Good Gig, Bad Gig.

Well...that was a first :o

Today started out as a normal Saturday: 9 year old birthday party this afternoon....all went to plan (ish). The MC6000 mkII decided it didn't want to play nicely (it apparently depends on the order of booting up the laptop and turning on the mixer....hey ho).

Tonight - hmmmmm......

I was booked for an adult party about 30 miles from home. That's all I knew about it until I got there.
It was in a lovely little pub which has just been taken over, and luckily for me I'd thought to pack my smaller set up and a couple of GigBars this morning.....very little space for lighting so the main rig stayed in the van. I had hoped to go and check the venue out a couple of weeks ago, but didn't get around to it so took the smaller stuff just in case.....

Well, it turned out to be a Christmas party for the local PTA. What could possibly go wrong with that then, eh?
The Prosecco flowed, and flowed, and flowed as around 100 mainly female PTA members (I couldn't believe it either) arrived, some with husbands/partners, but not too many.

So....there I stand in a room full 30 and 40 year old females, all out for a good time. I threw the kitchen sink at it and got results....it was a brilliant night.....but that's where it went wrong. I played the Weathergirls (as you do when you have a crowd of slightly worse for wear members of the fairer sex), and as is normal they hunted down a poor innocent chap to encircle on the dance floor. Unfortunately they found me and dragged me out from behind the booth. I then had my shirt ripped open whilst they danced around me......erm :o (they got the landlord later on as well).

The calls for one more went on and on (they got three in the end) before the landlord decided it was time for bed. The beauty is, the pub's under new management and do a lot of this sort of thing....in fact he's looking at doing things like 80's nights next year. So, business cards duly left plus several handed out to the young mums for kids birthday parties and that's another very successful weekend done.

Now if only I could switch off and get some sleep myself......

Despite feeling like death warmed up (I can't seem to get rid of this bug), I spent most of yesterday preparing the last bits and bobs for my booking last night.
Daryll was covering the first Christmas party of the year at the hotel residency (thanks Daryll) and I was off to Ash Vale near Aldershot to provide a Race Night for an Ice Hockey Club that were raising funds for their club.

It was a great night with around 60 in attendance and lots of money was raised for their club. I had a number of compliments throughout the night from people who'd attended a Race Night fundraiser last year. They said the service I provided and the way I came across was a lot more fun so that was nice.

Life was made a lot easier for me on this one because the club designed its own race programmes (I usually do that) and the organisers that booked me were running the Tote themselves too (I usually do that). It didn't mean that I did nothing though. I was running around helping out anyway.

So, I wanted to try a few new things out and got there slightly earlier to give myself more than enough time to set up.
I loaded up the van with all of the usual bits I take (Big Screen, Projector and back up Projector, Denon Playout System, Laptop, Mackies etc) but also decided to take my Alto combo amplifier and iPad. I'd never used the iPad for Race Nights before but on Friday I decided to format the races and add them to it to see if it would make life easier.......and it did. My only concern was that there may not be enough power for the 3.5 hours duration as the VGA cable comes out of the USB power slot. There isn't a power / VGA splitter available (well, there is...but they aren't Apple products and I tried one ages ago and it was compatible).

I set up with the iPad connected to the Projector and the sound out of the headphone socket to the Alto Combo. It worked really well so I didn't need the laptop at all.
There was more than enough volume in the old hall. Just to be safe, after each race I disconnected the VGA cable from the iPad and replaced it with the power cable to charge it. Again, this worked really well. I just didn't want to chance running it all night but I wouldn't have had any problems if I had.
Once again I took along my big projector screen only to put it back in the van. The walls of the hall were a cream colour so I projected on to the wall and it was absolutely massive! It looked awesome.

Half way through the night fish and chips were delivered to the hall for everybody. I was asked in advance if I wanted any and I said no. I was hungry and the smell of it wasn't doing me any favours. They went ahead and ordered me some anyway but I couldn't touch it. It was funny when the organiser asked me if I could see if anyone else wanted a second helping. The smallest, skinniest guy jumped up and took it away. I don't know where he managed to fit that in because they were big portions!

So, this was a good way of testing out for future Race Nights as I now know that I can take along a smaller compact system if need be that will still do the job well and it can be set up in less than 15 minutes. I was playing music in between each race and people were coming up requesting songs too. It was funny because I had more requests last night at a Race Night than I have had at recent bookings.

A couple of people asked for cards and the organiser said she would contact me again for next year so all in all, a good night.
Still feel like rubbish now and a bloody busy week coming up with lots of bookings and meetings.

1st Xmas party last night at a note that rhymes with stilton and apart from having to tell a few of the young team that the last way to get me to play what they want is to be rude or patronising, it was great.

The organiser was well impressed and took a card for next years party so must have done something right.

Mostly good paying school disco till the weekend before Xmas now so fir a change Im getting quite up for a month of gigging and enjoying the Christmas tunes for a change.

My pleasure gary.
A great evening , got there in plenty of time , so I thought I would treat my self to fish and chips , alas the chippie was shut.....for good...:Censored:
Still back to the gig , guests started to arrive at 6:45 , so I put some christmas back ground music on , The meal was longer than I expected , so the last deserts were eaten around 9:15 , followed by a raffel.
So the party dident get going until around 9:30 ish, well I must say they were in a party mood, several "older" guests , so I thought a few 60`s and 70`s , oh no ..... chart and cheese were the order on the day.
Pretty much a fullish floor all night , ended with the pogues , fairy tale of new york, shouts of one more were dashed when the house lights burst on.,.,.:), all in all a great night, now considering it was in Basingstoke , and I am in South harting ( four miles the other side of petersfield) the gig ended at 12:00 and I was home at 1:10, that was good going.
As a footnote and a praise to the "budget" end gear , last night was the 150 outing for my amp rack , citronic Crossover , W-audio horizon 1300 SMPS amp and a berry EPQ 2000 SMPS amp, and apart from one damp problem on the w-Audio ( took 5 minutes to warm up enough to stay on) the gear has never missed a beat.

Cheers

Daryll

Nice on Daryll!
Top man.

Ahh I learned long ago to resist the temptation to play too girly when there's a female majority. I've been the victim of one too many shirt ripping.

Last night saw my first Christmas murder misery of the year. A full house, about half of whom were up for a party & dressed accordingly. The floor was full from start to finish. No teasing needed, but then they'd had to wait til 10.30 for me to start.

A very rock oriented set ensued - I even dug up ACDC - Whole Lotta Rosie for them & the sparkly ladies ate it all up. Ended the night with Mariah Carey (requested). It's still too early for all that, and I hate xmas music. The standards like Slade, Wizzard & The Poggles. Blech!

Packed down in record time, in part thanks to my new part wireless DMX rig.

Oh and that panic I had for filling next weekend. No need now, at least for Friday. "we've had a cancellation" the manager said. Meaning, they've knocked the other room on the head because they didn't have the numbers to justify it. Grrr. So that's going to mean I'll always be on his case about bookings. And I might just turn round & say "let me know too late & you'll still be invoiced". I love this residency me, I really do.

Next year, I'll be tempted to be on a break

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by juski

Oh and that panic I had for filling next weekend. No need now, at least for Friday. "we've had a cancellation" the manager said. Meaning, they've knocked the other room on the head because they didn't have the numbers to justify it. Grrr. So that's going to mean I'll always be on his case about bookings. And I might just turn round & say "let me know too late & you'll still be invoiced". I love this residency me, I really do.

---

Same this happened to me for this coming Friday. Thankfully, I have an agreed cancellation policy with the venue and they (of course they did) cancelled on the last possible day before the charges kicked in.

Mind you, sending me the booking for the second room last night as a 2300 finish only to be told when we got there that it was an error and ity was an 0030 finish was a bit naughty. Thankfully it was a crap night and got wound up at 2345.

Bit of a slow burner on Saturday night, but ended very strongly.

Bride & Groom got married in Mexico a couple of weeks beforehand, so it was just the evening's festivities. People still suited up for the night though, which I thought was nice. I've never done a gig like this before (you'd think after 15 years I would have by now, but hey ho!) and part of me was wondering if people would lean more towards smart/casual. I know that I'd be annoyed if it was my do, but then saying that it isn't my do. What does my opinion matter? My wondering was pointless anyway - bride turned up in her wedding dress, groom turned up in his suit (as did some groomsmen) and everyone else was dressed up too.

Turned up to the venue and the room is down some stairs. I knew this when I performed a site visit a couple of months back, so no surprises there. A chap on the night was having a right tizzy while we were lugging flightcases down the stairs. "Why are you going down these stairs?" Well that's where I was told to load in. He then went on a tizzy about safety (we weren't working unsafely, but hey ho). He then showed us another way to load in and out. And what route is that? A different flight of stairs. How the :Censored: does that differ to what we were already doing?

Anyway, onto the gig itself and I convinced the B&G to have the buffet early on and do the cake cutting and first dance afterwards. The first few hours were people mingling and kids running around rampant (why bring kids to a wedding?). Cake cut and first dance happened around 9:30, but it really didn't properly kick off until the last hour. The B&G booked me because I had a stint in Ibiza a few years ago, and were really excited to have some trance anthems played on the night. Now what DJ wouldn't love to play some Balearic anthems? I played three trance tracks and none of them worked. It was indie that was the big hit on the night, and that's how we ended it.

Good night overall that took a while to get going. Clients were happy and so were the guests - even some random guy walking around with fairy lights around his neck and a microphone with the lead cut off that he sang into all night. :confused:

Well, it seems I've got myself a couple of DJs to cover the extra work at my residency, so I can relax. Ish.

Had another murder mystery night last night. Didn't kick off til 1045 so a mere 75 minutes of disco was needed. Tough crowd... A baying bevvy of ginned up ladies in their mid 20s. Very raunchy dancing & it was quite a show. Tempted to play up to that but thought better of it. 30 of them vs 3 blokes in the room wouldn't have been fair.

Friday sees a proper Christmas party, the first of the year. Then on Saturday, my penultimate wedding of 2015.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by juski

. Then on Saturday, my penultimate wedding of 2015.

---

My last one's NYE!

OK, belated report from last week. Saturday saw me covering for a mate at a venue in Hull. Small room, midnight finish, lovely staff, easy nights.

Usually.

Got in early to set up, steward was surprised to see me, not Martin, the resident. Seems like there's a communication problem going on. He wanted to know if Martin would be doing the big annual kids party the following day. Allegedly it's booked in year on year, so shouldn't have been a surprise. Well it certainly was to me!! :eek::eek: I rang John ( Twinspin ) to see if he'd been drafted in, but apparently not. To his eternal credit, he immediately offered assistance, as it's local to him. Lad's an absolute gent.

Anyway, Saturday. Good job the cutlery was plastic, I'd have slashed my wrists otherwise. Had one of my pet hates early on. :mad: As regular readers know, I'm not in the first flush of youth, and inclined to play songs from my formative years as I set up. The advnce party turn up with food, and I'm immediately asked " Have you got anything modern " ? :mad::mad:

" No, of course not, the laptop's only for playing Solitaire on, I've got a cassette deck on the bottom shelf with six best of the 70's tapes for the disco ". :mad::mad::mad: What on earth do people think? :confused::confused:

Anyway, it's a 50th Birthday, and I'm regularly informed that the birthday boy " really likes modern music ". At this point, I feel I ought to point out that at least 75% of the guests were twenty somethings or younger, so perhaps that may have coloured things a little? You might think that, I couldn't possibly comment. ;)
Could I get more than five on the floor at once? No way. Except for the requested handful of older tracks , and Macarena/Cha Cha/ Usual cheese. Go figure. Midnight came round all too slowly, and I broke down the kit, leaving most of it there for the noon start tomorrow. Sadly, Sunday's gig was in the vast concert hall next door, not my bijou little annexe. :(:(

Early next morning, I picked up John, and his limbo kit, as all we knew was " 12-4, kids party, get them all running around". We still didn't know if we would turn up to find someone else booked to perform. We arrived, and were gong well, until John ripped his raiment, and decency demanded that I take him home for new trousers.
We were setting up a slightly more involved PA than usual as the venue is vast, and as far as we knew I'd be required to shepherd the little darlings about and arrange games, so second mixer plugged in, handheld radio mic, cabled mic, and headset mic all ready to go. Sub as well, for good measure, for as I said, the room's huge. At five to twelve, we're just about ready to go when the steward announces " It's a one o'clock start". My panic subsides, we finish the set up in a more leisurely manner, and I go to see the lady in charge for instructions.

Isn't communication a wonderful thing? We really should use it more. Turns out our brief is to run the little darlings ragged for an hour, buffet will open, and when that's done, a Children's Entertainer will do an hour and a half. Father Christmas will then turn up, and we'll bugger off home.
So, we fire up, John does his stuff brilliantly, slotting some weird holiday camp songs which go down an absolute storm. Buffet opens, we relax a little, and grab a few sausage rolls and sarnies at the end. Entertainer turns up, and we've been discussing the possibility of him turning with little more than a ghetto blaster, and following our more powerful offering.He has one active cab, and politely asks if we might have a channel doing nothing as yet on our mixer, cos he has a line out from his cab? The relief on his face is palpable, as we inform him he can have one with pleasure, as we're rigged for just about anything.

From there on in, our work is virtually done, he has the kids enthralled, Father Christmas arrives, we play Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, say goodbye and switch off.

Biggest downside/puzzle is my handheld radio mic is virtually unusuable, due to some intermittent noise from somewhere. Retuning doesn't cure it, and funnily enough, my headset mic doesn't have the same problem. :confused:
I seem to be having issues with the radio mics more often, perhaps it's this band changing that's doing it. :confused: