Yup. My fiancé suggested we do a Thursday wedding to save some money and I told her to bolt - it's still going to cost a small fortune and you run the risk of it being rubbish
The only terrible wedding gig I've done was a Monday night - in a scorching venue - an hour and 20 minutes drive away from Glasgow where the majority of the guests came from - the room was huge and half the guests turned up!
To gauge the crowd during my intro I asked:
Give me a yay if you're not working tomorrow: mild yays
Give me a boo if you are working tomorrow: large boos
Give me a yeehaa if you're working tomorrow but still partying tonight: *crickets*
Played everything they asked for.
Worked the tables numerous times asking for requests and making sure everyone was enjoying the tunes - yup all was good, would be nice to show some physical appreciation of it right enough.
Was just a really flat night with no atmos and next to no dancing.
Never heard a single thing from the bride after it so I assume she wasn't chuffed and it did put me on a downer, on the flipside - I did the engagement party 6 months previously and smashed it - I wasn't playing much different tunes, I wasn't hosting or presenting any differently and the crowd was largely the same so what could possibly have made this night a stinker I wonder....
Well, last night was my second midweek wedding of the week and it was at the same venue for another couple in their early 20's.
Very nice people but not very forthcoming when it came to requests and information beforehand. To say they were laid back about the whole thing would be one of the biggest understatements ever known. I had their first dance and last song of the night choices and that was it. During our phonecalls and emails, I tried to get more out of them but they just said "We like a bit of everything".
Ok, what about anything that could possibly offend or upset anyone?
No, nothing!
This one was a 6.30pm - 11.00pm job and I arrived at 5.20pm to start setting up.
On arrival I met with the C&B girls again and one of the first things I said was "Please tell me that it has the potential to be better than Monday's wedding".
The looks I got from them both said it all. One of them told me that a lot of guests had left after the meal and that she'd counted 38 guests left in the venue.
"On the positive side" she said, "They are very nice people and there are still 30 evening guests due to arrive".
To be honest, I wasn't down about it or flustered. I just thought (and said) "Ok, let's get on with it then!".
A rarity these days was that everything had gone swimmingly well and they were ahead of time so I had to set up with guests around me which was a bit of a pain as I felt like I needed to rush at first but then I thought "Sod it" and took me time (still set up with 20 minutes to spare).
The first song of the night was their first dance which happened straight after the cake cutting at spot on 6.30pm so I had no chance to play any background music. I made the announcements, had to ask everyone twice to join us for the first dance and eventually, it went down very well.
I'd guess there were probably 60 people in attendance at its peak and 75% of them (including the Groom and best man), remained seated for most of the night.
I had a tough job on my hands and the Bride realised that. She came over around 9.00pm and said "I am so sorry. I appear to have a lot of boring friends" and she was serious. I thought she was joking and told her not to worry. I just wanted to make sure she was happy and she said "It's great, thanks so much".
Eventually, around 9.30pm.....it was as if somebody had pressed the 'Get off your backsides and dance' button.
I'd been playing requests during the first 3 hours and I'd also gone through the decades and genres. The 80's went down well, as did the current chart stuff but it was when I decided to go full on cheese that everybody started to take notice.
Cha Cha Slide, Superman, Saturday Night, Macarena, YMCA and the Timewarp all filled the dance floor and I followed that with the likes of Five, Backstreet Boys, B Witched, Spice Girls and Steps and got the same reaction. It was very easy from then onwards and after the last song of the night (Dirty Dancing Megamix), those that were left (around 40), all applauded and asked for "One more".
I wouldn't normally do it as it defeats the object of having a 'last song of the night' but they were very appreciative so I decided to play McFly - All About You and it got a huge reaction as everybody sung along. It was a nice finish.
The C&B girls said that I had managed to turn around a mediocre event with a lack of atmosphere, into a very good night and I was happy with that as they continue to recommend me.
Anyway, I'd decided beforehand that I was going to drive back home to Norfolk after the wedding as I'd been away since Sunday. During the last 20 minutes I had taken some of the lights down and started preparing and envisaged getting on the M3 for Midnight and being back home at just after 3.15am.
I might as well have stayed another night because the journey home was an absolute nightmare!!!
I was packed up and driving away from the venue at 11.30pm and hit the M3 just 5 minutes later but one of the junctions was closed for overnight roadworks which meant I was diverted miles out of my way. I eventually got on to the M25 and got a good run and then...........BUMMER!!! The road to Norwich at J38 was also closed for overnight roadworks and the diversion (to those in Norfolk), took me way out of my way to bloody Thetford. I must admit, it took me a while to get the diversions right as they weren't posted clearly and I got lost and flustered.
I eventually pulled up on my drive at 4.20am, knackered, hungry and thirsty. Had a large rum with ice and got into bed at just after 5.00am and woke up at 8.00am.
Luckily, I am not working tonight. I don't think I'd manage it.
it's been a long and quiet winter this year. I've only had a handful of gigs (well, 5 to be exact) since the Christmas party season. Tonight was the first night out on the road in a stretch which now takes me to September when for some reason I quieten down again.
Boy it felt good.
The venue was one I know well. It's not a particular favourite (all doors and windows must be closed, no air-con and an over-sensitive limiter which I found out tonight can be overridden from the bar...and indeed was....because they now trust me to behave myself ). It was rather nice seeing the big red light-bulb keep flashing occasionally without having to worry about it tripping out
The party....a 60th birthday (weddings start again next weekend). But....(and I can sense Peter getting teary eyed), it was a Retro Roadshow gig. Yup...the full 16 feet of lightbulbs in all their twinkling and uncontrollable majesty....and boy was it hot.
Why did we have to go all LED and trendy with kit? The retro stuff wheels in, works on daisy chained bulgin plugs and is up and running in under 20 minutes (it's the same getting out).
I was on a fairly high stage (so the heat of 120 guests comes at you anyway), and then behind nearly a kilowatt of hot bulbs to boot. I was sweatier than a nun at an Ann Summers party for most of the night and thankful I'd remembered to take my trusty fan with me.
As for the music......cheese by the barrow-load (see...said Peter would be teary eyed ). Just a couple of recent ones including a special request by some ginger fella called Fred Shearem or something (apparently he's popular at the moment).
Other than that, nothing later than about 1985....absolute bliss to work on
Now home and feeling the effects of having not been out much recently.....completely and utterly shattered and struggling to stay awake long enough for my traditional post-gig beer
Must get some training in....I've got two gigs next weekend - a joint 18th/21st in one of the Cambridge college cellar bars (so they'll have to behave),a and a wedding reception for a couple who actually marry mid-week so more of an afterparty.
but it was when I decided to go full on cheese that everybody started to take notice.
Cha Cha Slide, Superman, Saturday Night, Macarena, YMCA and the Timewarp all filled the dance floor and I followed that with the likes of Five, Backstreet Boys, B Witched, Spice Girls and Steps and got the same reaction. It was very easy from then onwards and after the last song of the night (Dirty Dancing Megamix), those that were left (around 40), all applauded and asked for "One more".
Well well well Gary, people filling the dancefloor to Cheese, who'da thunk it? Mine last week was just the same. Although it's many people's worst nightmare, folk would do well to bear in mind that it's a powerful weapon in our armoury sometimes. Glad the gig went well, sorry about the roads.
Originally Posted by Imagine
. But....(and I can sense Peter getting teary eyed), it was a Retro Roadshow gig. Yup...the full 16 feet of lightbulbs in all their twinkling and uncontrollable majesty....and boy was it hot.
Why did we have to go all LED and trendy with kit? The retro stuff wheels in, works on daisy chained bulgin plugs and is up and running in under 20 minutes (it's the same getting out).
Ah yes, how I miss those days. The exposed pins on bulgin plugs carrying full mains voltage, and the joy of finding six screens unlit because you'd omitted to supply electricity to them by plugging them all into each other. Happy days. Wayne, my public face says I'm glad you had a good gig, and well done for keeping the past alive.
My inner self however, is insanely jealous, and is convinced that you're a ing git!
Anyhow, my gig. For me, hugely disappointing. Another Legslappers, but with a difference. Not a fundraiser, but an 80th Birthday with all family. They'd effectively booked the venue for the day, starting from around midday. All ages present, from toddlers upwards, and for some it would prove to be a long day, perhaps too long.
The afternoon meal overran significantly, pushing everything back a long way. The original cunning plan was for a prompt start, which made sense. Sadly, the meal was still running as we approached the intended time!! I was onsite for hours waiting, set up quickly when allowed access, and then waited some more for my turn. The effects of the long day were evident as the FFN saw their audience dwindle in front of them. The remaining hardy souls were first class, and the FFN were delighted to be working with such appreciative, lively and well mannered guests.
I had a short time to play at the end, and was not surprised to see numbers continue to dwindle. The night ended with one very downbeat DJ, who wasn't relishing the ride home. Contrast that with the previous Legslappers gig where I played an extra hour as usual, and left the venue absolutely buzzing on the effects of adrenaline and a large number of happy punters. Hey ho, such is the life of a Mobile DJ.
At my age, you'd think I might be sticking to safe local gigs, wouldn't you?
Oh no, that's far too sensible.
I got a NaD last minute job, two days notice. Wedding with karaoke, decent money. Very little information, but a spot of research showed it wouldn't be a walk in the park, with access and parking being an issue. Ah well, such is the life of a Mobile DJ.
So, off to the seaside go I, ludicrously early, which was a good thing. I got parked in a supermarket near the pub, and walk off to get the lie of the land. On entering the Nelson Inn, the one shown in glorious technicolour on NaD, it's immediately apparent there's no wedding going on here. Am I the victim of a cruel practical joke? Not looking promising, I must say.
" Hang on" say the staff. " It could be the Lord Nelson Hotel on the seafront". Back to the van, and I Google the number of this place. " You have dialled an incorrect number ".
Only option is to drive there, which I do, and parking there is worse than this one! I find a space nearby and walk into the pub. Yes, it's the right one, Hallelujah. Sadly, it's upstairs, the reception is in full flow, the space is minimal, and getting the kit in will resemble an all blacks loose maul because of the bodies in the way. Whoopee, I might as well just slash my wrists now.
Groom and best man are totally upbeat, and see no issues, just get the van round, and park on the pavement. I do this, and a team of sherpas arrives to get the cut down beyond belief rig upstairs. So far, so good. There's a pay and display car park a short walk away which only has an hour before it's free overnight, so another result. Park the van, pay two quid, and walk back to the gig.
Then dear reader, I did a terrible and shameful thing, so disgusting that I'm not even sure I can bring myself to say it on here. I fell from grace, I strayed from The True Path. I purposely hadn't taken a booth upstairs, so I nicked a venue table! I didn't even put my black cloth on the front. ( Basically cos it was still in the van. )
I got a powerbar on a tripod, the controller and monitor on the table, and the karaoke mics on a shelf near me. I stowed as many cases and bags away as I could, and fired up an hour early! No point in sitting there for an hour was there? From here on in, things looked up, big time. The guests were interesting, groom's side Asian of some description, bride's Irish. It looked like her whole family had come across for the occasion.
It was a little surreal seeing guests decked out in full wedding finery in a somewhat tired seafront boozer's upstairs room. I started off with some background, and introduced myself, and veryy soon after thatit was buffet time. " Help yourself " says the groom, " buffet's open, and there's a lamb curry bubbling away will be ready before too long ". Told you it was looking up, didn't I?
Most folk had some buffet, and the Irish contingent ( or more accurately a very insistent and well oiled lady from the party ) wanted more noise, and more life. It got a bit like Bruce Forsyth, " Higher, Higher " until I hit the required volume, to thumbs up round the ( oddly and awkwardly shaped ) room. The lady in question came up and asked for Galway Girl. Fortunately she wanted the Sharon Shannon/Steve Earle version, and Northern Soul to follow. No problem my dear, no problem.
The karaoke started, and I've never had so many good singers, especially Mandi, who must have sung half the songs herself. Lovely lady, very pleasant, as were all my singers. I had most of the requests, including Fields Of Athenry but not Green Fields Of France. Seems this was vital, so I did another very bad thing and plugged the well oiled lady's phone in, and they sang to a youtube video. I was watching the phone screen, listening to the words, and welling up.
We then had a very brief spot of Cheese, which led back into Karaoke again, I grabbed a curry, and returned to the fray. Bear in mind we'd started at six o'clock, and by eleven we'd lost a few guests, but those remaining kept the karaoke fully booked, and by a stroke of sheer good luck I had someone change The Gambler to Daydream Believer, which I decided to finish on. We had just about everyone singing along, a lovely way to finish. Round of applause for me, a lot of nice words, and I'm stood there wondering how it turned out being a fabulous, if somewhat hectic night.
Pack up kit, van back on pavement, fight my way out past staff turning room round for breakfast and guests standing around, and head for home, swerving into Ronald's for a coffee. Foot hard down, home in an hour, and in bed an hour earlier than usual. Marvellous.
Much more gentle one tonight, easiest of load ins at a regular venue. Relaxing. Mmmmm, nice.
Tonight - a joint 18th, 21st and 48th in the basement bar of a Cambridge college (nice room to work in as well as the pic below shows . ).
The load in....something different. For those who don't know Cambridge City Centre, think of the staircases in Hogwarts....constantly moving and changing. The roads in Cambridge are the same. Eventually got to the college and had the porter unlock the room for me. Load in was down about 6 steps, round an awkward dog-leg that I wouldn't have wanted to take anything bigger than a DXR15 round, and straight into the room.
That was the easy bit. You then have to move the van to their carpark. As the crow flies (and indeed the walk back), it's about half a mile. To go by road, it's 3 miles across a busy city centre. Add to this they've just changed some of the roads and where there used to be bollards to allow only buses and taxis - there now aren't. No...instead the sneaky bs have installed ANPR cameras and I'm expecting a letter in the post in the next couple of days for going down a road I shouldn't have
Nice pleasant walk back through the college grounds and back into the basement (which by the way is underneath their chapel...spooky or what?)
All set up, looking good and ready to roll....the guests finish their dinner and arrive bang on time.
There was no stopping them!
From my side of the booth I was well chuffed. I sort of knew what the room was like from research so only took the DXR15s with me (wise choice). The acoustics were absolutely spot on in there
As for the lighting - one notch on the tripods for the party bars saw them touching the ceiling so just pointed the cans upwards into the vaulted roof - nice
The 18 and 21 year olds had provided the playlist and I was pleasantly surprised. Not too much of the modern bilge and a lot of 70s and 80s....a really, REALLY pleasant mix. Of course, the amount of dancing was helped by the free bar who said at the end of the night around a grand's worth of booze had been sunk in 2 hours flat!
And here's the weird part. Bang on 11:45 - the youngsters disappear. I thought I'd dropped a bummer of a track at the time, but apparently they had free tickets to the local night club and had to be in before midnight to qualify. Needless to say, mummy and daddy came up a couple of minutes later and told me to have an early night (well....10 minutes but with the load out ahead....every minute was welcome).
Loading out was the reverse of getting in - hard work and I'm glad I've been working on getting fit these past couple of weeks.
Now enjoying a nice glass of Malbec and looking over tomorrow's wedding playlist.....which is going to be a strange one
And so to the second of this week's gigs. How is it I've been dead for the first three months of the year and now I'm out and about all over the shop?
I'd had doubts about this one. Don't know why....it's the gut instinct you sometimes get that it's not going to be the banging wedding reception you'd like to provide.
For once happily, my gut proved me wrong.
Rocked up at a village hall roughly the size of my lounge (really....I'm not kidding), so left the vast majority of the rig in the back of the van - there just wasn't the room for it. Luckily I'd chosen the Yamaha 8/12 combo as the weapon of choice for this one.....as it happens I was spot on with that bit although to be honest I could have probably got away with just the 8s!
The couple in question had provided a mahusive playlist with several tracks I'd never heard of (probably the reason I wasn't particularly looking forward to it....there was some strange stuff in the mix to say the least). However, shoved the likes of Edith Piaf and Hugh Laurie into the endless (2 1/2 hours) of background music and trundled on.
As they'd got married during the week, they'd asked if they could repeat their wedding vows in front of the assembled guests. Not a problem except the list of what I needed to do for this worried me.....so many seconds of song a followed by a few more seconds of song b whilst the cake was cut followed by x mins and y seconds of another song whilst the cake was dished up and then into the first dance.
Of course - it didn't run like that! (we were close....but not quite as it had been planned).
After that - music time. The 8/12 combo proved more than capable, especially when we hit the likes of ACDC for a quick set at around the 9:30 mark.
Genre of the evening though had to be good old fashioned Rock n Roll. Filled the floor every time I did a set of it.
Nice early 11:30 finish (that's becoming more normal in this neck of the woods for some reason), all in the back of the van by midnight and already at home enjoying a well earned beer
Weekend off next weekend - but two weddings the week after.
Luckily I'd chosen the Yamaha 8/12 combo as the weapon of choice for this one.....as it happens I was spot on with that bit although to be honest I could have probably got away with just the 8s!
Ah yes, but just think how much better it would have sounded if you'd had a stick rig and half a dozen extra subs.
My evening mirrored Wayne's in many ways, except that I was getting the best results with AC/DC and Metallica. The whoops when I followed Thunderstruck with Enter Sandman were a delight to hear.
Sadly, my fears and predictions came true, nearly half the guests had small children, and were gone by 10pm, and most of the rest were worn out, having peaked far too early. I really struggled to get to 11pm, so much so that I switched off at 10.50, and they'd been packing up the hall from 10.30!
Guests were happy, as were Bride and Groom, who was impressed that the request from a little girl of around eight years old for a spot of as he called it " German thrash metal " ( Rammstein-Amerika ) had been fulfilled with ease, rather than blank looks and apologies. All in all, a good night.
Leaping about with the timeline, I'd had an eighteenth on Friday, in a venue that doesn't do eighteenths.
Unless you're the chairman's granddaughter.
Mainly younger guests, very well behaved in truth, but prone to leaving the room and returning in droves, at regular intervals. Musically mainly the more acceptable face of R&B, with some old school ones going down very well. Not my most rewarding gig ever, I have to say, but job done.
Three gigs in a row, Jeanette and I are going to take advantage of the forecast fine weather, and pop off for Sunday dinner in a nice pub, and a gentle trip out in the sunshine.
Ah yes, but just think how much better it would have sounded if you'd had a stick rig and half a dozen extra subs.
Pffffft!!!!!
I think I'll stick with my little compact 8/12 rig for gigs like last night and the 15s for the bigger stuff.
The floor shook last night (still amazes me what those little subs do), and it more than handled everything that was asked of it without having to add anything extra to it
Originally Posted by Excalibur
Three gigs in a row, Jeanette and I are going to take advantage of the forecast fine weather, and pop off for Sunday dinner in a nice pub, and a gentle trip out in the sunshine.
You and me both (well, two for me).
Off with Liz to sunny Hunstanton this afternoon for a walk along the prom, fish and chips under the pier and a freshly prepared dressed crab
Originally Posted by musicology
Mine last week was just the same. Although it's many people's worst nightmare, folk would do well to bear in mind that it's a powerful weapon in our armoury sometimes. Glad the gig went well, sorry about the roads.
The exposed pins on bulgin plugs carrying full mains voltage, and the joy of finding six screens unlit because you'd omitted to supply electricity to them by plugging them all into each other. Happy days.
ing git!
I fell from grace, I strayed from The True Path. I purposely hadn't taken a booth upstairs, so I nicked a venue table! I didn't even put my black cloth on the front. ( Basically cos it was still in the van. )
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