set to an empty dance floor those that had requested still sat on seats untill I played Tiger Feet, by the time I had got to the beatles twist and shout had a happy dance floor, the locomotion, the twist etc all were working there magic. on to the real cheese Dancing queen Macerena Cha cha slide on so it went on, was told I had to finish at 12.30 by the hotel and i was rapidly running out of time so to my finale, Hi ho silver Lining Hokey Cokey (dont knock it till you try it) new york new york had told eveyone it was the last track intending to finish with The Pogues Fairy tale of new york when the manger of the hotel came over and said I could continue till 12.45 after he been hassled by one of the organisers so cued Simply the best at 12.40 got another visit from the hotel manager saying i could continue to 1am so strted scratching my head. had already built up to two big finishes how could I follow, finally finishing with Amarillo And the proclaimes 500 miles and screams of more, sadly the hotel manager was stood to the side making sure I finished bang on 1am.
    Bournemouth Disco's
    Making Your Night A Good Good Night
    http://www.bournemouthdisco.com

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