Good Gig, Bad Gig.

[musicology]

Never mind cake by the ocean, the cake by the side of the tent just melted. I know how it feels.

Tsk Marquee darling. Marquee

[Imagine]

Well - if it could have gone boobies up tonight....it did.

This one's been booked for around 18 months and I've been looking forward to it. Lovely couple, nice local venue, 12 hour playlist for a 5 hour gig (it became a running joke between us and it was agreed to pick and chose around the ideas on there basically).

Got to the venue.....and started melting. Fans all over the place and a solitary portable air-con unit (which ran out of water mid gig!), around which everyone was crowded.
Got set up in plenty of time (and dripping like a good-un), wireless DMX decides it's not playing ball. Hey ho....re-boot Freestyler and all's well again.

Mic test, what the is that noise all about? Low feedback/bass sound every time I opened the mic channel. Just as well I carry a spare cabled mic....all's good there then (although need to find the problem with the wireless one...suspect I might need one of these ground-loop thingys but will look into that tomorrow).

Get the confetti canon out to prepare for the first dance....the twisty bit from the base has snapped off! Lucky I had a spare

And then the best bit.....the sound limiter from Hell. I don't know what this thing was set to listen to, but you could hear a pin drop. Lowering bass and mid had no effect on the damned thing. The manager came over mid-way through the evening and said people were complaining I wasn't loud enough. I just pointed to the limiter with a big amber light flashing above it (I'd already had it in the red briefly) and shrugged my shoulders. There was nothing I could do about that one (believe me....I'd tried)

Unfortunately out of the 160 or so guests expected, less than half turned up. There was a LOT of spare food at the end of the night.

Oh and finally, did I mention the heat? Needless to say everyone spent a lot of the evening outside and things didn't really get going until about 11pm, after most of the guests had already left.

I'm sure this job's getting harder by the week

[ckpr2]

I turned up for a gig about 20 miles away.
I couldn't find the power supply for my mixer.
Eventually found it in the bottom of my cable box.
Then set up and couldn't get any volume out louder than a whisper.
I then noticed a jack plug wasn't quite in the back of the mixer.
Pushed it in and everything burst into life.
Got half way through the gig and a fight broke out, my sub went flying over.
It still worked ok.

Phew, this job can get stressful at times but isn't that half the excitement of the job ?

[Nakatomi]

I don't do kids parties. It's my rule. Weekend daytimes are precious family time. Having 2 jobs, feeling like I'm on a treadmill isn't all that nice so time with my kids is important to me. But it was my son's 6th birthday this week & somebody decided he needed to have a proper party. In a venue. With bouncy castle & a character appearance. AND DISCO. Oh cack. Ah well. I'm caught waiting for a massive invoice to be paid (by my standards anyway) so hiring somebody cheap wasn't really an option. Hey I was OK at them, so why don't I have a bash again.. how hard can it possibly be?

I spent all morning rushing around dropping things off & picking things up in my van - not least of which a load of helium filled balloons (the nearest party goods shop in town refuses to supply Minions gear for some reason, namely they don't do customer service).. so that was fun.

By midday I was about fit to drop, then had to come home to get my gear & load into the venue. On arriving I found the bouncy castle man leaving with a big grin on his face. The castle was completely obscuring the stage. OK, be like that then! I set up to the side & got my GigABar tripod up as high as it'd possibly go.

For the entertainment bits I planned a game of pass the banana (like pass the parcel but with an inflatable banana - Minions like them remember - and when the music stops if you're holding the banana you're out!). Also planned was a dancing comp. and a scavenger hunt game. The parents loved the banana game - so clever they said (I must thank Andy at attackthedancefloor for the idea) - there was no mess to clear up. Method in madness there my friends. Inscrutable.

Back in the olden days (ok Peter not that olden) - I had a roadie who could operate a deck & put records on. Who did I have with me today? ME. Knowing I'd be working alone I concocted a remote controller for my playout with an app called TouchOSC on my tablet. For some reason I couldn't get ad-hoc wifi to work on my laptop so used my old home router. No problems at all. I donned my ancient Trantec (AT73a) headset & barely spent a minute behind the DJ booth during the whole 2 hours. Very liberating.

at 2pm the Minion character turned up & I gee'd the kids up with the usual "Dave's a bit shy today, can you all shout for him to come in? He can't hear you!" bit.. Handed him my inflatable banana & we had some laughs with my minion soundboard I concocted using samplers in my playout hooked up to the tablet remote. Great fun. Oh and the company who supplied the minion asked me if I'd like to work for them. Ah, but I don't do kids parties I said. "Ah" they said, "but er.. what are you doing NOW?". Heh.

By the 3pm finish time I was absolutely pooped, but we'd seen a good number of kids have a great time (about half the invited 40 turned up, partly due to it being so warm & partly because there was a 'fun day' on in the town). Loaded up the van & drove home, unloaded & reloaded ready for... a wedding in the evening.

I skipped my tea so I could make it to the hotel on time. At 7.30pm people were still resolutely sat down. Hey OK, you don't want night time fun that's fine by me. Oh no! Sorry! We'll go outside then. Yes dear, you just do that pet.

All setup in 20 minutes & time playing background dragged by until people had been rounded up & filled the room. 3 special dances came out- first dance, a surprise father/bride dance & lastly a general soppy song (I picked Thinking Out Loud). Then bosh straight into part mode.

Could I read the crowd in there? Nope. No stirrings no matter what I played until after the buffet. A request for some 90s dance led off to an hour & a half of banging tunes. The BPMs crept up & up & up until Nakatomi came out to play alongside DJ Sammy & Ultrabeat. We smashed it. Brilliant.

[Jim - Scotland's Party DJ]

Had a cracking one tonight and got to really go off the deep end with the wireless moodlights

I was a bit apprehensive because the bride had given me a MASSIVE list of tunes from the DJEP list and basically said - I know the "must plays" are limited to 12 but I really want to hear just about everything on this list if possible (there were 3 and a half pages of A4...

I told her I'd do what I could, on the face of it, the list wasn't great but I managed to hit everyone bar about half a dozen and kept folk going all night with a bit of savvy mixing and programming.

Everyone was very complimentary at the end and the bride said her one regret was she spent so much time "doing the rounds" she couldn't enjoy the tunes as much

At one point a guy came over and went "car wash, rose royce" and walked away. i thought, that was pretty rude then remembered the incidents from last week, thought I was doing not bad if not getting a please was the worst of it and played the tune

[Shakermaker Promotions]

The wedding I did last night was at a venue I do a number of times a year. It's one of my favourites actually and is only a 10 minute drive from the house (that'll all change very soon!).
Booked over a year ago and for a young-ish couple who were very nice. When I met them we got on instantly and their ideas for the music were my cup of tea (lots of 80's and stuff away from the usual fodder).

I have a great working relationship with the venue owner who is very laid back and so he let me set up on Friday morning as the venue was free.
When I arrived back at the venue at 6.30pm to get ready for a 7.00pm start they were just finishing the speeches. This was a bit of a strange one for me with reference to timings because the Bride & Groom wanted to cut the cake at the very start so there was no time for the usual background music.
I introduced myself, bigged up them and got a massive round of applause for them and then went from cutting the cake to the first dance(s).

Cue'd up Jack Johnson's 'Better Together' for the first dance and as they started dancing to it I quickly realised that it was the Cuba version which is slightly different....Oh dear....what do I do? Do I change it quickly to the original and apologise therefore making a donut of myself before I've even really got going or do I let it play? - Sod it! I let it play. Nobody noticed (well, nobody said anything anyway)......In fact, the Bride & Groom asked me at the very end which version it was because they preferred it!!! I always ask in advance if there are specific mixes of tracks that customers want. These just said 'Better Together' so when they said they preferred the version I'd put on I just played on it and said "Yeah, people seem to prefer that mix" (oops, a little white lie there!).

That was followed by the Bride dancing with her Dad......................and the Groom dancing with his Dad too! They both wanted to do something different and both Dad's were huge Bowie fans. It was a surprise and had been planned all along and the Bride & Groom didn't even know which Bowie track I was going to play. I went with 'Starman' and got everyone singing the chorus. It went down very well.

It looked from then on that it could potentially be a cracking evening with a bunch of people who were really up for it but unfortunately as early as 7.30pm when the first dance(s) were done and dusted, almost every single one of the (supposedly 80, I reckon 60) guests went outside into the lovely gardens as it was still hot and sunny outside. This left me on my own, trying to work around the medium sized request list and looking at saving the floor fillers until later on in the evening. One of the guests asked for Bat Out Of Hell by Meat Loaf so I thought I'd play it seeing as someone had actually approached me to request a song. I put the full version on and all of a sudden people were running inside to get on the dance floor. It was probably 8.45pm and I thought I'd maybe saved myself from a long, drawn out night. I looked at the request list and saw ACDC, Rolling Stones and others like that listed so I went with 'A Whole Lotta Rosie' and that kept them on the dance floor but you could see a number of them were getting too hot and mid song they'd walk back outside.

Someone requested 'Le Freak' so I played it and halfway through the same thing happened, they left the dance floor. The Earth, Wind & Fire fan club were in by the looks of it because first of all 'September' was requested and it filled the dance floor and as that was playing someone asked for 'Boogie Wonderland'. Ok, no problem....yes, it kept them there but then the likes of 'We Are Family' just had them walking off again..... Come on people! What do you want? Tell Me!!!!!

After quite a lot of this up and down stuff we approached 10.00pm and it was the first time I'd seen the Bride & Groom since the first dance(s). They'd been outside all evening chatting to their guests. I still had lots of requests to play and wanted to keep it upbeat. There were lots of 80's classics on the list and a few chart bits and bobs (Uptown Funk, Cake by the Ocean etc.) so I did best as I could keeping them there. Then I noticed the word 'Cheese' right at the bottom of the list so I thought "Sod it, let's do it" and I cue'd up Macarena. As I was doing it a girl came over in possibly the highest heels I have ever seen and asked "Have you got Macarena?" I showed her the screen on the Denon and she (attempted to) ran off to tell everyone else. It was quite obvious from then on what they all wanted to hear..............Cheese! so for the last 90 minutes it was a mix of Cheese and some of the guaranteed floofillers..... Sweet Child Of Mine, Living On A Prayer, Mr Brightside etc. (Yes, boring for us but they loved it).

At 11.15pm the first coach turned up to take half the guests back home and then at 11.30pm, just as the last song (Madness - It Must Be Love) was fading out I had to tell the remaining guests that their coach was waiting for them.

I had a guy in a kilt make his way towards me and trip over. Luckily he wasn't going all traditional otherwise I'd of had an eye full..... ooer! He thanked me for a good night and asked for a card once I'd helped him to his feet. Bride and Groom were very happy too and couldn't thank me enough. The Bride even apologised for not dancing enough as she was "yapping" all night (her words). I said "That doesn't matter, all that matters is that you had a good time" and she agreed.

Overall, a good night in the end.
What's also good is that I am back there on Friday again for another wedding and I've been allowed to leave everything set up (I've taken the playout system out) until then too so it makes my life a whole lot easier, especially in this final week.

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Forgot to add (not sure how I forgot??)..... One girl decided to hound me for the last part of the evening by constantly requesting 'One Dance' by Drake.
The song really wasn't going to fit in especially when I'd finally got them all on the dance floor and it was evident that cheese was the way to go. She was outside for most of the evening and the only time she'd pop in was to stagger over to me and request the song. She absolutely stank of smoke and booze too.

((It never got played))

[Excalibur]

Oh and finally, did I mention the heat? Needless to say everyone spent a lot of the evening outside and things didn't really get going until about 11pm, after most of the guests had already left.

I'm sure this job's getting harder by the week

Wayne, are you really sure you're cut out for the Rock and Roll lifestyle of the mobile DJ? Sometimes, I wonder.

OK, coffee and biccy time. Get comfy.
All dayer in a magnificent priory. Ceremony inside, and everything else in the marquee. Set up the disco kit on Friday, which with hindsight was a stroke of genius. The access to the Marquee is a gravel drive, used by all and sundry, caterers, mainly. Perfectly wide enough for two vehicles to pass, as long as one of them isn't parked ( abandoned? ) dead centre.

Arrived at 9am, and put the playout in place. Generator had been fired up, so checked all was well. Minimal rig, two moonflowers, two speakers, and a gobo projector. Across to the house for ceremony music. One speaker and a tablet, running off a round pin plug rated at two, count 'em, two amps. Good job we weren't having the disco there then!

I'm ludicrously early, and things are already starting to run late. All music is played at the right time, B&G leave, and go outside into the sunshine. I pack the kit up, and stack it in the van. Across to the sauna ( sorry, Marquee ) and prepare for background duties. Now normally catering staff are really good to me, offering intravenous coffee is an easy way to get on my good side. Forcing me to ask for some isn't. Everyone enters, and I see the happy couple arrive, and introduce them into the room.
Speeches straight away, with the longest best man's speech ever. Beautiful cold buffet follows, and I'm just about ready to head back to the van for a nibble, when I'm offered a go. Yippee! The guests have had thirds, and I'm left with the hinder ends. Fortunately there was loads of lovely quiche and salad, so I was well sorted. Dessert follows, and I launch a sneaky raid on the profiteroles from the bind side, during a lull in proceedings. I get a second cup of coffee by accosting a waitress forcibly, and it's time for a break. We have the cutting of the cake really early, and the first dance is planned to follow. Err, no we can's do it now cos everybody's going outside for an ice cream from the man on the bike. He's on time, but since we're late, things are compressing a bit.
It's a glorious day, acres of beautiful lawns, everybody's got an ice cream, who wants to sit in a steaming tent and listen to a DJ? Very few. Hog roast is due shortly, and somehow we sneak the first dance in between ice cream and hog roast.

So, onto the main event. Or not. Thirty people inside, four dancing, rest outside playing football, cricket, badminton, more like the Olympics really. Regular readers will already be able to predict how this is going to end. I was actually booked till 10pm, ( which would have been perfect in my book ) but invites now say midnight. Thanks for asking folks. After 10pm, it's marie celeste time, until darkness brings in the obligatory six boisterous drunks, who are now up for a party.

I unilaterally declare that we're finishing at 11pm, and I'll pack up while still playing. Caterers have abandoned another truck in my way, thanks again lads, you played a blinder today. Gits. Next time, maybe I'll block you in. Strip down my lights, and anything that doesn't make a noise, finish on Hey Jude. Big cuddle from bride, she's tired but very very happy. So am I, I'm on the road before midnight, and heading for bed. Sat Nav finds yet another way to bring me home ( not the one I'd planned with coffee providers galore along its length ) but by now the homing instinct has kicked in, and I'm on a mission. Home before 1am, quick bottle of Tesco's introductory price offer cider ( Crumpton Oaks. Quite nice really. Aldi have something similar, which is also nice ) and beddybyes after an eighteen hour day. Bliss.

[Daryll]

Another wedding last night for Gary , a wonderful venue in Winchester , access was a bit of a pain , but I had a roadie ( more on that later)

arrived at 6:00pm , but the wedding was running a bit late , guests left the room around 6:45 , still easy set up , very small room and apart from me there was a bar area and a scattering of tables , not too much room for dancing.
Outside was plentiful seating with good lighting , so you just know where most people were..lol.
Country and western from 7:30 until the first dance at 8:30 , I had a list of songs to play in order after first dance , all was well.............( rant mode), why have four photographers , and why, when every one is dressed up , including my self and roadie , they deem it necessary to ware jeans and T shirt , even to the point that while my back was turned , one of them plugged in a recorder to my mixer , and "borrowed" my head phones , so that he could record the evening with better sound quality that the cameras in built mic , I wont tell you what I did , but I am sure you can guess.
Plenty of dancing through the evening , there were a couple of guests requests that just did not fit in , I did explain to the B&G afterward , but they said , no problem , they thought it was a great evening... , after it got dark the room filled up , and that how it was until midnight , the B&G have a set ending of four songs , coldplay , dolly and kenny , wonder wall and elbow , loads of cheering and applause , nights like that make up for the odd not so good gig , still onward and forward to the next gig.

Daryll

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Great stuff as always Daryll.
Thanks mate.
I take it you received all of the information I sent over for next Friday?