Good Gig, Bad Gig.

[DJ Jules]

A very strange request list too - I reckon they'd asked their guests for their favourite songs and sent those.

I've known people to do that (on the wedding invitations, etc), the result is almost always completely unplayable. When people are in their home setting, car, etc they don't seem to think about what songs they'd get up and dance too, just the songs that they really like (you seem to get a lot of Phil Colins (and I'm talking, "In the air tonight", not "You can't hurry love").

The groom then asked me for some D&B.

I get the feeling I'm going to have a gig like this next week - the playlist for the wedding next Sunday has a whole load of House music on it plus some fairly wacky selections (for a wedding) like Chase N Status, Everything But the Girl, Moby, Leftfield and Chicane Remind me not to play "Walking Wounded" or "Leftism" after the first dance....

Very strange booking over all.

Nice to know I'm not the only one who's had an odd weekend.

Julian

[djandy]

I haven't posted for a while but thought I'd just tell you all about the weekends bookings.

Friday was a nice wedding in Pashley Manor Gardens , East Sussex. We arrived at the marquee(it was very nice, laid out for 120 guests with seperate bar area with sofas) and could park the van right by the side. Lovely venue, glorious day in lovely surroundings. Got setup by about 3pm, they wanted us to provide backgound music and a radio mic for speeches. Guests didn't come in the marquee until about 6pm

They did a couple of the speeches before the meal started and saved the best mans speech until after, he gave an excellent account of the grooms life and was a natural public speaker. He then handed over to me for the first dance around 9.30pm (it was due to finish at 11.30 so a short night).

The best man also handed me about 13 postcards that had been left on the tables for the guests to fill out with there top 3 requests. ( I new this was going to happen and thought the worst). One of the cards (must have come from a table with the older guests!) had 1. Edelwiess 2. All things bright and beautiful and a 3rd song I had never heard of and can't remember. Anyway that card seemed to disapear never did find it-shame All the other requests were the normal standard and the dance floor was packed all night. Finished off with Oasis - Champagne Supernova with a nice big circle around the bride and groom.

Had a chat with the video guy before we started and he was filming it on a cine camera (from the 60's) apparently the film has to go to Germany to be specially developed, he then gets it back on a proper cine reel and it has to go to the BBC to be mastered. He was also filming on a digital video camera.

Saturday

A long day for me as we had 6 discos on the go. I left our base near Brighton at 10am to head up to The Warren, The Metropolitan Police HQ in Hayes for another wedding. They wanted 2 plasma screens with large projector screen along with the disco, as a surprise for the bride the groom had got a lovely presentation put together for their first dance. I have been to this venue before but when I arrived the function suite has been completely refitted, all the lighting is built in to the ceiling (Martin Mania range) and was all computer controlled from a seperate little room facing the stage. You could control everything from the room colour to the colour of the pillars to the colour of the wall light, very impressive, by roadie had a field day.

We finished setting up about 1pm and left to go to the next venue about 15 miles away called the West Heath Centre in Sevenoaks, another nice venue I have worked in before and was Princess Diana's old school. I was to provide music for their wedding ceremony as the bride walked in and as the happy couple left. We set a couple of small powered speakers up in the room and the groom provided me with his ipod with the 2 tracks loaded. The tracks were somewhat unusual and I knew when the registrar read out a poem by Dr Seuss as part of their wedding this was going to be an odd one, and as my colleague confirmed this morning ( he did the disco part in the evening) I was right. More on this later............

After I did my duties for their ceremony we left some PA equipment for the band, the band were a friend of the bride and groom who had no PA of their own so I hired this to them. We then made our way back to the van only to notice they had hired an icecream man and bouncy castle for the adults (it was raining at this point) Yes that was for the Adults. We had a brief chat with the guy who was really nice and who had also come from the Brighton area.

We arrived back at Hayes around 6pm and the guests were on the coffee and speeches. The first dance /presentation was at 8.30 and went really well with the bride on the dance floor in floods of tears. Had quite a few requests for up to date r n b and dance music and used the screens to show music videos mixed in with wedding photos and visuals. A very large room with not many people to fill it but a good night was had by all, especially my roadie in total control of room lighting Finished at Midnight packed up and home by about 3am.

Speaking to my colleague this morning about the other wedding he arrived at 6pm and could not get into the room to setup until 9pm, the band went on first who only played their own original songs!! and my colleague was handed a memory stick by the groom saying that he only wanted these songs played, it contained such groups as the Toasters ??? Neadless to say not a brilliant night, he was glad it was all over by 11.30.

Oh well heres to next weekend, sorry about my ramblings I never normally write this much honest.

[soundtracker]

Friday - Wedding for 100 guests in a small country house Hotel - Cracking night, they danced to everything that I could throw at them, no problems whatsoever!
Saturday night - Marquee Wedding at a castle, 120 people, smallish dance floor which was rammed right through to 10.30, when the B&G came over to thank me, and tell me they were about to depart, but to carry on! Within 5 mins of them going, over came Daddy to tell me to wind it up! So packed down, and home by 11.15 which was a bit of a disappointment really.
Sunday - Kids party, two hours at a local village hall for SEVEN, yes you read it right, SEVEN kids - apparently they had invited FOURTEEN, but half of them couldn't make it! Complete waste of time and effort!

[rob1963]

I had a very good one on Saturday, despite a couple of slightly unusual things happening. It was a wedding reception in the Palace where Girls Aloud filmed the video for "Jump"...although sadly they weren't there on Saturday!

Usual story...things ran late, mainly due to the speeches dragging on for nearly an hour. Instead of them turning the room around & me setting up at 7.15pm, this didn't actually happen until just after 8.00pm, although I really went for it & managed to be completely set up & playing background music by 8.45pm.

We had the first dances about 15 minutes later (all 4 of them!). Shortly after that, I lost most of them due to the buffet (which was in an ajoining room), but after about 30 minutes they gradually started coming back onto the dance floor.

Very nice people and lively as well. At one point, I was playing one of the usual party songs (can't remember which one) and they decided to do the locomotion out of the room. I said "Bye!" shortly followed by "Don't go" & "Please come back!"

The other slightly unusual thing happened when they were all dancing in an oval shape. The two people opposite each other at one end grabbed hands & went down the middle until they got to the other end. Soon after that, a number of other people followed on by doing the same thing. I felt just like Crazy K!

A slight bonus was the finishing time was not 12.00am as on my booking form, but 11.45pm...so I was packed away & on the way home a little earlier than expected.

[SC Events]

Friday night, I did an 18th at a Birch Coppice Miner's Welfare Club, which is 5 minutes up the road from my house. It was a great night, with plenty of alcohol and lots of dancing, to the usual modern songs as well as some old songs such as Burning Love - Elvis and of course Billie Jean - Michael Jackson.

I later found out that the birthday girl had booked me because she had seen me DJ at her friends 18th a couple of months ago and she had seen me when I was DJ'ing for one of my friends 18th last month, so I must have been doing something right.


Saturday Night, I did a 40th at Newton Park Hotel, which was just over 30 minutes drive from home. The birthday boy requested that I play 80's music (Cheers for the Top 10 (ish) list Charlie) all night, but I could throw a few modern songs in as well, which I did

The party was excellent and I really enjoyed playing loads of 80's music. At the end of the night, the birthday boy came up to me, shook my hand and thanked me and was full of praise (he said he was particularly impressed as after I plyed 'Happy Birthday', I got everyone up on the dancefloor straight away and that was where they stayed) and he also gave me a £20 tip. Him and his wife also bought me and my roadie our drinks all night.

So all in all this weekend has been great, with plenty of people dancing the night away, booze flowing...oh and to top it off, we had Chico (you know him.....that chap off X-Factor) in Tamworth yesterday and he came and did an interview on the Radio Station where I am a Presenter.

.......just got to try and get some more discos booked for August as I have none now until 5th September

[PropellerHeadCase]

Tonight went well - although manager got a bit shirty with my packdown time,

[CRAZY K]

Tonight went well - although manager got a bit shirty with my packdown time,

I can relate to this Alan, I have this problem quite often with my Western Nights because not only do I take a complete set of Disco equipment with subs and lights but also my huge American Flag plus other flags all of which have to be packed away.

I nearly "lost it" with a club manager in London recently when he said in a not very friendly way--- how long is it going to take to clear out of here

As long as it takes I said--have you got a problem with that? thinking next step is to call in the client and put this guy in his place.

No problem after that

Im thinking of putting in my terms and conditions that we cannot guarantee how long it takes to pack away--no I dont need a Roadie they wouldnt be able to stand the travelling and the late nights

CRAZY K

[CRAZY K]

The other slightly unusual thing happened when they were all dancing in an oval shape. The two people opposite each other at one end grabbed hands & went down the middle until they got to the other end. Soon after that, a number of other people followed on by doing the same thing. I felt just like Crazy K!

GOOD STUFF--whacking on Cotton Eyed Joe is always a good option in these circumstances

CRAZY K

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Tonight went well - although manager got a bit shirty with my packdown time,

How long did you take in the end?

[rob1963]

GOOD STUFF--whacking on Cotton Eyed Joe is always a good option in these circumstances

I wish I could remember what the song was, Crazy.

It certainly wasn't something you'd associate with a barn dance, but the second the first two people grabbed hands & went down the middle, I thought of you straight away!