Good Gig, Bad Gig.

[Mayhem 1]

Did a primary school party event yesterday and boy was it awesome!!!

see the event report here -
http://www.bumble-b-roadshow.co.uk/index.php/291

[Mayhem 1]

Here we go the event report for our first appearence at this school in Banbury.

Greeted by Lacey (PTFA Chairperson) along with adam who were two very nice people and they paid me before anything happened which is always nice.

Adam showed me into the main hall and because the stage was set up I chose to utilise it because it was there!! (Lovely stage by the way) equipment set up and checked, I did request the use of the overhead school coloured spotlights for which Richard (Caretaker) had to deal with.

The evening was split into two sessions, the first being for - Foundation - Year One & Year Two and the second session was for years 3 - 4 - 5.

Both sessions were "full on" very fast paced and very chaotic!

I did play a game of "One Smart Fellow" with the younger ones along with some balloon modeling and the second session because they were older I concentrated more on dancing with some older party dances.

Speaking of party dances, I decided that Orchard Fields School needed a signature party dance like other schools we do - So the song that is now Orchard Fields is "Holiday Rockin"

The evening came and went and the timings of each session were spot on.

(Nice one PTA)

[Twinspin]

I had a school disco to do at Stepney Primary School last day of term school disco for the younger ones and the leavers and they loved it.

The afternoon started at 3:30pm so with a lot of children getting changed. I thought well give them all chance as they was 80 kids. So on goes some of the top 40 chart that the kids would know as well as some Michael Jackson of course which went down very well with the kids.

At 4:00pm after giving the children chance to get changed it was then time to start the party games.

First Game - The Mummy. Sorting the children into teams on this one was easy as there was exactly 80 children. All the kids took part in it. So i asked them to make 8 teams with 10 children in each. Play the tunes while they do it and then judge the best one and give everyone in the team a chocolate bar on the winning team.

Then we had a dancing competition first of all.

4 teams (20 children in each) Team A,B,C,D the best dancer from each team goes into a dance-off (4 children)

Team A vs Team C

Team B vs Team D

so we played 4 songs but only played the chorus of the macarena, ymca, fast food rockers, time warp just played the chorus of each for a few seconds because if you play them for too long the kids will get bored and then the two winners from the two rounds go head to head against each other.

then for the final did these ones (in the space of 2 minutes for all 4)

Black eyed peas - boom boom pow.
Soulja Boy - Crank dat
Michael Jackson - Thriller
John Travolta - Greased Lighning.

The winner got a big bar of dairy milk chocolate and the other 3 runners up got a small chocolate bar each

The headteacher come up to me at the end and said you've done a fantastic job thanks very much all the kids liked the games and they were different and got all the kids together so that everyone took part.

so as a whole it was very good and the headteacher is now waiting to find out the academic dates for next year so he can rebook some more school discos and he's said we'll book you in advance for all 3.

[Excalibur]

Report and piccies later, I'm in a fab marquee for a wedding. It's different.
Justin helped with setup, and he's being James Bond on a late booking.

[Jonathan Ford]

Belting weekend.

Friday saw a PTA disco, last one of the school year, best one of the school year! Finished their at 8pm, and was set up for a cricket club barbeque by 9pm. Another great event, went on 'til the small hours and got to play loads of Smiths, Radiohead, Skunk Anansie.

Saturday was a really odd booking. A family that wanted to have a party...for the sake of having a party! Nothing to celebrate, just wanted to let their hair down - 1970's theme. There was only twenty or so of them, all in fancy dress, but from 1930-0030 pretty much everyone of them was on the dance floor. By 2300, they were inviting hotel residents and strangers from the hotel restaurant to join the party. One of those small gigs that turn out to be amazing - my favourite gig of the year to date.

[JAMdisco]

Report and piccies later, I'm in a fab marquee for a wedding. It's different.
Justin helped with setup, and he's being James Bond on a late booking.

It certainly was a very nice marquee Peter. Driving down in torrential rain and bright and sunny upon arrival (5 minutes later). Ah the British summer, don’t you just love it?

As for my gig, as soon as I got back from helping Peter, just sat down with a cuppa and the phone rang. It was our local army camp (Leconfield) saying the DJ for the summer ball had just rang and cancelled due to illness and asked if I could cover it, I was free so said yes and they asked me to name my price. I quoted them £250 and they readily accepted (I hate it when that happens – I reckon I could have gone for £350 and they’d have paid but hey ho).

I went down to set up early as I was told it was a large room and it would also give me time to assess it. Also had to go through the van search routine from the armed guards, I suppose they can’t be too careful these days.

Upon arrival, I found out it was an enormous hanger (easily big enough for very large aircraft) with easy access due to the large hanger door. They had just finished assembling the stage when I arrived and were currently dressing the room. When they had finished it looked fantastic, they had massive internally lit moons and starts suspended from the roof, 10 foot high colour changing pyramids in each corner and huge black and white James Bond pictures around the room (also backlit with white lights – very classy). All surrounded by red curtain.

The stage was for the band who were called James B-ond from London. They were very good and the 2 female lead singers were very nice eye-candy and probably two of the best live singers I’ve ever heard.

After I set up and sound checked, I thought it would be a good idea to bring my mid 15” speakers upon my return as I just had 15” bins and 12” tops.

Went back home after setting up for the obligatory shower, shave and shoe-shine. Dug out my tux and bow tie and returned (complete with additional speakers) at 7:00 for a 7:30 start.
The guests were all in fancy dress around the James Bond theme and there were some fantastic costumes including the winner of the ‘best dressed’ competition who came as the voodoo guy from ‘Live And Let Die’. The ladies were also very well dressed (and some absolute stunners too).
There were 14 tables with 10 people on each table so if my maths is correct, erm… yes 140 people, with ages ranging from 25-45ish.

I played some James Bond themes for background music and they (and I) ate at 8pm, lovely buffet with all kinds of different curries and posh nibbles.

All in all a great night, the band did two 45 minute sets and I played out til 2am, with the majority of the 140 strong crowd dancing all night. At one point there were about 130 people dancing to ‘Goody Two Shoes’ by ‘Adam and the Ants’, on (and around) the dancefloor.

They certainly knew how to party and the best bit is the organiser asked me for a card and said he would book me for all future events. Soon I’ll be on first name terms with the armed guards at the entrance.

Sunday saw me roadie-ing for John (Twinspin) at Country Park Inn, in Hessle. A good busy night for John although I think a lot of the punters though I was the DJ despite Johns ‘Twinspin’ logo’d shirt , same happened at a disco I helped Peter with, I must have one of them faces I guess.

[Excalibur]

Roll on Winter. I'm sick of sweating behind here, and my lights being useless till just before I pack up. Grrrrr. More later.

[rob1963]

Only just got round to posting this, as I've been really busy this week.

Last Saturday I had a really good disco. It was a wedding reception at Nutfield Priory near Redhill in Surrey. A nice venue where I've worked several times before, although not for a couple of years.

The arrangement was that I'd arrive at 5.30pm (by which time they'd be turning the room around), set up by 6.30pm, play background music for ninety minutes, do the first dance at 8.00pm and finish at midnight.

I was there at 5.30pm as arranged, and could see they were still all in the room, so I sat outside on the patio & waited. After a little while, the groom came out to introduce himself & offer his sincere apologies for the fact that things were over-running. I told him not to worry and explained that I did weddings most weekends & that they rarely ran to time. He then went back into the room.

The speeches went on for yonks, then the coffees took ages to be served & consumed. They finally got people out of the room & started turning things around. It was now 7.20pm...almost two hours after I SHOULD have been setting up!

I had background music going by about 8.10pm, and we did the first dance about thirty minutes later. They were quite a lively crowd, with lots of people on the dance floor for most of the night. One of the people who was on the dance floor almost all the time was the bride...which is always a good sign.

The groom came up to me several times throughout the night to thank me for what I was doing & to see if I was okay & whether I needed anything. He'd already told me earlier on that I could have as much food as I wanted as well as drinks from the bar (which he told me to put on his tab). I stuck to my bottle of water, but grabbed a nice platefull of food when I could.

In the last half hour I played New York New York, and had the bride & groom in the middle of the dance floor with about 60 people in a big circle round them...all singing along to the words. It was a great atmosphere.

Towards the end of the night, the groom came up to me again & said "Thank you for making our wedding day so special...I'll be emailing you when we get back from out honeymoon to thank you again" and I thought "Excellent...yet MORE great feedback for the website"

I wasn't surprised at the reaction, though, as I did exactly what they'd asked for, which was to play the three first dances, to play 10 particular songs after 10.30pm, to play every single one of the 40 odd requests on their list & to play the last 7 specific songs they wanted in the order they'd chosen.

Therefore, it was definately a case of job done.

Songs which went down best on the night were "Mr Brightside" "Place your hands" & "Don't stop me now"

[DJ Jules]

I've had a weird weekend...

Friday night - 21st birthday party in Stapleton & Begbrook community centre:

I'd been told by the customer that the venue was quote "HUGE", so I took along the full JBL rig (tops and subs + 2Kw of amps) to find the venue was about 10m x 15m in total and also had a limiter. I'd also been told 12:00 finish, only to be told that the license ran until 12:20, and that the customers had paid for the bar staff to work another 30mins until midnight and for music until 12:20.

Asked the birthday girl what kind of music she liked and she said "This kind" (Jason Mraz playing in the background at this point while we were waiting for people to arrive!) A 7:30 start turned into 8:30, as only about 10 people turned up before 8:15, then I REALLY struggled to get anyone on to the dance floor. The birthday girl tried really hard bless her, asking for the Cha Cha slide and then dragging her friends up onto the dance floor, but after a few songs they disappeared back into their cosy corner booth and stayed there for the evening! Looking around the room, there just didn't seem to be a foot tapping anywhere and people just seemed happy to sit at their tables in groups and chat. It seems that 21yr old's just don't know how to party. Only requests during the evening, Tom Jones (Sex Bomb), Kid Cudi (Day and Night), Lady gaga (Poker face), Cha Cha Slide and Macarena. The birthday girl came up to me at the end and said she'd had a great time though and was really happy with how things went so I guess you can't tell sometimes.

Saturday night - "Surprise" 60th birthday party, Filton Folk Centre:

Apparently, not a surprise either. I was told 5:00 for 6:00 start, caterers were told 5:30 for 6:30 start, guests were told 7:30 for 8:00!! Luckily that gave me a few hours to sit and worry as the power supply packed up on my Cortex, leaving me with only my backup laptop and VDJ6 (which doesn't have a second sound card so I had no way of cuing up music). I was also told mix of music from 60's to 90's suitable for 40-60yr olds, and then told on the evening that the adults were all special needs and the rule of thumb was to play music fast and loud, so anything below about 100BPM on my improvised playlist was immediately dumped, pretty much leaving me with Beach boys, 70's Disco, and 80's cheese. I was also told the venue was tiny (and that 60yr olds don't appreciate bass) so I only took the tops along, to find out that the hall was HUGE (20m x 40m x 10m high!) and the acoustics were absolutely terrible (one of those gigs were you hear every high beat about four times because of the echo, so I had to push the bass up a little so you could pick out the beat in amongst the echos!)
Anyway, gig progressed and I quickly realised I couldn't do them justice without a second sound card because I was guessing where the intro's ended on the tracks from memory, so I gave a friend a call who lent me a set of Numark CD decks and a stack of CD's. Bearing in mind I've never ever DJ'd from CD's before and I'd been handed a music collection I'd never even seen before, the evening went well, but ended early at 10:30 because it turned out that the bulk of the special needs adults (and their carers) normally go to bed about 9:30... The only thing which put a damper on the night (the crowd were up dancing all night from the start until they had to leave) was a (charming) little old lady who came up to me at 10:30 and told me I might as well finish as everyone had gone, and that music should never be played that loud and she didn't think much of my selection either. However, the organiser told me later that I should ignore her and that I'd done exactly what the birthday girl wanted. I guess you can't please everyone

The moral of the story - if you're going to use a backup, make sure it's up to the job and you know how to use it (lesson learned!)

It's been a long, hard, weird, weekend all in all. I'm off to Maplin's now to give them a hard time for another of their products failing in service (after only about 10 months).

Julian

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Wedding last night and we were in a small separate room. Everyone was seriously drunk - in fact the manager said he'd never seen anything like it.

Didn't meet the bride and groom until 10pm when they turned up for the first dance....very strange.

They danced for 10 minutes, then all went outside to release Chinese lanterns for 30 minutes. (Looked very dodgy to me with lots of houses with thatched roofs near by!)

A few people came back at around 11pm and danced for another 10 minutes, then the bride and groom came in at around 11:30pm and then everyone left and came back for the last 10 minutes.

A very strange request list too - I reckon they'd asked their guests for their favourite songs and sent those. The groom then asked me for some D&B when I'd finished at 12....which I didn't play as it's a residential area and they are very strict about finishing times, which suited me down to the ground tbh.

Very strange booking over all.