Slow burner, but got there eventually....
Last night, a venue I'd not been to before the world went a bit wobbly back in 2020. A lovely barn in Norfolk with a really nice old gent of an owner who'll happily help you load your kit into the barn despite his years (yes, there are people in this game older than the Old Git :lol:)
First night with the complete new white setup having taken delivery of the newly released Citronic CosmoPar during the week. WOW! What a beast of a light. I was worried that having just the one wouldn't be bright enough. It replaces TWO four can light bars and can burn retinas at 100 yrds Plus, SoundSwitch sees it as what it calls a "multi cell" fixture, meaning it will do all manner of pretty effects with each can being controlled independently. I can now honestly say I'm happy with my wedding setup and it'll be with me for a good while to come!
Anyhoo....back to the gig. Mr's into heavy rock (we're talking death metal and the like), Mrs from CostaRica with a good few relations in attendance so plenty of Latino/Spanish music to get into the mix, along with the biggest Do Not Play list of artists/genres I've ever had. I can't fault all of them, it basically boiled down to no action dances and absolutely no Ed Sheeran....I can live with that :rofl:
First dance done without a photographer who was only there until 6pm, and we're into the party. Well, we were supposed to be. Turns out that the guests weren't that into heavy rock, and the Spanish contingent weren't ready to dance yet. So, out comes the kitchen sink until we hit a rich seam of 70s disco, which very quickly goes into 90s dance and the last entire hour full of Latin songs that I really didn't understand but they seemed to go down well. What's nice about those (the bride chose all of those in advance) is that they're all a nice gentle 100bpm or thereabouts and those that dance to them seem to have some brilliant moves that put us Brits to shame.
The strange part about this one was the manner of departure. My booking was until midnight, the planner's forms said 11:30 for carriages. Turns out a stream of taxis were booked to arrive at the venue in a staggered manner to take the guests to where they were staying over a period of 30 minutes, so no big finish this time as we dwindled down to the final guests :(
I'm taking this one as a win. It was hard work, but we got there eventually with a happy, smiling bride and groom and plenty of thanks from various guests.
Next one's on Thursday at a venue on the other side of my home county and with a much smaller version of the setup due to space restrictions....I expect get in/out to be no more than about 15 minutes each side ;)
All's well that ends well.
Just! Matthew Western and I were at his residency last night, and there were one or two permutations and guesses/assumptions/predictions made.
I was originally down for a 30th Birthday of around 70-80 bodies in one room, and Matthew was to have a wedding of around 100 folk in my preferred room ( best access :D:D ). When he got the playlist, he decided, as did I, that musically it was more up my street than his, with a lot of Indie tracks. The bride however, had seen Matthew before, and not surprisingly, wanted him. Fair play, also the sax player had worked with Matthew before, so a good enough reason.
So, we had a script, and none of the guests stuck to it! My 30th started nicely, I had a chat with birthday boy's Mum beforehand, all set fair. Guests arrive, but not 80 bodies, less than 30. :(
We do the big surprise entrance, and buffet almost immediately afterwards, good idea. Then the wheels fell off. :( Lots of family there, all well over 30, wanting 70s, 80s, and other very standard disco fare. I can do that, no problem. However-
We also had the birthday boy's friends, and seemingly he and they wanted R&B, D&B, and more modern stuff. Ne'er the twain would meet, as soon as I put one on, the other side came up and wanted their style. The function was dying, I was dying inside, and it was not looking at all good.
Mr Western on the other hand, had nearer 200 than 100 in his room, and was wilting under the pressure, not helped by the sax player and venue working from different hymnsheets, and Matthew not being notified about the sax players requirements ( although he sorted that fairly easily ). That was a very good thing, as he was using his standard " discreet " rig, with winch stands, and an overhead carrying a significant number of lights. It seems that since I last saw him work, he's gone over to The Dark Side, and started using an MC6000!
My rig would have been useless with that number of folk, so we were in fact deployed to best advantage. The venue decreed that since mine was so dire, I wouldn't finish at 1am, but they would close the bar around 11pm, and music around 11.30pm. Good move.
Except that everything then changed for me. All the oldies went home, and I declared it Request Fest, with no restrictions. The birthday boy and a few of his mates had livened up with a drink or two, and a couple of requests gave me a steer. Off we went at 140BPM plus, Cascada, Scooter, Ultrabeat, and a detour via Skrillex, Pendulum, Prodigy, with a few modern country tracks in there ( Luke Combs is currently huge round here with younger folk, I find ) and the Irish connection ( Belfast folk apparently ) asked for Cranberries-Zombie, and to finish with God Save The King.
Suddenly, I wasn't counting the minutes to finish time, I was wondering how far past the amended early finish I could get away with! The clock was going uphill for midnight when I switched off, handshakes all round from birthday boy and mates, all good. I packed up, and got across to Matthew's room around 12.45, to find him with 50 or 60 bodies on the floor, romping away to a bit of classic dance. Seems he played naff all Indie. :dunno:
So, everything did indeed turn out well, just not as Matthew and I had expected. As a wise man onc said:
It's a funny old game. ::daft:
Teething troubles, and inhibition loosener.
Teething troubles-
Well, last night was first time out with the new controller, for a 60th Birthday, and yet some kit I've had for years was the problem. It seems I hadn't seated the top column correctly on one of the Polars, but because the lower one was correct, it allowed the bass to function as normal. That explains why I had so much bass, which I'd attributed to the new controller. I'd also struggled to get a nice microphone sound too.
When a well oiled birthday girl grabbed the column for support, near the end of the night, suddenly it seated, and burst into life. :eek::eek:
Note to self: check that tonight. :o:o
I didn't have any glaring issues with the Roland, and it certainly seems to be a step up from my beloved VMS units. As a first time out, I'd say it went well.
Inhibition loosener:
Alcohol. When guests arrived, it was unbelievably slow. I couldn't even get them to go for their Pie and Peas! Staff were baffled, usually they descend on the food like a herd of rampaging Wildebeest. :confused: ( I got some though, it was good. Birthday girl told me to get some before we kicked off :) ). I couldn't move them whatever I tried. :(
I had a mixed request list of perfectly good and varied stuff, and eventually, requests started to trickle in, but mainly from a handful of folk, and a lot of the requests weren't dancefloor friendly. With less than a couple of hours to go, the alcohol kicked in, Cha Cha Slide and Macarena ( requests. " They'll all dance to this ", and they did indeed, full floor ), did the trick, and I finished the night with Hey Jude ( on my request list, I was saving it for the last song ) with them all singing like troopers, looking for all the world as if it had been the best night ever.
Hey ho. :shrug:
