Good Gig, Bad Gig.

[Excalibur]

We know a song about that, don't we children? Very apposite in light of the recent discussion about advance warning of other performers.

You've got to just love hotels, haven't you? A left hand who doesn't even know of the existence of a right hand.

I had a 40th Birthday in a hotel, I'd spoken to the client, and agreed to set up in good time, as there was a horse racing supplier on earlier. ( I was booked 9.30 to 12.30, and ended up doing 10 to 12.30 ) I'm there ridiculously early, get the kit in, and set up in the area apportioned to me by the venue staff. Lots of minor niggles concerning this, but all sorted with a bit of give and take, no drama.

I'm speaking to the bar staff, as he'd spotted the Karaoke kit. I mention that I've set up early, cos there's another act of some sort on, but I can't remenber what. " I'll check the sheet " says he. " No, definitely nothing else on besides you". Enter one race director, stage left. Now it gets interesting. I'm set up where he was told to go, on his recce earlier in the week. I was ( allegedly ) going to be next to the bar, but that would have been physically impossible, with the best will in the world.

He needs two venue tables, but we can only conjure up one, and siting him and his projector/screen is proving problematical. Eventually, he picks a spot he likes, we move the cake in front of me, and I lend him my table until I fire up the karaoke. Nice bloke, he does his bit after I've fired up a bit of background. There's a stunning hot buffet, and I'm starving, having had no tea. Do I get offered some? No.

Time arrives for my set, much kit and furniture is moved again, and off I go. Straight into Karaoke which looks set to dominate the night. Whoopee. Then we have a game of pass the parcel, but with a difference. Two batons ( ie parcels ) go round, and if you're holding it when the music stops, you have to put on an article of clothing from the bags in the centre of the circle. As you may have guessed, most of these items have been selected for maximum comic effect, skimpy underwear, wigs, hats, skirts, tutus and the like. Because we have so many items in the bags, this goes on until just about everyone looks silly. Once we've emptied the bags, I have to get them to parade in front of me, so that I may judge the winner. There's now a conga line dressed up in the most outrageous things imaginable, and I give the prize to a gentleman wearing a very old fashioned " foundation garment " ( younger readers will probably need Google here ) a feather boa, hat and mask. Unbelievable fun.

So, by now my time has shrunk even further, and the karaoke effectively dies an honourable death, ( though it makes a brief resurrection near the end, until it's declared extinct due to the batteries dying in the radio mics. And due to the DJ muting the mic channels on the mixer. Guest start to drift away at a steady rate, and come finish time I have two adults and a child left. After I switch off, a handful of smokers reappear, but I'm already packing up.

It's not a great load in/out but I get it in the van and head home for bed. I still haven't shaken off this dreaded lurgy that's going round, and the voice isn't great this morning. Still, I've got seven days to prepare for a trip into deepest Lincolnshire for another karaoke. Lucky me.

[Excalibur]

Well Saturday saw me back in Lincolnshire for a gig I didn't fancy much, and was a tad apprehensive about. A 30th Birthday, with Karaoke, and mainly chart music and R&B. Not exactly my gig of choice, as you can see.

I arrived very early, and was let into a lovely little hall, with a dinky corner stage, lots of power sockets, and..........................................



a sound limiter!! Client hadn't been told of its existence or function, and certainly not how to reset it. A quick read of a downloaded manual suggested it was set on manual, ie wouldn't auto reset. How helpful. After a test run, I rolled off a lot of bass, and that calmed it down a lot. The manual suggested that if I got a bit trigger happy with the faders, a damn great red " fuzz light " would light up above my head. While this might remind me of the 70's, it would also signify an imminent loss of power, so should be avoided.

This didn't hamper the evening unduly, and although it was just loud enough, it was quieter than might have been desired. The gig started, and I played from recent Now albums, and my ( quite small ) R&B folder. I announced that Karaoke was available, and was immediately engulfed by a tidal wave of ankle biters. Oh joy. I only had two adults sing the whole night, with a total of four tracks. Basically, it was just a huge pain in the posterior for me. I killed it around ten o'clock, which was a big relief for me.

Buffet was declared open, and soon it was time for me to whip up the dancefloor into a frenzy of dancers. ( For frenzy, read birthday girl, and five mates). Apart from one request for 5,6,7,8 from birthday girl's Dad, and a joke one for Nirvana it was all on message, and fortunately some of the old classics were well received. Return of the Mack ( along with the current chart remake ), a bit of Dr Dre ( I got to play California. I love that one ), and a few more 90s tracks of that ilk leavened the mix somewhat.

Before she was taken home in a " tired and emotional " state, the birthday girl proclaimed my efforts as " wicked". I hope that's a term of approbation. All in all, from a very unpromising start, it turned out pretty well.

[ppentertainments]

Well I am getting into this blogging malarky so Saturdays wedding can be found here, complete with video and photos - be like Toby soon

[Nakatomi]

saturday saw me loaded with a nasty cold & en route to my residency for the first gig of the year. Woohoo. A privately booked murder mystery night for a corporate customer - a staff party for the North East branches of a well known purveyor of second hand phones, games consoles & other tech. Oh, and could I just lend them a microphone so they could do some awards? Hmmm.

I set up early in the day because of my ongoing lurgy-I took the micron booth, 2 altos, gigabar & Quad Phase HP. That ought to have been enough. I had a rest at home & toddled off to the venue with my playout..oh and my new moving heads. I just couldn't resist. I was dying to try out my new KAM GoboTracers!

So I got the extra lights rigged on my micron overhead without any trouble & had them master slaving in no time at all. No DMX otherwise. Ooops.

Guests started to arrive as I was playing background music,then food started to be served. Up then came the directors with their need of my mic. BANG BANG BANG! Yes MORON it's on! Then they proceeded to stand in front of a speaker with the mic at chest height. I gestured towards the fool showing him how to hold it but he resolutely ignored me. Up came the next guest speaker..BANG! Oh dear. Has it gone off?! Oh yeah that'll be BECAUSE YOU FRIGGING BANGED ON THE TOP OF IT LIKE YOUR BOSS DID YOU DAMN IDIOT! No, it was really just me switching it off from my end. Don't do that again or I'll be leaving it switched off. I spent the rest of the guest mic time imagining what my reaction to a mic drop was going to be. Not pretty,in a nutshell. Thankfully the mic stayed un-dropped.

The bosses were,well corporate bosses & the stories of some of the award winners were of the form "when you have to receive 'a chat' from a director you're either gone or you up your game..." God I'm glad I don't work there that's all I can say...

Then the murder mystery team did their bit which took us til 10.30pm. By this point I was starting to feel like death cooled down again but the crowd were an easy bunch to get & keep dancing so the last 90 minutes flew by. Any chance of one more song the head guy said? Hmmm no,sorry. Hotel policy I said. There might've been a fighting chance of a quick one had he & his colleagues not been mic banging idiots, but nah.

So, how were the gobotracers then? Nice & bright but absolutely useless in S2L mode. They spend so much time pointing vertically they're effectively pointless. Good job I plan to use them with DMX exclusively then eh!

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Didn't have a gig for myself this weekend but Daryll was out covering a joint 50th for me which had a great list of bands (mainly 80's) to play.
I spent the spare time redoing a few things. Took the lights off the overhead bars and jiggled a few things about (ooer missus!). Resprayed some lighting stands which now look as new and then pre-wired them with some lights. I now have quite a few lights (probably 12, possibly 14 at a guess) that are sat in boxes doing nothing.
I finally ditched the Revo III's after quite a few years.

[Daryll]

As Gary said , excellent list , stunning venue , but dident get going until 10:30 , they wanted to talk , so the volume had to be subdued , however in the end there was plenty of dancing
all in all a good gig

[ppentertainments]

Guests started to arrive as I was playing background music,then food started to be served. Up then came the directors with their need of my mic. BANG BANG BANG! Yes MORON it's on! Then they proceeded to stand in front of a speaker with the mic at chest height. I gestured towards the fool showing him how to hold it but he resolutely ignored me. Up came the next guest speaker..BANG! Oh dear. Has it gone off?! Oh yeah that'll be BECAUSE YOU FRIGGING BANGED ON THE TOP OF IT LIKE YOUR BOSS DID YOU DAMN IDIOT! No, it was really just me switching it off from my end. Don't do that again or I'll be leaving it switched off. I spent the rest of the guest mic time imagining what my reaction to a mic drop was going to be. Not pretty,in a nutshell. Thankfully the mic stayed un-dropped.
!

I had one at Xmas who done that, like you killed the mic and pretended he had broke it completely and handed him my 'spare' (it is a twin mic system I use).

I told him what caused it to 'break' and he proceeded to do the same with the second mic. In the end I killed that too and handed him my wired mic, complete with the 0.75m lead which is ample for when DJing.

Made the prat do the rest of his award bent awkwardly, half behind and half in front of the booth so the mic would work.

I will add, I don't normally do this (although I do often pretend the first one is completely broken) but his attitude towards me at the beginning prompted it.

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Back a few years, well....many years actually, I had a rather 'up himself' GM come over to me and say rather smugly "I take it that being a Disc Jockey, you have a microphone I could use young man?"
"Of course" I replied, feeling a bit narked at the way he came across but did my best to accomodate him and remained calm.

Well, that was until he started swinging it around as if he was pretending to be some rock star. I don't think he liked it when I tapped him on the shoulder in full view of 100+ employees, all waiting to hear what he had to say and told him to stop doing it.
When he handed me it back after his speech he didn't seem to impressed.....

Later on that night, towards the end actually, he came over again and this time he'd obviously had a few bevvies. He asked if he could use the microphone again and I told him that if he started swinging it about again, I would take it off him. He looked at me in amazement and said "Excuse me, it's only a microphone!"
"Yes" I replied "But it costs money and it's a tool for my job"
He laughed in my face so I asked him "How would you like it if I barged into your place of work and did a **** on your computer!!?"

I don't think he got what I was on about but I had to say something.
(as I said, it was many years ago but sometimes I am tempted to repeat that question should anyone do the same thing).

[Benny Smyth]

"Whatever you do to my microphone, I will do to you" tends to be a favourite line of mine.

[mattydj50]

One big wig at a presentation started off - tap, tap, tap, bang, bang, bang. I turned him off and walked over to him. Please don't do that, I said. Oh, I thought it was something technical that everyone does to check then, replies himself.

No, it breaks them, says I, taking the mic off of him and watch him have to do the rest of the presentation without a mic, while I sat and took this one apart and, ahem, "repaired" it. Free of charge of course