Good Gig, Bad Gig.

[Jim - Scotland's Party DJ]

It's rare to find anyone who will pay what I want for NYE so I usually don't work it but I received a call from a pal on Friday night who was struggling to get a decent - non rocket - dj for the other room in his venue.

Fee was exactly double my party fee (which is well and truly in the "you canae get that room here" bracket) and the pubs were all closing early last night because of the old firm. Faced with a night on the couch or making a sizeable dent in my due tax bill I took the dough.

had a tough room but won them over. Wee woman at the end - "that was great thanks very much" me: Thanks (my face must've gave it away I wasn't 100% happy with it) "no seriously, even before you started I knew it was a flat crowd but you worked so hard on the mic and with the music to get the party going and you did" I thought that was quite nice to hear - the power of not dicking about whining on facebook when you're up against it eh?

Not even got much of a rest (well apart from the whole week off my teaching job ) - right back into it on Saturday in st Andrews for a wedding.

[Corabar Steve]

Didn't see a soul until about 11:40 (Chinese / Thai restaurant & the party room is separate to where they were eating). Absolutely mental hour & 3/4 & no complaints when last song announced. Job done.

[Excalibur]

Didn't see a soul until about 11:40 (Chinese / Thai restaurant & the party room is separate to where they were eating). Absolutely mental hour & 3/4 & no complaints when last song announced. Job done.

There's just no stopping you when you get into full flow, is there?

To answer the question you raised earlier, to whit:

Right, today's example of the partially sighted leading the visually challenged.
In VDJ it's possible to assign actions to commands. The jog wheels have certain options available, one of which is scratching when they are whizzed backwards and forwards. The option I've selected is " pitch bend " , which means when they do that, it slows or speeds up the song.

Doesn't that bugger you for cueing?

When the music isn't actually playing, the jog wheels act as you would expect, advancing or retarding the play point. Thus you can move your cue point as much or as little as you wish with ease.
Once the play button is depressed however, firkling about with the jog wheels will only slow or speed up the tempo of the music temporarily. Safety device really, if you catch the wheels accidentally, instead of an abrupt halt, you merely have a very short slowing down, which ( hopefully ) only you notice.

[Nakatomi]

I had my very first outing with a 'new' controller & VDJ8 (on Windows!) last night. It went pretty well, bar a couple of blips with my laptop charger mains lead.. ahem...

I don't usually look forward to NYE at my residency & this one was no exception. Last time I checked there were about 50 people booked in, and some were bringing kids. Oh goody, I thought.

Anyway, I went & got myself all set up nicely - Ultimax micron rig (since I don't need a big mixer with my playout every time now), gigAbar, Quad Phase HP & a cluster laser were my lighting, while 2x TS115A from Alto & my favourite 15" powered bass bin carried out PA duties.

I soundchecked & was BLOWN AWAY by the quality of either VDJ or the MC6000's output. The detail, even when cranked, was astonishing compared to my old Mixxx, MC2000, external mixer affairs - which I must add always sounded more than acceptable to me.

The customers were gleefully piped in my a man in a tartan skirt & sat down to their starters while I set about shoving some softly softly not quite party music but seriously upbeat music on in the background. I finally figured out AutoDJ (a good few nights playing with VDJ & I honestly never even bothered) & set it off while I went to have a natter with people.

Things were going well - the crowd were in high spirits & I thought I was in for an amazing night. NOPE. They were easy enough to get to dance. Keeping them dancing was something else. There were just weird to me. Throw all the sure-fire fillers at them you like & they still don't budge, yet somebody requests George Michael's Faith & it rams the floor. QUE?! Later, the guitary music of recentish years came out to play - so far so good - so I figured top this crescendo with Mr Brightside, right? WRONG! Absolutely wiped them all out & they sat down. Ah, maybe the little sets I'm playing are too long... so went a bit musical ping-pong on them. Nope, still not much better.

There was plenty of singing along & chair dancing going on so maybe I was just worrying over nothing. The DM came over during my dry spells & asked if everything was ok. No, I said, everything is not OK. Tough crowd!

Midnight approached & the room was rammed with customers from the whole hotel. I played my home made big ben & Bill Mitchell countdown & the piper did his best renditions of Auld Lang Syne & Scotland the Brave in the middle of a massive circle all videoing the event for posterity. I doubt the pipes will sound any better the 2nd time round. 5 minutes of that (it felt more like 20) & I was back on. Sweet Caroline, loadsa singalonga cheese & then the night came off the rails again as more than half the room went elsewhere.

I plodded on til 2am, taking requests from one & all. We had a good rock & roll sesh, then some real rock (Deep Purple & Led Zeppelin no less) with some absolutely crazy requests I didn't have (Michelle Gayle's Eurovision entry?!, Celine Dion - I'm Alive - which I'm told is a 'thing' in Middlesborough)... and the usual mood hoovers which aren't remotely even suitable for dancing to. I have a real aversion to playing those at parties. No, I don't have that one, sorry... and no I can't just Youtube it.

Despite having told somebody no less than 4 times I didn't have the aforementioned Celine Dion track I was called all the names under the sun for not playing it as the last tune, then while I was packing down some little scamp hacked themselves into the hotel's Sonos system & belted out Queen's Don't Stop Me Now. Oh what larks! I ran off to find the power source for the speakers (and failed I might add) but somebody else managed to curtail the music. Did that help? Nope.

Anyway, a very nice lady complimented me on my music selection (well some of it) while another praised my mixing ability. One er.. older gentleman gave me the firmest handshake I've ever had & thanked me for a great night.

So not all bad then. But I SO wish I could be put in front of a really up for it NORMAL crowd for NYE. Just once. Give me a break.

[drcarlos]

I've done a couple of independent gigs over the past week (my usual is a residency for an establish roller disco firm, although we also have a brand new venue next weekend too).
First one was a smaller hall, but had the advantage of having a full EV pa and mixing desk (although they do have several configured they use depending on what else is on in the hall) so only needed my laptop, console and some lights. Setup was easy and the 150+ crowd was kids, teens and parents. They loved my mix of latest chart stuff and club remixes of it, requests were all stuff I had premixed earlier so it was just a case of fitting in one or two odd ones. The 4 hours flew and it thinned out about 30 minutes early so pack up was done by gig end, nice.
Now NYE was a total punt, the only roller disco in the south and a bit last minute and they only asked 4 weeks ago as they knew me from other events, so I agreed for a deal that would have seen 10% of the door after expenses.
Hadn't been to the venue for a while so I turned up 2 hours early with my peavey pro subs and sats, plus the custom 15 bins and second set of peavey pro 15s, jmc1600 and phonic max2500 amps, plus lights and laptop/console. When I got there I found they had plumbed in an array of lighting and a fogger and tidied the hall massively (it was ex army and old +smelly) so my lights stayed in the trailer.
Deployed the kit behind the rink walls (it's a roller hockey rink) with bins firing rear wards at the main walls to reflect the bass and tops firing at the crowd (this meant the mic was useless as I was just getting feedback everywhere though), space was uber tight and access a right mare but the organisers (friends) helped with the lifting and lugging. Sound check was done an hour before the start and it was loud and the treble needed hitting back a bit but sounded good overall. We went for food.
The do started slowly and then built to around 75 people very quickly and I was thinking it was going to be big, but that was it and nightmare of all the skaters that turned up were nearly all jam types, highly skillfull but like slower dance, disco, hip hop and r n b (I have some of this as they do come to some of my other venues, but can't do 4.5 hours continuous of it) so I deployed the first part of the premixed list, play 1/4 of my planned live club set and went into a uk garage premix I had, then followed it up with an hour of solid disco ( I couldn't do more than 20 mins hip hop, but I'm going to cover myself for future events) till midnight. Then I did the traditional auld Lang syne followed by some feel good disco and 90s dance until close, ending with rockabye. Crowd had thinned by that time and the remaining few were cool about the 12:33 finish. I progressively wound the levels up during the night (as seems customary at these roller discos as numbers increase) to the point the whole building shook and was asked politely to turn it back a bit (suited me as I was being deafened), first time that's happened. The system never reached max power and took it all in its stride. Tough gig though, but as I took my small % (won't make that mistake again) I was told comments were very good and if they were to run a permanent fixture would I consider the residency.
Next up a new venue next weekend with a huge 10 badminton court hall with high ceiling. Will be adding another set of 15 inch peavey tops and a my phonic mar4 amp so I can set up 2 1/4 circle arrays to cover the entire hall. Should be fun.

[Shakermaker Promotions]

My NYE gig was at the hotel residency. It's never a busy, busy one with only 60 guests attending but it is generally the same crowd and they are all very appreciative and welcoming. I can honestly say that 90% of them were repeat bookings from last year and 50% of them were there the year before that too.
So, it helps when you already know the crowd, know what has worked and what will work again and it made my life easy and very enjoyable too.
They were certainly up for it and in the party mood as soon as I started.
I think I have been very lucky with my bookings as the crowds have really been up for it.

However..........I do have to say that I got pretty narked on NYE with a couple of girls who thought they were 'too cool for school'.
If I am honest (and I don't mean to come across rude), I don't think one of them was the 'all there'. Yes, they were very well lubricated but one of them appeared to be a sausage roll short of a picnic. I was fine to start off with as I took it that she DID have issues but before long, she became the proverbial pain in the backside.

I'd set up during the afternoon after driving down. Roads were ok so I did it in good time and when I was setting up the Disco, there was a nice vibe around the venue as people looked forward to the party later. I'd prepared a playlist for the background music, set it to automix and let it do its thing. When I returned to the venue the atmosphere was great. As soon as I'd done the introductions etc and started to play music, the 'pain in the backside' came over...well, stumbled over and asked if I had Sean Paul - Got 2 Love You (or whatever it's called). I told her "yes" and that "I'll try and get it on later" (feeling pretty confident that it probably wouldn't get played as it would clear the dance floor).... No thank you from her, no acknowledgement whatsoever, she just walked off and then quickly turned around and shouted at me...."Oh yeah, Dirty Dancing too!"... I nodded.

Literally 2 minutes later, it was a case of Deja Vu.... It was almost as if someone had rewound the moment because she returned. Once again she stumbled over and once again she said EXACTLY the same thing and did EXACTLY the same thing.... Asked for Sean Paul, walked off and then shouted "Dirty Dancing too!" at me. I wondered what was going on.
Now, you're probably thinking...."Why get narked at that!!?".... Well, I counted that she did it 6 TIMES in the space of 90 minutes!!!
When she repeated the EXACT same scenario for that 6th time, I actually said to her..."Do you realise that you've asked me the same thing 6 times now?"
Her reply? "Rubbish, I've asked you twice!".... I had to laugh.

I eventually played the Dirty Dancing megamix for her and her friend and then watched as they danced (out of time lol), and stumbled into others on the packed dance floor. I could see others getting narked with them both too and I thought it was a shame that 98% of the people attending were having a great time and it was potentially being spoilt by the 2 donuts. They even tried photo bombing people that were taking photos of each other.
Eventually I managed to ignore that they were even in the building and concentrated on everyone else.
The build up to Midnight went very well and as I played Europe - The Final Countdown before the NYE Mix with the Big Ben Chimes, the pair of them stumbled over again and this time they'd grabbed the receptionist too. She asked me if I had the Sean Paul song too because they'd obviously been hounding her about it. I told her quietly to just tell them that I was having trouble finding it. They were getting on my nerves, simple as that.

The final hour (I was booked until 01.00am), went really quickly. Classic party stuff, singalong tracks and cheese kept the dance floor busy and I didn't see the donuts again until just after 12.30am. One of them was asleep at a table and the other one ('issues woman'), slowly made her way towards me with a face like a slapped bum. She shouted at me "Are we nearly finished yet? I want to go to bed!".... "Charming!" I replied and laughed. She laughed back. "Happy New Year" I said..... "Yeah, ok" she said and stumbled off.

Other than that, it was a really good night.

[stu75uk]

I had both New Years Eve and New Years Day at my pub residency, with my usual mix of disco and karaoke.

Both nights started out busy and went on from there, with everyone up for a proper party.

New Years Eve, singer requests were slow to start with which meant plenty of time to get people up dancing ... which wasn't a problem. The pub doesn't have a dancefloor as such so they were dancing everywhere, including up on the seats, for the majority of the night. The requests from singers started to come in steadily with everyone wanting to sing upbeat songs for a change, which still had people dancing all night. The time flew and by 11:00 I had to let singer know that any karaoke requests would not get put on until well after midnight., luckily they were all fine with that and not even one complaint or pushing to be bumped up the queue.
Come to the countdown, I put on my preprepared mix bang on 11:55 with the chimes, Auld lang Syne and a full party mix to see them through, following this up with some classic party cheese kept them dancing non stop til almost 12:45, then back to the singers. I'd already agreed to carry on playing until very late so wasn't worried about rushing everyone, and the Landlord was more than happy to keep on going.
By the time I turned the laptop off it was well past 3:00. As I was back there for more New Years Day the rest of the setup stayed in situ. Thanks and handshakes and hugs from customers, along with big cheers for the hardworking bar staff rounded the night off nicely.

New Years Day I got there to a full pub again, with everyone eager to carry on partying. A quick setup and chat with the Landlord and I was off straight into 80s classics which had them all dancing again ... not bad at 6:00pm. A flow through a mix of 50s/60s Rock and Roll, then through the decades to current chart songs kept everyone on their feet for most of the night with the karaoke singers pulling out all the stops and keeping the tempo up again it appeared that I could do nothing wrong. The momentum kept on going til about 11:30 where I went into another Rock and Roll set which had the remaining few on their feet. To wind down I was asked for a some Dean Martin, Engelbert Humperdink and Al Martino which brought the night to a nice chilled out close.

All in all, a great weekend and one of the best New Years I've had in a while.

[Retrodisco]

Here's a good one, the unseen challenges, and how the client is unaware on the night, if handled well.

Party Saturday night, nice hotel, nice client, on the contract it states, microphone required for raffle and auction. No mention of anything else on the night, it's 1950s style.

Arrive and set up all good.

Up comes the previously unmentioned compere, 'where's my mic', no problem, mic and stand placed, spotlight arranged.

Minutes later, I'm the singer, ok, no singer was mentioned, but there's the mic, let me have your backing track, job done.

Further minutes pass, I'm the next singer, where am I plugging in my electric guitar? Ok, there;s the mic, give me your lead, job done.

Seconds later, I'm the dancer, here's my backing track on a knackered CDR (in youtube quality), so silently shazam the obsure 50s track and download a real copy of it, job done.

There's more, 10 mins later, I'm another singer, here's my mic, I need to use this one, and here's my ipad to plug in for my backing tracks. I need the ipad on stage beside me to press play. Better idea, I'll press play, you concentrate on the singing, and besides in the 1950s the singer didn't have an ipad, I'll hide it back here and handle that. Job done again.

Yet another! I'm the dance teacher, running a class midway through the night, no trouble I say, where's your backing tracks or song selection, "I didn't bring any music', ok which songs do you want 'err no idea', oh FFS, not to worry, will some Frank do? Yes sure, job done.

The night went seemlessly, the client was happy, was none the wiser to the troubles lack of info creates, just thinks it all happened.

All of this was done on a VMS5 controller, very impressed with how it handled the live sound, all via mic channel.

The only downside is that the 1950s style didn't appeal the the room of 20/30 somethings that were invited. So after 11 I changed it up to more modern music and full floor until 1.

You read all this talk of DJ's creating a fuss about singers plugging in a asking for money to use their gear, just get on with it, the clients party should not be ruined with fussing, my client had no idea the night was running by the seat of it's pants, with three singers and a guitar, with only a DJ controller, it's our job to make it happen regardless.

It made a nice change to have something different to do.

Had the client given all the information, I'd have taken a decent mixer of course, but too late now and it actually didn't matter luckily, with some swapping of leads on the fly.

[musicology]

You read all this talk of DJ's creating a fuss about singers plugging in a asking for money to use their gear, just get on with it, the clients party should not be ruined with fussing, my client had no idea the night was running by the seat of it's pants, with three singers and a guitar, with only a DJ controller, it's our job to make it happen regardless.

.

[Benny Smyth]

You read all this talk of DJ's creating a fuss about singers plugging in a asking for money to use their gear, just get on with it, the clients party should not be ruined with fussing, my client had no idea the night was running by the seat of it's pants, with three singers and a guitar, with only a DJ controller, it's our job to make it happen regardless.

Well, I dunno about anyone else, but when someone books me for a disco they get a disco. If they are looking for an event coordinator, a talent technician and stage manager to go with that, you're damn skippy I'll be charging more. It's because of stuff like this that I always ask during a consultation whether there is anything else that I would need to know that would effect the evening's entertainment so I'm able to go in with eyes open and if anything changes after they say "No" and a load of talent turns up looking for direction from me, then they'd be pointed towards the person who has organised the event. I'm all for giving bang for buck and working autonomously to ensure that the stress comes off the organiser, but to be a stage manager, talent technician, event coordinator and provide a disco for the monetary compensation of a disco...sod that.

My gig last night was by far the worst of 2016.

I'm actually still at a loss for words. I'll report more tomorrow, but the word of the day is dumbfounded.

Yup. Still dumbfounded.

[sic]

Never known anything like it.

Just completed a consultation where I found out today tgat the client was a guest at this wedding and booked me based on what I did that day.

Not sure how to feel about that.

And said gig was on Saturday night - a surprise 40th birthday party (in January, I here you cry!!! Well...yes. I normally write this month off, but this client wanted to be my price as I don't discount, so why the hell not?). The Bride and Groom from that wedding were in attendance and I got a hug from them both, and they talked about how glad they were that it was I DJing for this particular birthday party. As we were setting up, a few of those who were putting up decorations made comments about how that's the DJ from X&Y's wedding, that he was really good and played some great music. I think there was another party in another room at that wedding. Must have been.

Decent enough night. Reggae, hip hop and the like were the birthday girl's favourite styles of music and, for the most part, I stuck with it. I was told no commercial music or house. With regards to that, I may have played ignorance. I went on 10-15 minute tangents away from the request list to offer more variety to the guests and, to be fair, most of the dancers were the result of my choices.

Nice people, and the client was happy come the end of it. Best of all, 11:15pm finish. Happy birthday to me!