messiahwannabe
25-04-2011, 08:31 AM
i did a wedding this saturday where the grey hairs were the seemingly only ones who wanted to dance! granted they probably outnumbered the mid 20's lot about 2 to one, and the youngsters joined in once the floor finally filled, but still, i don't think i've ever seen the grandparents go off with such force!
started out with a well recieved modern "chillout" set for drinks and dinner, as per the brides request. kept it mostly latin or jazz tinged, 110-122 bpm or so, nothing too housey. even the oldies seemed to like it well enough, everyone seemed animated, spotted some toe tapping and head nodding in general, thumbs up from a guest or two when i dropped in a new track, steady flow of compliments etc. lots of mo horizons and club des belugas type stuff, broken up by an occasional run of 3 jazz or pop tunes to keep it from sounding too samey during the dinner.
however when it came time to get em on the dancefloor it took a while to figure out what they wanted. usually disco works a charm for your older crowd but not this time. looking back i should have spotted it earlier - the older contingent was actually even older than usual, lots and lots of white hair in the crowd. "billie jean" did ok but "i will survive" got no reaction (!!!?!?!), "i gotta feeling" worked for the b&g's friends for the one song but they were outnumbered and quickly drifted off to rihanna & usher when i put them on next, quite unusual! i tried a few other standby's, again with little luck. after a while the bride came up and said her parents wanted some oldies so i tried a couple "can't fail" tunes from the 60's ("sex machine", "shout"), which failed. i was starting to get a bit frustrated when finally one white haired dude came up and asked for, you guessed it, more oldies. i asked him if he had any specific requests, and he said the beatles "i wanna hold your hand" - not what i would have thought of playing but, you can't beat a request when you're flailing like i was! not so surprisingly, it was an instant floor filler, so i riffed off that vibe quite a bit for the rest of the night. once the floor filled even the youngsters got well into it, heard some 20yos singing along with "dancing in the street" "the twist" "respect" "brown eyed girl" etc - all of which were in an oldies playlist which frankly i've hardly touched in about 3 years! anyway that did the trick and i kept the floor well filled the rest of the night on ~90% 60's rock and motown - just another hour and a half or so tbh, the 5 star hotel wanted the music off by 10:30 and they had an elaborate garter toss/dance off ~9:30 but... result! i got loads of genuine (if not gushing!) compliments on the music at the end of the night. also the wedding organizer seemed quite pleased and said she'd be calling me again, asked me to send my 2011 rates via email for future reference etc
still, now that it's done i should probably stock up more of this stuff - next time i might have to keep the same kind of crowd going till 1am! frankly i was glad it wound down when it did, as i was starting to exhaust my 60's playlist...
so, anyone have any can't miss suggestions along these lines, 60's rock and motown, stuff like early beatles, aretha franklin, martha and the vandellas etc ? i'd love to hear your input, frankly this forums been a goldmine for me with the song suggestions so far!
thanks,
dj kazz
http://www.soulflip.com/weddings/dj-kazz/
started out with a well recieved modern "chillout" set for drinks and dinner, as per the brides request. kept it mostly latin or jazz tinged, 110-122 bpm or so, nothing too housey. even the oldies seemed to like it well enough, everyone seemed animated, spotted some toe tapping and head nodding in general, thumbs up from a guest or two when i dropped in a new track, steady flow of compliments etc. lots of mo horizons and club des belugas type stuff, broken up by an occasional run of 3 jazz or pop tunes to keep it from sounding too samey during the dinner.
however when it came time to get em on the dancefloor it took a while to figure out what they wanted. usually disco works a charm for your older crowd but not this time. looking back i should have spotted it earlier - the older contingent was actually even older than usual, lots and lots of white hair in the crowd. "billie jean" did ok but "i will survive" got no reaction (!!!?!?!), "i gotta feeling" worked for the b&g's friends for the one song but they were outnumbered and quickly drifted off to rihanna & usher when i put them on next, quite unusual! i tried a few other standby's, again with little luck. after a while the bride came up and said her parents wanted some oldies so i tried a couple "can't fail" tunes from the 60's ("sex machine", "shout"), which failed. i was starting to get a bit frustrated when finally one white haired dude came up and asked for, you guessed it, more oldies. i asked him if he had any specific requests, and he said the beatles "i wanna hold your hand" - not what i would have thought of playing but, you can't beat a request when you're flailing like i was! not so surprisingly, it was an instant floor filler, so i riffed off that vibe quite a bit for the rest of the night. once the floor filled even the youngsters got well into it, heard some 20yos singing along with "dancing in the street" "the twist" "respect" "brown eyed girl" etc - all of which were in an oldies playlist which frankly i've hardly touched in about 3 years! anyway that did the trick and i kept the floor well filled the rest of the night on ~90% 60's rock and motown - just another hour and a half or so tbh, the 5 star hotel wanted the music off by 10:30 and they had an elaborate garter toss/dance off ~9:30 but... result! i got loads of genuine (if not gushing!) compliments on the music at the end of the night. also the wedding organizer seemed quite pleased and said she'd be calling me again, asked me to send my 2011 rates via email for future reference etc
still, now that it's done i should probably stock up more of this stuff - next time i might have to keep the same kind of crowd going till 1am! frankly i was glad it wound down when it did, as i was starting to exhaust my 60's playlist...
so, anyone have any can't miss suggestions along these lines, 60's rock and motown, stuff like early beatles, aretha franklin, martha and the vandellas etc ? i'd love to hear your input, frankly this forums been a goldmine for me with the song suggestions so far!
thanks,
dj kazz
http://www.soulflip.com/weddings/dj-kazz/