Good Gig, Bad Gig.

[STEVE HANLEY]

Awesome night last night. Did an engagement in Newcastle. Was given a playlist which consisted of all mainly current chart stuff.

After the buffet I strayed away from the list when requests started coming in.

Being digital all of a sudden made it a doddle. " Have you got any Madness ,Duran Duran etc? All of a sudden from that being a terrible senario, I.E " Yes darling just give me an hour or two to find the cd" Was suddenly "Yes darling it's on next for you".

Despite the original play list being all chart stuff. 80's was without doubt the flavour of the night

Top night.CD's???????? Never again. Hopefully

[simonp]

Top night.CD's???????? Never again. Hopefully

you know it makes sense Rodney..........

[simon1969]

".


Top night.CD's???????? Never again. Hopefully

Until laptop/P.C freezes etc .....

[Booche]

Well not so much a bad bad gig but it was my regular monthly pub gig i do which of cause was a halloween themed gig for which i did abit of costume dressing on the rig (pictures in gallery)

It all started at 4pm when i got there to setup and the landlady & landlord were not going to be there as it was there eldest daughters birthday and they arte always the life of the party (apart from me) so that put abit of a downer on things then it got to 7pm (time it should have started) and no one was there apart from me and the bar lady, then it was like that untill roughly 11:30pm/11:45pm when about 6 people came in and explained that the local social club downt he road were doing a FREE bbq so hence why no-one had turned up (its amazing what people do for anything free lol)

Even when they turned up everyone was hurrying there drinks as last orders were about to be done.

Basically it ended up a night for me to try out my new playout cortex and citronic 10:4 mixer which i must say i love lol

But the people that were there and the bar staff came up and said they loved it as i was playing modern music mixed with the likes of halloween tracks like ghostbusters and halloween theme song and things like that.

So over all it was a bad night for people attending BUT a good night as i still got good remarks and time to play with my new toys lol

Cheers Dave

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Mediocre weekend...

Friday Night saw me do a 40th Birthday in the function room (upstairs) of my local. Decided to do a minimal set up due to the access and also decided to test out the Mackie SRM450 V2's. Was surprised at how light they were firstly but also at the 'punch' they have. It was a small function room and I only had the volume set to half way on each speaker and it was more than enough. The volume on the mixer was half way too so that should give you an idea of the size. Nice and crisp sound and well happy with them. The gig itself was ok-ish. I knew a lot of the people there so that made it easier and it was an intimate affair with around 30 people.

Lots of Rock and Alternative tunes and right up my street. At times everyone was dancing and really going for it, at others....nothing. Strange night.

Last night (Saturday) saw me do a 50th at my hotel residency. Bigger set up and used the Mackies again. Bigger room and 50 guests (another intimate gig) with lots of people that I knew again. Only had the Mackies on half way again and stilll plenty of sound. Another strange night really....the playlist was mainly Alternative tunes and 70s and 80s. For the first 3 hours, I played to an empty dancefloor as people were too busy chatting and scoffing the buffet. In the final 90 minutes there were times when there were around 10 people dancing. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the night though. The last hour saw most of them dancing.

Two negatives on the night though.....

Firstly, a woman in her 50's who had far too much to drink and was dancing on her own to a Bob Marley track, went from the middle of the dancefloor and fell backwards into one of my speaker stands. She hit it with force and it came crashing towards me. I just managed to save it in time but crushed my hand between the wall and the Mackie (no damage at all to the speaker). I have a bruised hand this morning. She was picked up by her husband and they left shortly afterwards.

Secondly, at one point in the evening...not sure whether they were invited or not...but around 6 guys came in and went straight on to the dancefloor with their drinks and started jumping around. About 2 minutes later one of them dropped their pint and it smashed on the floor. I didn't have time to make an announcement because it happened so quickly. They left shortly afterwards and the staff cleaned up after them.

Not quite sure what to make of this weekend really...at points it was good but for the majority of the time, if I'm honest....I was bored and felt like a spare part! I was pleased with the Mackies big time and am glad I bought them.

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

I had possibly my best gig of the year so far last night.

I did the first dance at just after 8pm and played solidly until 1am and the dance floor was full near enough for the whole time.

They had given me lots of requests and it turned out that they had asked all the guests for their favourite songs and made the list that way. I would normally advise against that, but have to say it worked brilliantly. Every time I put a request on, I could hear some of the girls screaming and saying how much they loved the song.

The only downside was one arsy bloke at the end who decided to call me names 'cos I wouldn't play one more song. That spoiled it for me really.

[Musicman]

Had an interesting night last night.
We did a surprise 50th Birthday in a local village hall and turned up on time at 5 to set up for the evening.
The Birthday girl`s niece met us at the hall and asked if we were the drag act for the evening.
Unbeknown to us a drag act had also been booked and was going to do their thing during the evening.
After telling the young girl that we were not the drag act we unloaded the van and got ourselves set up.
The `special guest` for the evening arrived shortly us and after a brief chat outlined the plan for the evening which included playing their c d and lending them a cordless mike, which we had no problems with.

The first part of the evening was just playing background music until the main guest arrived.With just minutes to go to her arrival and Stevie Wonder`s Happy Birthday cued up ready to play on the second channel all the power in the room went off.Someone shouted put another coin in the meter,which we thought was just a joke until we realised that they were being serious.There was a meter in the kitchen which took £1 coins which was duly filled up and we were promised that it would be kept topped up for the rest of the night,which it was.
At the request of the Birthday girl`s sister we played 70`s pop and disco for the first hour until the `special guest`came on.Some of the guests enjoyed it while others seemed a little uncomfortable with the whole thing,especially some of the older guests.
For the rest of the evening we continued with the pop and disco theme with music from the 80`s and 90`s with one or two up to date tracks thrown in toward the end.
Had a pretty much full dance floor for the whole night, which wasn`t too difficult as there was only around 80 people in the room, mainly close friends and family, and the room could only hold 100 max and the dance floor was tiny.
Gave out a few business cards with a couple of people interested in booking us and the girl that met us at the beginning of the evening had already contacted us with regards to doing her wedding disco next year so it was a really good night, albeit after an uncertain start.

[Mayhem 1]

Nice job matey and well done.

Which hall were you in mate?

The only downside was one arsy bloke at the end who decided to call me names 'cos I wouldn't play one more song. That spoiled it for me really.

Good one Darren,

There is always one idiot the ruins what seemed to be a real pukka evening

[Ajaysdisco]

Nice job matey and well done.

Which hall were you in mate?

Milcombe Village Hall

[Nexus]

Last night good overall but with an awkward moment thrown in for good measure.

Local Golf Club function with an age group ranging from 18 - 65. After their meal I kicked off with a couple of recent chart tracks (BEP's & Flo Rida). At the end of the first track I was confronted by a 60 year old asking for something a bit livelier as there were only 10 people dancing! He stated "this is rubbish, nobody likes it, put on something like The Mavericks now". Impatient or what!!!

As the night progressed the floor was pretty packed throughout with the odd female who resorted to gurning when I played something they didn't like.

Then the awkward moment arrived. A young lass of about 18 - 20, I think thats how many drinks she'd had as well, decided it would be a laugh to push down all the faders on my mixer and flick over loads of control switches! She did this while I was searching for a track requested by her boyfriend. My eyes were off the unit for a few seconds. Result = total silence for 15 seconds while I reset everything.

I've never had this before and was uncertain how to deal with it. I was concerned that the guests may have thought I'd messed uo so, rightly or wrongly, I made an anouncement over the mic explaining the circumstances and requesting that people respect the equipment and the danger of mixing alcohol and electrics. I also explained to the organiser who was very apologetic. The culprit made no apology!

Weird thing is that she later sent her boyfriend up to request a track for her! Some hope!