Good Gig, Bad Gig.

My goodness how last night came to be so good I'll never know.

My band has a gig on a bus next week (an actual bus doing its route with passengers and stuff) so we were having an extra rehearsal on Thursday. Much against my character I was being nice and dropped one of the lads off going a completely different route than I usually would and ended up having an accident on the way home from dropping him off.

Was fine but the airbags deployed so the car took a big hit. I was under strict doctors and mechanics orders not to drive yesterday. I felt fine (airbag never hit me) and the car was running fine so I was confident I could make the gig but decided to err on the side of caution. My dad, god bless his soul, after being up from 6 for work helped me load everything into his van and drove me the 25 miles to the gig, hung around all night, helped me pack up, took me home and took my car to the garage this morning.

I dunno if it was just wanting to let loose after a :Censored::Censored::Censored::Censored:ty 24 hours, the fact my dad was watching or that the wedding client had come to me after beng recommended by an old friend but I can honestly say I don't think I've ever been so ON at a gig.

I was singing as well at the start of the night and from the start everyone was up and giving it laldy but once I got back behind the decks I just went into a zone and didn't come out of it until I powered the laptop down. I don't think I could have strung the songs together any better, I don't think i could have been better ont he mic, worked the crowd better or schmoozed with the guests better. It's a bit hard to describe, I mean the crowd were brilliant too but I was flawless at what I was doing and on the way home I was thinking about how to a lot of folk, particularly the trendy band folk I play with, DJing is quite naff and "untalented" but I defy anyone to see what I was doing last night and not think "man he's great at what he does."

Earlier in the night my dad who's pretty much a man of the old world asked how much I had charged for this and when I told him he actually said "are you not embarassed about charging that much?" his experience of DJs generally being from the sids who play down his local Masonic. After we were broke down and in the van in a rare fit of openness he said "now I get how you take it so seriously and charge what you do." praise from Caesar :)

I also got the opportunity to give him a little thank you which was nice. He'd have been totally mortified if I'd done it while he was ont he spot but he nipped out later on to grab my bags from the van so I pulled the music and quicky explained to everyone that the person hovering around me looking grumpy and dead on his feet wasn't my roadie and explained about the accident and how my dad had stepped up tot he plate to make sure the bride and groom weren't let down so I fired the music back up and when he came back in I shouted "a cheer for the guy who made tonight possible" and they all went mental. I don't think i could have done it any other way without making him feel uncomfortable and I was genuinely touched by him doing it for me so I wanted to show a little appreciation and let's be honest, having a room full of people shouting your name is quite nice :)

Mechanic got back to me this morning and the damage is nowhere near as bad as I'd feared so I'll be back on the road come Monday night and as the council were pretty much at fault and it's not an astronomical amount, I shouldn't have a problem reclaiming it from them. Nothing left to do now but spend my Saturday drinking beer and watching football :)

Take care out there guys.

Interesting night last night. 12th birthday party for 2hrs in a local church hall. I always knew the timings were going to be tight to get the kit in and set up and out again (6:00 access, 6:30 start, 8:30 finish, out by 9:00), but last night felt like a non-stop rush from the moment I got access to the second I left. Not helped at all by most of the kids turning up for the party by 6:15, and the customer dithering for 5mins about which of the two church halls they wanted me in!!!

Last night was my first outing with Wireless DMX (courtesy of a gentleman in China and a load of ABS boxes from Maplins :D) and it worked a treat and allowed me to get set up a lot faster and a pair of moving washes right where I wanted them. No rig photos though as I didn't have time to get out behind the decks at any point, and because the hall was a mess - scaffold in one corner, big pile of gym mats beside me and chairs all over the stage.

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Song of the night - Cupid Shuffle. Probably the only song of the lot that every child danced to at the same time, close second was Timber and then Trumpets.

Julian

50th last night in a pub in Scunthorpe. I was a little apprehensive when I arrived to find that best access was through a heavily fortified gate at the side, with two sets of locked doors. And to think, last wek I was in a 5* Hotel! :eek: ( By the way, did I mention I was in the Hilton last week? :whistle: :D:D )

So, I got Thunderbird 2 up on the grass, unloaded the kit, and locked all the considerable fortifications! I placed her back in the car park under the lights though afterwards. ;)
Not too far to shift the gear, nice little stage, plentiful power sockets, striplight over the stage so I didn't have to set up in Stygian gloom, always nice. Loads of guests arrived about half an hour in, we then had the birthday boy arrive to a room in silence and darkness, and off went the poppers, lights, and me playing Congratulations. So far so good. First request was a gentleman telling me what time the stripper would be on. Oh goody, thinks I, what are the odds I get a CD thust into my hot little hand.

Here, I must point out that I have begun to align myself with a prominent Scottish Gentleman, who doesn't routinely take CD facilities unless forewarned. I'm down to two laptops now, and the drive on one is physically accessible when in position. Last week, the CD loaded, played, but wouldn't produce sound. ( Which was baffling, as apparently VDJ should deal with CDA files no problem. :confused: )
On that occasion the customer just put the mp3 files onto my stick, and off we went. ( I did of course delete them afterwards, to comply with P****b. )
This time I was luckier, the proffered CD loaded fine, and played no problem. I had a word with the young lady as I returned her disc, and pointed out that nowadays, many DJs ( especially North of the border, apparently ) can't play such media. She agreed, saying that last week, she'd had a similar experience, loaded but not playing. Don't know how she got round that. :confused:

When I suggested that she would be very well advised to also carry her music as mp3 on a memory stick, it got a bit surreal. " I'm thirty you know, I'm ignorant of how to go about it". Obviously, she must have thought I was in my mid-twenties. :Laugh:Anyway, she thanked me for the advice and help, nice lass really.

Her slot, and the early buffet however had skewed my timings a lot, and I was trying not to play all my bankers too early. I was delighted when the first requests were for some Northern Soul, with a couple of my all time faves suggested. Played them, and they bombed almost totally. Despite asking for a wide mixture of eras and styles initially, it started to veer towards modern(ish) chart and dance, and I just couldn't get the mixture right. I was somewhat relieved when the staff informed I was to cut the music half an hour before I expected, and be off the premises by midnight. Fine by me. Packed up quickly, and was actually rolling out of the car park by midnight.


Not my finest hour, I must say, still we get them, don't we? Ah well, Legslappers next week.

Last night I had one of those nights where it felt like everything was against me. To give the full story, two weeks ago I took delivery of a Pioneer DDJ SX and after using it a couple of times, discovered that my laptop basically wasn't up to the job of running it. New laptop ordered after a couple of gigs where there was the occasional slow down and stutter in the music as the laptop struggled to keep (making for a frustrating couple of weeks where the backup Mixtrack Pro was brought out of retirement).

I'd been looking forward to last night working in a regular spot at a walk in at a local club - as it should have been the first night with the DDJ SX and a shiny new laptop which should have been the answer to all my problems. Got to the club and powered the laptop up and Win8 informed me that I had 15mins before it restarted to install updates, so I duly pressed the reboot button to get the update install done before the gig started.... Or so I thought.

3 HOURS LATER.... and the damn thing finally finishes installing 104 updates and I'm on with my "a" rig. In the meantime I'd been having to juggle between my backup (Mixtrack Pro) and my backup, backup (Laptop from the headphone socket) as the output from the Mixtrack cut out on two occasions last night and then recovered itself!!

On top of all of this, it looks like someone had been messing with the kit in the club in the night before and blown the driver in one of the Peavey bins so I had to recable the crossover/amps to run the tops full range with just the one bin for added emphasis and the remaining two fixtures in the club with halogen lamps also had to have lamps switched mid-gig.

I'm sure no-one in the club noticed any of this (except for when the Mixtrack cut out mid-song at one point) and by the end of the night laptop and DDJ SX were performing perfectly - but I just feel like I spent the whole night battling with technology, rather than focusing on entertaining :(

Hopefully better things are to come next week.

Julian

Easy and too the point.............
Friday night , 21st birthday in a WMC in surrey , 130 invited , 22 turned up, all elderly relatives of the birthday girl.
oh boy what a long evening, think the most people on the dance floor was three . one of them was collecting glasses....:D.
And on the way home ,the sat nav had a fit and refused to tell me how to get home.............:mad:.
Still, nice and easy tonight , providing a few lights for a local band...............

Cheers

daryll

With the help of a Brass Band! :eek: Joint 18th and 87th birthday in my local village hall. I knew there was a brass band on as well, and they graciously let me have the stage. My client was Mum to the young one, and daughter to the elder. All was set fair, I'd got in early, set up on the stage, looking forward to a steady night, when I was given a request list from the 18 year old. I hadn't heard of many of them, and only had a few on the list. While the band was on, I started downloading some of what I hoped would be the salient ones. What a load of bilge they were.

Events then conspired to get me out of jail. Thank the Lord for venue wifi. Downloads were very rapid, and I soon had a dozen more on the list. Then the band did two slots, which took us past nine o'clock. The buffet followed soon after, and while the young ones got stuck into that, Mum's friends got in quick with a few requests. They went down well, but I was soon back on the playlist. Then one of the young ones broke ranks, and asked for the Macarena. I slipped in a few of the Usual Suspects, and once I'd got the measure of much of the stuff on the list, I was able to find other suitable tracks. We then had the dichotomy of the birthday girl wanting songs from the list, and many others wanting a more varied fare. It was not difficult to find some middle ground, and just about anything I played was well received by most folk. I got requests for Arctic Monkeys from the birthday girl, and that eased things quite a bit, a couple from them, and Mr Brightside and Livin' on a prayer got us close to the end.

Midnight came, with a round of applause, and plentiful ( undeserved? ) praise from the young birthday girl.

Did I cover myself in glory by pulling off a gig I didn't have the music for, or was I unbelievably lucky? Did my knowledge of music get me out of jail, or did the guests and events rescue me?

I was very lucky. Simples.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Excalibur

I was very lucky. Simples.

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And guess what the phone call I've just had was? My client wanting to thank me for a job well done, and telling me she'd had lots of praise for the whole event, me in particular. :o:o:confused:

Well done then.:)

Well what a contrast between the last two gigs. Last Saturday, I was at a Snooker Club in Harrogate for a 50th Birthday. This was the one with the party games and interaction. I was led to believe access was good, but it turned out to be an obstacle course getting down an alley at the back, with trailers, cars, bins and other items getting in the way. The rain was hammering down, and I was splashing through puddles to get in. There was a step which prevented easy use of a trolley, and it wasn't at all easy. We had a really good night, but load in and out was not good.

Fast forward to this Saturday, travelled to Saxilby in the blazing sun, parked the van outside the front doors, and carried the kit in a few paces straight to the stage. This one was a 60th Birthday, with the majority of the guests being of that era. The request of the night? " Have you got some modern stuff? " Ah well. :D

Wedding thirty miles from home today. I ring the venue to ask what access is like, and can I set up while the reception is still in progress? I get a bloke on the worst line I've had in ages, he says turn up at twelve, no problem. I do that, and on being shown into the room, I'm told I can't set up, cos all the evening's chairs are in there. Five hours to kill now, till room turn round. Hey ho.