Can you just fade from one song into another?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Excalibur
O more specifically, LOVE Letters. Big LOVE letters. Big bright LOVE letters. :mad::mad::mad:
Engagement party in Harrogate, in a WMC. :eek: Yes, such a thing exists there. Reasonable access, but the stage was very tall, and the steps were narrow, which didn't help. In front of the stage were the biggest, brightest LOVE letters I have ever seen! Absolutely blinding. Totally washed out my Hadrons. :( If I had used the Crossfires, that would have helped, because they would have swept the unlit areas a bit. One of those nights where the ambient light is just too much.
I've just got a pair of Chauvet Colorband battens, the quad version, and I'm very happy with them, particularly the mounting arrangement. It allows a very neat fitting on my T bars.
Ooo pretty?
Now to a wedding I had tonight which involved a fair bit of email ping-pong in recent weeks.
A lovely couple who are both massive fans of High School Musical. Being of a certain age, HSM films totally passed me by & I couldn't be called a fan by any means. So when it came to letting me know about music preferences I was given a nice outline - oh and could 'you do us a bit of a HSM medley by fading these songs into one another after a verse & chorus ?'.
Now listen, lady.. I've done the juggling tunes thing live before & it wasn't fun. So I elected to edit a mashup thing together & sent it away for approval. No, sorry to be a pain the reply came.... (the pain was actually listening to HSM songs & finding suitable points to make cuts)... can we do THESE songs instead? So, I toiled again with Sony Vegas (I didn't need beatmatching or owt so didn't need Ableton) to make something workable. Yes! That hits the spot! I joked that my graft now required a 5* review on the google & they agreed. Hmm, let's wait to see the end result eh?
I offered a spot of guidance regarding the joint Mother/Son & Father/Daughter dance rolling into their first dance. Worried that guests might not remain engaged in proceedings I steered them towards treating them separately & trimmed some of the chosen Michael Buble track off to make it 30 seconds shorter without affecting the warbling buffoon too much. As it turned out I needn't have worried.
But first on the night they mingled, then the venue people had sweet talked them into leaving the room to come back in again 5 minutes later, complete with my patented soon to be award winning grand entrance schtick. Sigh. If they've not been seen since the wedding breakfast this can work really well - not so much if they've already been mingling with the reception guests. So we had a bit of showbiz, then the cake cut, then parents dance.. then the couple's first dance... then straight outside to do sparklers.
Wot, I hear you ask - no futzing up the entire flow of the night by doing sparklers early on? I know! This common sense thing might catch on!
From there it wasn't long til the evening's food was brought out. Nobody danced much but I kept slamming on singalong classics to keep the crowd merry. No, not Sweet Blinking Caroline etc - that can get in the blimmin sea. Nah stuff like boyband anthems, Vanessa Carlton 1000 miles, Wilson Philips Hold On etc.
I wended my way through buffet time then started to get in gear for dancing. From the moment I cranked up the volume there was very little collateral damage to dancefloor numbers all the way to the appointed finish time. I got lost in slinging banger after banger after banger at them & was genuinely at a loss for what to play for the last song. Then I noticed I'd still not played Pink - Raise Your Glass which'd been a bride's pre event request. Boom! It absolutely stormed it. Sensing it was too much of a high to go out on I mixed out into Journey & called that the actual last tune.
When that finished, oof if looks could kill at my refusal to play one more...
As I was packing down the groom came to see me. He was patently gobsmacked. So was I actually - such a nice couple, and such lovely (until the end) guests - he joked that they'd been on their best behaviour for the day - they're all (ahem)heads really :lol:
Honestly - I simply couldn't have asked for a better one tonight. No sir!
Oh how did the HSM medley go down? It only went & tore the place a new one, it did. Seeing the crowd's faces as the edit played out & a new track came seamlessly in made me proud.
As for the rest of the night.. to think I've been pondering what the merry point of it all is lately. A very much needed tonic tonight!
I may have made a boo boo.
More of that later.
It's been twenty two, yes twenty two months since I worked with the FFN ( aka Legslappers )! :eek: They were raring to go, as were the crowd. One of the longer distance gigs for me, and it might have begat another one there next year. I was ten minutes late arriving ( meaning I only arrived eighty minutes before kick off ). Trouble is, if the FFN members arrive early, they tend to slow me down chatting, organising the night and future ones, and wanting me to do things for them. Ah well, we got there. Not a huge venue, so only one Polar, for space and pack up reasons.
Well, what a night. I relished the chance of a rest, because between a new puppy and lots of long distance work, I was tired. :Sleeping: To be fair, I wasn't razor sharp, and didn't give them perfect support, although as usual, we/they managed well enough. The night went really well, and as is often the case when that happens, they overran massively, leaving me less than forty five minutes to play. They handed over to me, and while I was changing the laptop over for my music, an organiser asked for a mic, to announce they'd need to remove the tables from the dancefloor, if they wanted to dance!
Mid announcement, total silence! :( Flat battery, obviously, so pick up the one with new batteries.
Ah. Silence, but both mics were registering on the mixer.
Reason for silence? No lights/power on Polar. Back to van to grab second Polar, and new power lead, in case that was the problem. Swap Polars, and we're rocking, until the shouts of " one more " three minutes after the designated closing time, and a personal request for one more a few minutes later, as I was putting the laptop in its bag.
Fault finding today shows that the dead Polar had destroyed the fuse completely, and when we replaced it with the spare, that went immediately. Phone call to supplier first thing tomorrow. :( At least they've had a ship come in, they have some in stock again.
Isn't it wonderful how when I had at least four PA systems in the shed, nothing ever went wrong? Now I've sold three rigs, and I'm down to one rig for most gigs, it explodes. :mad:
