Good Gig, Bad Gig.

[mattydj50]

- a man screaming at his daughter in front of everyone: 'you're not ing going to any party, you're coming home with me and your mother' leaving the girl in tears.

I had this a few months ago where, at the end of the night, the groom was shouting at the bride's daughter, who looked 18, but probably wasn't, who insisted she was going to town with some friends. No you're not he ranted, so loud that I could hear what he was saying clearly above the music. What I missed then was that he hit her. She stormed off crying, bride followed, then groom and all hell broke loose with everybody that was left (about 15 of them) shouting at each other until somebody must have hit the Benny Hill theme and they ALL ran single file out of the room.

I gave up and the hotel called time on the night 40 minutes early. We discovered later that he had hit her again, the bride had hit him and that he was forced to spend his wedding night sleeping in his car!!!

We never found out what the eventual outcome was, I think the wedding co-ordinator was scared to ask!

[Excalibur]

When did thirteen year old girls parties become difficult?

Time was when they were the easiest ones on the circuit. You turned up, played all the chart hits and party favourites, they danced all night, screamed a lot, and were happy.

Now, they turn up, whip out their phones, take selfies of each other, request some abysmal, obscenity laden dirges ( which you then have to find clean versions of ) and do anything except dance. ( Unless you play Macarena, and Cha Cha Slide. )

Hey ho, well that's the last of four in a row, back to sanity again.

[Nakatomi]

My first private wedding booking in a while at a very nice venue near Durham City centre.. I was told the load in & out would be 'tricky' so allowed plenty of time ahead of the start. My site visit meeting the happy couple showed me it might be on the tricky side, but the heat was a factor I'd considered in my later planning. Two hours instead of the usual one would be enough surely.. (it was)..

Last Thursday was touted as the hottest of the year & as I perspired buckets pushing my fully extended rock n roller up the 2 steps of the garden path & later the path itself I found myself in dire need of rest. It took about half an hour to get all my gear into the room & only about 15 minutes to set up.

I had a problem though. The snazzy paddles I made for Mr & Mrs games had spent most of the afternoon on the dash of my van & had stuck together, completely ruining them! Oh dear what to do. My mind raced - could I possibly ask the bride & groom to use their shoes on a day such as it was? Not my preferred choice, by far! Aha! Maybe the bar sells fruit shoot drinks - buy four, 2 of 2 different flavours, empty them out, yank the labels off & we've got working indicators. Far from perfect but better than shoes! A very nice lady at the bar went up to the store to check - alas no, they only had orange. Fiddlesticks! The duty manager very kindly offered to print me some signs, which were excellent replacements everything considered.

I got changed & managed to cool down then proceeded to sort the Mr & Mrs questions out.. the groom appeared to ask me if it was at all possible to have the mr & mrs game, cake cut & first dance outside. Well, it was a lovely day out there & it'd be a shame not to. But how? Aha! Thankfully I'd stashed by cables box behind the booth & quickly produced some very long cables I could use to effect an outside speaker. I quickly got the speaker outside, powered etc.. all good! Right. Controlling the playout then? Hmmm. The spare playout was back at the van (there's literally nowhere to put it in the micron booth) & by now we had only 20 minutes til 'go' time. Aha! The VDJ remote! I engaged my laptop's wifi AP program, connected my phone to it and... it wouldn't work from outside. My radio mic had no issues working that far away. Ah well.. I'll have to do it the old fashioned way then! Back to sorting the Mr & Mrs question cards.. a couple of people just hadn't got the jist of the game by selecting questions that didn't have a 'mr' or 'mrs' answer so some editing was needed.

The Mr & Mrs game was sorted, the cake successfully cut, then I ran back to the house to introduce the first dance & hit play before dashing back out to see it... then dashed back into the house to play the next tune, turn the outside speaker down, get it back inside & remove the extra cabling.

From there I was very much DJ NoMates for quite a while. I had the PA cranked a bit so it could be heard outside. Fish & Chips were served at 7.30pm & an hour later I'd still not had many more than 4 visitors to the room. Eventually more trickled in & we had something going.

At 10.15pm I was asked to call last orders (for an 11 finish?) and then lost the majority of the crowd to the bar. The last 15 or 20 minutes were pretty good & we finished pretty much bang on time with a great response to the final 'big up'.

I tore the rig down like a whirling dervish (I just chucked all my cables in the box, knowing full well they'd all need a wipe anyway) ran back to the van for my trolley & bags & set about loading out. Oh. The door I brought everything in through was barred, so I had to take everything through another room & corridor. A staff member helped me a little & I thought I'd be fine going downhill with the rock & roller.. til I almost got blinded by my own sweat streaming into my eyes. Ouch!

At 11.45pm I finally closed the doors of my van & was on my merry way - utterly drained & absolutely soaked in my own perspiration. Legend has it there's a much easier way the venue has for loading in, but us mere mortals aren't allowed to use it. I've no complaints about the venue - far from it - the staff are utterly brilliant.. but on reflection I definitely think I need an assistant.

Everything considered with the gig itself - the venue with the bar so far away from the room - and the weather - I did quite well I reckon. The groom thanked me at the end & said sorry for there not being many people inside all night. Pah & tish I said - you can't help the weather. Job well done & that's all that matters eh.

Once home & unloaded & poured myself a very large JD & coke with lots of ice at 1.20am & relaxed. But could I actually sleep? Not really. I woke at 5.30am or so after a very broken sleep & was glad I'd booked the day off from my 'real' job.

Gear used: alto ts115a tops on tripods - white scrims. Equinox micron booth with white scrim (no starcloth & the bride said she finds them tacky anyway!). Chauvet WashFX for dancefloor wash. Quad Phase HP & 2 gesture spot 300s on the micron. Oh & two of my equinox quadpix battens for uplighting the rear wall of the room, which seemed to work quite well. Ah yes, and my 'baby' QTX FH-1500 hazer.

Lessons to be learned from this: An assistant would definitely be a bonus sometimes. Also, I need a better way of doing 'remote' playout in such situations. Could I have trusted bluetooth audio from a tablet or my phone to a speaker? Maybe. Usually my backup is a spare laptop plugged into a line input on the main controller. If the controller fails, run to the van & haul the spare controller in. If the main & spare laptops fail I've got music on my phone.. then if that fails, I'm screwed. Methinks I need to buy a tablet & a bluetooth audio receiver.

[Excalibur]

Ancient Chinese curse. Think I must have upset an ancient Chinaman once!

Took a last minute diary filler in the West Riding yesterday, a surprise 21st. Agreed with client as a 10.15 finish, which upset the landlady, as the room was booked till midnight, and she could see her takings leaving with me. A venue less salubrious inside than outside, and outside wasn't awe inspiring.

Not bad access, and not a lot of room, either, so the newly acquired Micron booth was ideal. I got set up early, and was playing music in good time, ready for the arrival of the birthday boy. With a predominantly younger crowd, I was leaning heavily towards recent chart type stuff, and we were rolling along quite nicely.

Then the Police arrived! When she started taking her clothes off, I decided she probably wasn't a genuine Policewoman, unless they've relaxed the rules on second jobs somewhat. She was actually very good at her job, and pleasant to deal with, simply asking for " some Jason Derulo " rather than giving me a battered CD. There's a first time for everything. I'd been expecting a Roly Poly Gram, so an anorexic Policewoman was as much of a surprise to me as the birthday boy. His family caught it all on camera, so he's in for much teasing I reckon. It was done as tastefully as it's possible to do, so full marks to her.

Well, I was veering inexorably towards The Usual Suspects, ( having had a request or two which led this way ) when the landlady "suggested" I should come into 2018. I'd actually spent the first ninety minutes there, but hey ho. I stuck rigidly to the last two months, and this week's chart, and to be fair, got quite a bit of traction there with what I played, when at the death, I got a request for Grease! I duly finished with the megamix, which actually ended the night quite nicely.

As an accomplished tightrope walker, I ran till eleven, which left me in the landlady's good books, and only one shout of " one more ", although I had the contract open on the tablet just in case.

I'm currently sat in Wetherspoons in Retford, with a bottomless coffee cup, having got the gear in place for a wedding in the Best Western tonight. I'll just have to wire it all , but that saves me fighting my way in with the kit.

[DJColsie]

Joint 25th wedding anniversary and 21st birthday party in a marquee in the middle of nowhere. Gig on behalf of an agent who said budget wasn't a problem and don't be shy in quoting! Doubled my normal fee and not a eyelid was blinked.

Spoke to the client on the phone and music policy was to be modern (post 2000) apart from their own older requests. The marquee was 80m by 20m with half being set up in a peaky blinders theme for the bar and half in Artdeco where I would be. He also wanted a small separate PA with wireless microphone in the bar for speeches and the "big reveal" when the partition would be taken down between the two sections. So an additional £150 was added to the invoice for the separate PA.

The guests were to arrive from 7pm into the peaky blinders bar with music and the reveal from 8pm with a 1.30am finish. So arrive early to set up small PA first and was under pressure to complete quickly as family where arriving from 6pm!

All set up and it did look spectacular. It is the first time I have played in a marquee with a waterfall! all 150 guests had made an effort in Peaky Binders or 1930 fancy dress.

Things were moving along slowly under the required music policy with quite a few requests for older classics which had to be declined. Client came up to me when I was playing a 00's trance set which was within policy and had been requested and said scrap it and play classics. Full dance floor with lots of happy guests.

1.30am approaches and I start winding it down to end on the requested song (which was a rugby club favourite) and wife of the client approaches and says its a 2am finish! Explained that they had signed a contract for 1.30am which had been confirmed in the extensive phone call.

Agent came up to me ( it was his events company doing the catering and he was head chef) and said play to 2am and invoice him. Duly obliged and played to 2am. Now the marquee had security so decided to leave packing up and returned this morning.

Returned this morning packed up and was greeted by about 30 people eating bacon baps and drinking coffee, orange juice and some were still on the beer! So breakfast was sorted. Invoice for £100 extra settled already.

[Excalibur]

Well, what a contrast from Saturday!! Variety is the spice of life, eh? From a back street boozer to a picturesque hotel. I visited the venue last year for a client meeting, which was absolutely invaluable. Found out where to park, set up, and running order. Thus, I put the booth and speakers together in the room early morning, and stashed the rest of the kit ready for a quick turn round. Damn good job too, as the hotel staff were exceedingly quick, and I only just got finished as guests returned.

It was a bit more involved rig, as we had a purple and yellow theme, in memory of the bride's mother. This meant a couple of tripars added, and a controller as well, so more work, but a nice effect, in my humble opinion. I left both washes on most of the night, and just added moonflower/laser from the Hadrons now and again.

The gig. Well, I had advance guest requests, three per table. I could divide them into three categories. Easy listening, EDM, and Rock. The Easy started the evening off, and led into the first dance, Firehouse- When I look into your eyes. ( If anyone has a listen to this and tells me what the sample is, I'd be grateful, cos it's driving me crazy ) We had Cha Cha Slide, and a few more kiddie friendly tunes straight away for the young children, and eased gently into the playlist.

The dancefloor was sporadic, and the projected 11pm finish looked unlikely. We'd started at 6pm, had a huuuuge buffet ( which was gratefully received, and lovely ) and guests were drifting away. 9.45pm, and the venue staff came up suggesting a possible 10pm end. Numbers were dwindling fast, and the gig was dying on its feet. Weddings are long days, and Monday being a work day for many doesn't help.

I'd decided to ditch the EDM, cos all the younger guests, and with them most of the young children seemed to have left, so what could I do, under the circumstances? I did the only thing possible, a reflex action hard wired into the brains of all Mobile DJs. I reached for The Usual Suspects. Result? A packed dancefloor, and the venue staff retreated for half an hour. Just after 10.20pm, the bride came up and agreed that it was time to call it a day, and a request for Don't Look Back In Anger seemed a better one to finish with than New York, New York, which I was heading for. While the crowd were singing this, I got a request for Wonderwall also, which to me didn't seem a good idea. Nevertheless, I decided to cut Don't Look Back, and go into Wonderwall halfway through, which hit my 10.30pm deadline, and kept everyone happy.

Basically children, that's why sometimes Wedding DJs play what they do, even though it's not intellectually challenging, nor of the highest musical integrity, it's lowest common denominator, and it fills dance floors.

[Imagine]

...and led into the first dance, Firehouse- When I look into your eyes. ( If anyone has a listen to this and tells me what the sample is, I'd be grateful, cos it's driving me crazy )

I wish I hadn't listened to it - I've got a proper ear-worm now!

There's a LOT of potential sampling in that track!

Are you talking about the initial piano intro? I can't put a finger on it but it's got serious undertones of the baseline of Abba's Winner Takes It All (I'm sure that's not the sample in question). The rest of the track smacks a LOT of something by Bon Jovi mixed in with Bryan Adams but really can't place it

Hell - the guitar riff in the middle is similar to Starship!

It's going to bug me for a while now!

[rth_discos]

, Firehouse- When I look into your eyes. ( If anyone has a listen to this and tells me what the sample is, I'd be grateful, cos it's driving me crazy )

It reminds me of REO Speedwagon - Can't Fight This Feeling. But I don't think it's a sample - I just think it has that typical 80s soft rock sound to it!

My wedding on Saturday was a very windy affair in a barn that had been done up (electricity and windows installed etc), but didn't have any windows that opened. And if the barn door was open, the wind would blow everything around. So ended up quite warm inside during the day. Fortunately the slightly lower temperatures meant it wasn't unbearable.

A fairly easy gig - they hired me for me 'all day' service, but didn't want much of the interaction I offer, so it was simply ceremony music, background music during the drinks reception, introduction in to the wedding breakfast, background music during the wedding breakfast and then introduce the speeches.

The evening came and the photographer and videographer (who were a couple and came as one package) set up a small photobooth style corner, which they said they would do for an hour before the first dance. Announced it for them as per their request and no one moved. So went round the tables, and that got them all up there. They were very grateful, as they said often, just as they go to pack it away, everyone comes up, so were pleased everyone got their photo taken within the hour they were doing it for.

When I discussed the cake cutting and first dance with the photographer, he said he needed 5 minutes between the cake cutting and first dance to set up his lights. No way I said - I'd lose everyone. I insisted it was all being done as one sequence. Photographer said that if the cake was in the middle of the dancefloor (rather than just to the side which was its current position), then he could set the lights up ready for both cake cutting and first dance. That seemed a sensible solution - but also meant I had to assist with moving the cake - something I've always tried to stay well away from. I really don't fancy an appearance on You've Been Framed for knocking over a £300+ cake on to the floor.

Fortunately, the cake moved without incident, and made for a much smoother cake cutting and first dance.

Beyond this, as expected in the heat, a lacklustre start, but I tried not to pick it up too much early on. After the pasties were served at 9pm, I picked it up from 9:30 and the guests were responding. A few started to leave at 10:30, and that was the sign for quite a few others to leave, which worried me a bit - but the remainder stayed until the end, and I had 90% of the remaining guests dancing from 11 until the finish time of 11:45, finishing on Bohemian Rhapsody.

Bride and Groom were really happy, and the day had gone well. The barn was in the grounds of a privately owned manor house, and is as good as dry hire (you have to bring your own caterers in), so I was able to run the day without any venue staff getting in the way.

[Nakatomi]

Last night saw me helping out a mate by providing my dj services and two helping arms to a photobooth & love letters at Durham Castle.

I loaded the van in the morning before heading to my day job, left at 4pm & stopped off at durham services for a coffee & a snack. After that I headed towards the city aided by my trusty phone to find the venue.

When I arrived at the road entrance to the venue I found it bollarded off. Not to worry there's the porter's office I'll scope it out. Oh just bring your van down & move the barriers as you go he said. Easy peasy!

I was very early, with more than 90 minutes in hand so I parked the van & wandered back to the cathedral quad-ish road & had a cig. While there I saw some people from the wedding. On my way back to the venue building I saw 2 American tourists who apparently couldn't read the barriers which said the castle was closed to the public. They talked to a relative of the bride who was at this point a little tipsy & his accent was proving a challenge to our friends from the USA.

I peeped my head in the building & asked if I could bring my gear in that way & leave it out of the way by the side of the bar. Of course I could. It had started to rain & it didn't look like it was due to ease off anytime soon so I got cracking. Right after the first couple of handfuls of gear the heavens opened proper & became a real torrent. I remembered I had my coat in the van & got that on quick. It kept my top half dry but water was streaming down it onto my jeans. I was soaked to the skin by the time I'd finished, which the weather took as its cue to stop.

D'oh!

The photobooth & love letters arrived a while later but while waiting I loaded all my stuff onto my trolley so I'd just have to wheel it in.

I had to carry all the booth gear & letters up the steps (the booth girl has had an arm operation & can't do much lifting). My jeans, being sodden were now heavy & wanted to fall down... Rrrrrr.

The room was cleared by 6.40 & we finally got in. I rigged the rig, soundchecked & tested the lights. All good. Then it struck me where the love letters might be best placed.. In front of me on the short stage.

I had to help finish setting up the photobooth & we were ready to go bang on 7.25pm. I shoved some tunes into automangle & went to the van to get my change of clothes. Duly changed in a gents cubicle I was just about refreshed enough to do the gig.

Cake cut & 1st dance were at 8pm & all went well. Buffet opened at 9 & after that requests came thick & fast. Some rammed the floor some didn't, but we kept pressing on to the bitter end at half past midnight, winding up with the extended medley & warnes time of my life thing.

Derigged & got everything in the van in 30 minutes. Helping the booth into their van took another 15 minutes then I was on my way home.

A lovely gig in an absolutely stunning venue. I wonder if I'd be able to use haze next time...

[rth_discos]

Yesterday was 1 of 2 back to back all day weddings this weekend. I've got 3 of these booked in this year - and I'm not doing it again! I managed it a couple of years back, but my service wasn't as involved as it is now. From now on, 24 hours clear separation between all day gigs!!

An interesting wedding yesterday - the couple were in to heavy rock/metal and a few of their guests were too. When they first requested this, I suggested doing all the metal stuff at the end of the wedding in an 'after party' style.

Rest of the evening was 'non cheesy' music, and worked well.

With the ceremony at 12:30 it was a long day in the blistering heat. They had a relatively early wedding breakfast as they'd organised a load of outdoor inflatables and mini golf etc to have fun on between the wedding breakfast and the evening - and it worked really well.

The crowd were fairly subdued - hard to get any significant 'noise' out of them for introductions or my spotlight moments, but a perfectly friendly crowd.

The 11:30 'finish' worked perfectly being a long hot day, so I was grateful for the after party, otherwise it may have been a bit of a fizzle towards the end.

And the after party kept the remaining 20 guests very happy for the last hour with the likes of Skindred, Rammstein and Soil.

Now about to head off to wedding number 2...