Good Gig, Bad Gig.

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Originally Posted by Shakermaker Promotions

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It was the first time I haven't done a Halloween party on Halloween. I asked him if there was a Halloween theme and he said no. I asked if it was fancy dress and got the same answer...ok, no problem.

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I was a bit puzzled when I learned last night wasn't fancy dress or Halloween themed either, but thinking about it, if MY birthday was on Halloween I'm not sure I'd want it to be associated either ;)

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Tag Team

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OMG! Not heard that one for YEARS. Chooooooooooooooon! Heh.

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... I am packing down at the end and I am wheeling out my speakers. A couple of guys are stood in the way of the door so I say "excuse me" and I get ignored. I say "excuse me" a second time and it is as if I have told them I am going to kill them. They really get the hump just because they have to move. I'm huffing and puffing and getting flustered trying to get the stuff out before Midnight and these 2 idiots are getting a strop on because I have asked them to move. They've been up dancing all night and had a great time by the looks of it but they're now getting all stroppy. Eventually they do move but when I return with other bits of equipment they are back in the way again. The same thing happens again and to be honest, this time I say something...."Seriously guys, are you doing this on purpose?" I ask them and they just laugh.

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I hate that. Well, who wouldn't? It happens sometimes at my residency where people sit around in a huddle of chairs right in front of the door where I need to pack up. Thankfully with the cold wet autumn nights this will be much less likely. What makes it worse is they often refuse to move even for 5 minutes so I have to lift gear over their heads. Last time I got the last of my stuff in the car, locked it up & went back through the door & shut it - LOCKING THEM OUT. It added a couple of minutes to my exit but it made me feel a lot better.

Yeah Tag Team came out of the vaults last night as did Kriss Kross, Jazzy Jeff etc. I even tried Sugarhill Gang's Apache (Jump on it) as it usually works but unfortunately it didn't work with this lot. Well, I say that....a couple of people were doing the moves away from the dance floor area.

The standing in front of the doors thing always annoys me but to be fair, it doesn't happen that often to me.
Unfortunately last night's venue only had one way in and out and that's where they were standing and it was almost as if they were doing it on purpose.
What was also strange (and quite comical really) was that just 10 miles down the road in a little village felt like a step back 10+ years and was one of those occasions where it felt as if half of them hadn't experienced a 'proper' Disco before.

Phew - can I stop now?

Was on holibobs until Friday morning (just a short half term break before we hit the Chimbo party season).
6 1/2 hours on the M5 on Friday, followed by a kids birthday party an hour after I got home (it wasn't supposed to be that way but traffic and the weather dictated otherwise!)
Got to the venue, mum's outside panicking....nobody's come to unlock (I love it when this happens). So, did as much pre-rigging as I could in the back of the van and got half an hour to get everything in place by the time the hall staff turned up. A belter of a party, and lots of business cards given out. Finally got home and crashed for the night

Saturday: Halloween Wedding (I kid you not!). It's a local venue I do quite a bit for and they'd messed up on the booking for a disco and called me in to help at the last minute (I'd turned it down originally as I was booked, but then ended up on a cancellation and thought why not).
I don't like it when I don't get to meet the bride and groom before the event....those ones never work for me, and because of me going away, it wasn't going to happen this time. All I knew before arriving was that there was something to do with Halloween, and what the first and last dances were. There'd been rumours of fancy dress too!

Turned up in the morning to set up (it's in an upstairs function room and a swine to get in and out of) and WOW! The hall looked like something from Hammer House of Horrors! Ghosts, ghoulies, graves, spiders webs...the works. There were zombies of the bride and groom on the top table, the chairs and tables were decorated in black and purple.....it actually looked very impressive (and at the same time weird to see a wedding venue set out in something other than black and pink!). So, set up the rig, in black (to match everything) and enjoy the afternoon at home. Trundle back to the venue at 6pm to find they're still eating and doing speeches. I'd taken a risk though and assumed that it was indeed going to be fancy dress and turned up in full Dracula mode. I looked through the doors to the wedding breakfast, and everyone was sitting there like a normal wedding...suited and booted.....oh heck!

Eventually everyone left the room for the turnaround and I met up with the bride and groom.....who were over the moon that I'd gone to the effort of dressing up! It turns out that during the room turnaround the guests had all been dismissed to dress up in fancy dress (phew!). Started on background music until the guests returned....first dance planned for 8pm. Eventually, 9pm and we're off at last. Loads of different music played during the evening covering just about every genre and decade you could think of....utterly brilliant night. The only thing which spoiled it was the amount of Jack Daniels and B&G were necking. They wanted to use the mics at 11pm to present some awards for best dressed etc....and it was a bit disturbing watching them trying to slur their way through it....hey ho...their day after all.

Loads of hugs from the bride and her mum at the end of the night - again saying how impressed they were that I'd made the effort to get into fancy dress.

Home by 3am, then out again at 10am to tidy up last night's rapidly stowed away gear and get ready for this afternoon's party. This one's for a local primary school....but it's a school disco with a difference - it's more of a parent's social whilst I entertain the kids. I do Halloween and Christmas for them every year and it's a real pleasure to do. I even broke my own rules this afternoon and accepted a pint of ice cold lager mid way through (it was stupidly hot in there).

Now time for a couple of nights off before two weddings next weekend (last two of the year), then into Christmas parties :beer1:

Weekend away with two Legslappers gigs back to back. In some ways they were identical, in others poles apart.
Friday saw me just above Lincoln in a village hall we've played before. I had extra kit, so got there early. The main playout was centre stage, and I had one of my own in the wings. The strobe was hung on the overhead, and the smoke machine readied. All sound ran through the big FOH mixer, so I could put appropriately spooky effects on the vocals. The FFN come out for these as hooded figures with lanterns, in almost total darkness, with strobe flashes and smoke, to some eery music. Did I mention the smoke? Oh dear. :(

I was assured that it had been disabled for the beginning of the night, so after the announcement that the fun was about to start, I gave a good blast of it. This was followed by a loud click. And a total loss of power to the stage. And a flashing light in the ceiling. And an alarm. Whoops. :o:o

Fifteen minutes later, we were ready to go, but without the smoke. My playout laptop had to be rebooted totally, and the main one had lost contact with the controller. Time was now of the essence, so I had to use the main one, which defeated the entire point of having a second one available. Ah well.

The rest of the night was a blast, as almost every guest was in costume, and the hall was decked out similarly. I had barely an hour to play at the end, due to lost time initially, and the audience were mental. The requests were all spot on, and I couldn't put a foot wrong. Fantastic.

Packed all up, and headed off to a travelodge, where I was informed that there was no hot water! At two in the morning, I wasn't a lot bothered. Next morning when it still wasn't on, I had a cursory wash in the tepid water, and headed out for brekkie. On asking at reception when the water might be back on, the answer was " Today. Since you're with us tomorrow night, can I refund you for last night " ? Well of course. Came back after brekkie to lashings of hot water, got a lovely shower, and headed off for the next gig.

Arrived there really early, after visiting a few shops en route, knowing I could get access early. This one had a cramped stage, so one playout only, with the FOH mixer tucked away at the side. At the last minute, I was asked to light the stage, so hastily rigged the Tripars as uplighters in a deep red. Looked good. We were allowed smoke here, and the grand entrance went exactly as planned. Big difference here was not a single person in costume, and a hall looking like any other night. Another fabulous audience, and the order of the day was 80's, and 80's cheese. Went down a storm. Wish they were all like this.

Packed up, back to the travelodge, and headed home for Dad's 80th birthday dinner. It's all go, sometimes, eh? :)

Interesting weekend this one. Friday night saw me in a prestigious local venue for a 50th for a prominent local businessman. They'd gone all out on this one, DJ, uplighting, white starlit dance floor, balloons, table decorations, slideshow, huge buffet, balloons, massive cake, "This is your life" routine, band and photo booth.

It's a shame they didn't bother to tell any of us what was going on through the night. I only provided the Disco. I certainly could have provided the uplighting (and better units as well) and I'm sure I could have sourced the dance floor for them too. The band ignored my initial emails until Tuesday last week when they ignored most of my questions and told me that they'd been told to set up on the stage and I had to go into the alcove. And that they had no idea what that meant as they'd never been to the venue before.

So... I get there at 6:00 on Friday, set up in some weird angle in the alcove so that I can see the dance floor and that I'm not blocking the exit for when the band pack up at midnight (I'm playing until 1:30). I finally get the bands set list to find that they've got pretty much all of the party tracks in their in some odd order over two 1hr sets.

Band sound check and retire for 2.5hrs until they're on. I start playing background music to an empty room until 8:30 when the guests are ushered in for the "This is your life" routine. The speeches end and it's 9:20, I play a few more gentler songs as I can see everyone clearing the room for the bar and then the birthday boy comes over 5mins later and asks me to go for some more lively tracks. I point out the band are on for their first set in 5mins so I'll kick it off properly once they're done.

This is where a lack of planning and co-ordination starts to hurt the night... Band comes on at 9:30 and simultaneously the buffet opens. The bar and buffet are in a different room and the main room where me and the band were was already pretty empty. The band finish their first song to a huge round of... silence. Because the 5 people in the room have their mouths full. A few of things I ought to mention about the band. Firstly, they were vocally and musically very good. Certainly more than adequate for the occasion. Secondly, they'd never seen the room or played in it before and I know the room caught them out. I've played there before and when you're stage the bass is immense (even with speakers on the main floor) because you're stood on an ageing wooden box, but from FOH the bass is lost in the huge, deep, wooden panelled, stone floored room - and you could barely hear them at the back. Lastly, when they set up in Jeans and T-shirts I was expecting them to change before they came back on stage 2.5hrs later. But they didn't. Bit naughty for a function where clearly there was some money, some influence, and some very expensive suits and dresses in the room.

Anyway, so the band were getting zero reaction from the audience throughout their first set because they were contending with the bar, a photo booth (which neither me or the band knew was there until I wandered into the back of the bar later in the night) and the buffet! End of the bands first set, and I played for 30mins and started to get a few people up as the bar had it's effect and the buffet closed.

Band comes on for their second set and do an OK job of filling the floor (given their set list, I'd have been amazed if they hadn't) and then I follow on again at midnight and keep the momentum going. Until the birthday boy comes over completely off his face with an expression and an attitude that says from the out that he expects to get what he asks for. It's his birthday so I'd have played whatever he wanted anyway. And apparently that is punk and he has some very specific requests. Sex pistols, Stone Roses, Specials, Bad Manners, Stiff little fingers, etc. All tracks that did a great job of clearing the dance floor once we got past the more mainstream Ska, leading to an early finish to an empty room at 1:00am.

Cant wait for the feedback for that one.

Last night saw me outside(!) for a kids Halloween party/Fireworks night. The usual kids party really, except I was mostly in the dark apart from the odd uplighter and the few effects lights I bought only. Great fun doing party dances in the dark, and then getting to watch the fireworks at the end!!

Tomorrow night I'm playing an 89th birthday party in a home for adults with learning difficulties for a couple of hours which will make a bit of a change.

Another absolutely life-affirming gig last night. I had an 'interesting' playlist to work with - no out & out cheese but a handful of classics like Mr Blue Sky, Sweet Home Alabama to play.

Cake cut & first dance were scheduled for 8pm, but when I arrived at 5.45 I had half an hour to wait for the guests to finish their desserts & coffees. That done I got set up & was just about ready to go when I found I had a faulty USB cable for my DMX interface. Grrr. Second one in 4 gigs! I bring spares of course but this is taking the ...

So, the room & I are finally ready to accept people at 7.30pm & I hit the background music, which I keep very upbeat & fairly current. Loads of very good singing along to the music... I sense this lot are really up for it. Cake cut goes without a hitch but with so many people taking photos it's almost ten past eight before the first dance can happen. I do the B&G first dance intro & they get an ear-splitting applause. Ellie Goulding 'How Long' gets an outing, then there's another deafening applause & I play Whitney Houston - I have nothing. Full floor til buffet time & I go to upbeat background music again.

After the buffet it's time to start digesting that playlist getting some of the slower numbers out of the way first & throwing in some of my own - all went down very well indeed. Aired the classics from the playlist and some of my own & even managed to go a bit heavier on the rock side (AC/DC anybody? :D). I was harassed by a harridan yet again who seemed to think I was purely there for her enjoyment, but everybody else requesting tunes was lovely. Loads of high fives from girls. Woohoo.

Last orders time raced upon us & the bride & groom came over to ask me to play Bon Jovi - Always for the penultimate tune. No problem! Did this, & literally everybody was on the floor. Before I played the last tune I did the outro wishing the B&G all the very best, got them another deafening goodwill related noise, wished everyone else a safe onward journey & hit play on Coldplay - Sky Full Of Stars (playlisted). Big balloon release with glitter & confetti everywhere right on cue, cheers, hugs & ear to ear smiles all round. I was actually jealous. Why wasn't the end of MY wedding this good?! Why weren't MY friends & family so full of joy?! :lol:

In all, that was the best wedding reception for ages. Best gig for ages!

I had one of those nights where it had the potential beforehand to be a really good night as there were some good ideas and I did a bit of work pre-gig getting information and bits together.
It was a 60th birthday for a guy whose wedding I did last year. He used to be in a band back in the 70's and 80's and was guitar mad. His birthday cake was in the shape of an old wurlitzer jukebox and was really cool. We'd met up a couple of times and gone through various bits that he wanted.
The idea (which always gives me loads of enthusiasm) was to make it 'special' although I did have thoughts that he may just be thinking about what HE wanted and not his guests and to some extent I was right.

The pre-request list packed with some great songs by the likes of The Who, The Kinks, Rolling Stones, Small Faces, Tornadoes, Buddy Holly and David Bowie (his favourite). There was also some cheesiness on it and he was up for requests too but preferred if I played his favourites. There were also some old TV themes in there like the Hovis advert, Fireball XL5, The Champions, Thunderbirds and more...

He'd invited 130 but I'd say there were half that in reality. I started off with some background tunes and played some of the more chilled out and non-dance floor fillers (Telstar, Nut Rocker etc) and the atmosphere was pretty good.
At 8.45pm he did a speech which he'd prepared and it worked a treat. I played the Hovis theme as the background to his speech and then as the buffet was coming out he said "The buffet will be ready in.....(cue thunderbirds countdown...)...5, 4, 3, 2....1. Everyone was in stitches.
At 10.00pm he did the same again but this time the countdown was for the free bar for the last 2 hours.

It was one of those nights where as I said, the potential was there but people were mainly chatting and catching up and dancing occasionally. The older stuff was listened to mainly with people getting up now and then to their favourites. The rock 'n roll section went down well and then when the younger (20 somethings) had enough booze in them they decided to get up. Requests started flooding in during the last 2 hours that included current stuff, 80's and rock with a couple of slowies.

Last song of the night was Procul Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale and it filled the dance floor. Birthday boy grabbed the mic again and thanked me and everyone applauded and one guy came over and asked me for a card. He was also very complimentary and said that he thought the way I interracted and came up with facts etc was really interesting. It's his 60th next year and he said he'd like pretty much the same thing. All I did was find out what the first record he bought was (Archies - Sugar Sugar) and what certain songs were number 1 on his 11th, 18th, 21st, 30th, 40th and 50th birthdays were.

Oh, I also threw in some soundbites of adverts which I'd got from YouTube beforehand like an advert for the Ford Capri, R Whites Lemonade and also a piece from the BBC News in 1976 when he was 21 and it was the heatwave. He appreciated it and so did everyone else by the sounds of it.

Straight after I'd packed down I had to hang around until the room was cleared because I had to set up a separate PA system for a conference today. I thought it best to do it last night as it was due to start at 8.30am.

Tonight I will go back and get that after I have done the 50th birthday party at a different venue. This one has been a bit of a nightmare to be honest.
The customer booked me in April. He hadn't been in touch for months and months and failed to tell me that he'd changed his email address and contact numbers. He'd also moved house so the only way I could get in touch with him was to search for him on Facebook.
When I eventually managed to get in touch with him it appeared that the booking may not go ahead. He THOUGHT he'd booked the venue via a friend who "knew someone at the venue and could get it cheap" but it obviously when for a boo boo because when I couldn't get in touch with the customer I decided to call the venue to see if there was a booking. They told me at first there was no booking this Saturday at all and then called me back to say they'd just taken one. This was last week.
When I eventually got in contact with the customer I told him that and he started panicking as he was under the impression all was ok. It obviously wasn't.

I told him that the payment was overdue and that if it was cancelled I would need paying ASAP. On Wednesday evening I met him and he paid me in full and then on Thursday morning he confirmed that another venue has now been booked. The unfortunate thing(s) are firstly, I know the venue and it has a sound limiter and secondly, apparently there won't be many people attending now.

I'll be glad when it is all done and dusted and will report back tomorrow.

Curate's egg for me. What's becoming an annual one for Royal Signals Association, Harrogate. Technically, I can get access as soon as they go in for dinner, but if the staff are on the ball, I can get in to the conservatory and park the kit there next to the function room, ready for setup.
So, 7.30pm, they go in for dinner. Small one this, so Powerbar, Cheetahs, two tops, and Micromax. I have a nice leisurely setup, and out they come to dance at................................................ ...............







10.45pm!! Not many teenagers in the audience, so Now 91 didn't get much of an airing. :) Easy listening stuff, Drifters, Abba, Roy Orbison ( artist of the night ) Neil Diamond, you get the idea. By midnight, I had the usual hardcore handful left, and not a lot left unplayed in the " foot tapper " locker. Round of applause at the end though, so that was nice.

Then had to find my way back with my phone, and not the sat nav. Actually, with the phone connected to the radio, it's not bad.

So tonight was the 50th birthday party for a lady who gave me a playlist longer than both my arms. There were two bands, who hated me as soon as they arrived. Apparently they rolled up at the hotel at 8.30am demanding to be let into the function room to start setting up. Then they started spitting feathers at the ':Censored::Censored::Censored::Censored:' gear in their way. It has to be said they later asked me what my gear was, because A) my lights were very good and B) my PA was impressive too they said.

Yes the band moved my speakers a bit & repositioned my GigaBar but they'd done it nicely & nothing was hurt so what the hell. Their speakers.. Mackie SRM350 ... and their lights.. a KAM Power LED bar. The sort with 5mm LEDs, No my friend, it is YOUR lights wot are :Censored::Censored::Censored::Censored:. Ha!

I played half an hour of music from the provided playlist then a band came on. Musically they were pretty good but the lead singer lass was sometimes way off key. They had a few people up, then after an hour or so it was buffet time. I did some background music (again from the playlist) & tested my mettle with Party Fears Two by The Associates. I really don't like their work & it seemed only the birthday girl was a fan in that room.

45 minutes later the second band had swapped places with the first & off they went. They were really very good. They got more people up & the lead singer was wandering around the floor with his leaded mic. Proper interaction! Time rolled on, I chatted to hotel guests & staff for an hour & waltzed back into the birthday room to finish off the night. I started off with Altered Images' Happy Birthday & steered them towards rock & roll for a couple of songs.. then back to rawk. 'Last' song of the night was 'Birthday' by The Beatles which I'm ashamed to admit I was unaware of until I was given the playlist - and could easily be a 'go to' birthday tune in future... Screams of ONE MORE from the crowd.. oh go on then... THE POGUES - IRISH ROVER. CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!!!!!!!!!! I started breaking down my Gigabar & turned down (then off) one speaker towards the end. My hint there'd be no more one mores. Applause at the end & loads of handshakes for me. A couple of cards handed out but not a word from Ms Birthday. Oh yeah - top night, and I had nowt to do with it. Heh. Whatever.

Next gig is a joint 40th birthday with (I think) an absolute stonker of a playlist. It doesn't feature The Associates for one thing :lol:

Two weddings for me this weekend.....the last two of the year for me (and it's been a busy year at that).

So....Friday night at a nice local wedding venue I've been to several times with a LOT of success. It's a pain to load in and out of, but they have a proper starlit dance marquee which is all very surreal when you're in there. At least they'd got the service lights working this time as everything, literally EVERYTHING is black (to match my cables, equipment, lighting.....). It's not the easiest set up in the world.

A host of things went wrong too. My smoke machine decided it wasn't going to work, my DMX dongle didn't want to play ball (I'd spent hours programming for that one and ended up on sound to light, one of my DXR15's fell out of the van and I broke it's fall with my left knee...which now hurts like hell :( ).

But....this one didn't quite get going for some reason. The way this one works is that the guests are tucking into the wedding breakfast in an adjoining marquee which is separated from the dance marquee by just a curtain. The idea being that the B&G come into the dance marquee whilst it's just me there, wobble about for the first dance photos for the tog, then the venue announce the first dance, I hit play and the curtains open to reveal the B&G in the starlit marquee on a black and white chequerboard dancefloor, and yours-truly on stage with a rig to impress. It normally gets a selection of Oooohs, arrrrhhhs and general wows from the assembled guests (it's all very theatrical). They then normally filter into the dance marquee and at the appointed time, put their tootsies onto the dance floor and do this thing called dancing.

Not tonight Josephine!

The curtains were pulled back in a "This is your life" fashion as always....and it was like there was some sort of glass wall between them and us (or those that had bothered to remove their bums from their seats anyway). It was a long night which eventually, sort of got going....but not the way it normally does there and to be honest...I left more than a little flat.

Move forward 24 hours to the gig I wasn't expecting to be the best of the weekend.....
This one's in a wedding hotel/venue type place about 40 miles away. I was last there in the summer and it can be a little odd at times. Big noise complaints, it's hot because they have to close the windows and doors, and it's not the easiest load-in in the world.

The wedding breakfast overran, but luckily I had a fellow DJ who's new to the game joining me for the evening...many hands made very light work. Everything in place and time to switch on the background music for the first hour....no problem (other than the heat).

For this one, the bride had given me a pretty specific playlist and cheese was most certainly not for the evening. No problem...it was a good playlist so after the first dance was out of the way, we started picking through it. The floor was absolutely HEAVING!

Then, around an hour in, the bride tells me to ignore the playlist and "get the cheese on". I had to ask her to clarify this one, but yes...roll out the deli counter and let's get going :)

With this, I thanked her, gave her a huge hug and I'm ashamed to say, played some real stonkers.
My roadie/helper (who was along to learn how weddings work) had disappeared water the horse at this point as I announced we'd be going to the cheese counter after the next song which was the Spice Girls megamix. He'd heard me announce this from the facilities and couldn't believe what he was seeing as he returned to the booth....100% of the guests on the floor (to be honest...I couldn't believe it either).

From there, it just developed into the party of a lifetime....I really could do with more of these. Nothing I played failed. I could have gone on a lot longer too. It was one of those nights we live for, and went by far too quickly.

So, time to put the dust sheets on the wedding rig for another year then. I've got a couple of adult and kid birthdays coming up....then it's time for the Christmas parties to kick in......did I blink and miss most of 2015 somewhere?