Good Gig, Bad Gig.

[Shakermaker Promotions]

So, here's a report from last night which was one of 4 weddings I am doing over 6 days. It was at my main residency and was for (supposedly) 80 guests.
Another midweek thing so my expectations weren't high and the pre-request list was eclectic to say the least. There were a number of 'cheesy' tunes on there but also stuff like Buck Cherry - Crazy Bi*tch which is definitely not wedding material, especially when there are loads of children present....which there were!
There were also a lot of slow songs on there and notes for me to say that those songs were in memory of certain people that were sadly no longer with us.
I have to say that one song in particular (Cliff Richard - Devil Woman) which was for a Christine (the Groom's Mum who'd passed away a few years ago) made me feel quite uncomfortable when I played it. Not sure why? Maybe it was the lyrics but it just came across as a song for someone that was disliked? Nobody danced to it and I just felt weird like I said.

The requests came flooding in (mainly by the children) and I played every single one of them. Dance floor action was mediocre until the cheese came on and then it was full. It didn't feel like a Wednesday night at all. I don't really have that much to say about it to be honest. The Groom was very nice and the Bride (who'd been really upbeat, talkative and excited in the pre-wedding meeting 2 weeks ago) was dead quiet and hardly said a word to me. She didn't even thank me at the end whereas the Groom was very complimentary. He took 2 cards off me for people that had asked for them. I think this particular booking was a classic case of one of those where personally you think it was ok but the guests loved it.

I now have a couple of days off and am looking forward to Saturday and Sunday's weddings although the venue for Saturday's wedding (Funkymook will know what I am talking about) worries me. More will become clear when I do that report.

[funkymook]

I have to say that one song in particular (Cliff Richard - Devil Woman) which was for a Christine (the Groom's Mum who'd passed away a few years ago)

You couldn’t make it up could you - hope you announced it in your cheesiest DJ voice and sang along à la Phoenix Nights.

[Shakermaker Promotions]

I tried to do it in the nicest way possible but it still felt strange.
The number of Cliff Richard songs that they could have picked but apparently that was the ladies favourite when she was alive.

[Nakatomi]

This week sees me doing a number of gigs with no info. Yay cheers venue!

Thursday was quite a big affair & I had to do battle with a balmy evening attracting people outside.. but once they were back in.. Mr Groom stuck to his guns about 80s tunes.. Mrs Bride stuck to her guns about chart being played.. so we tried to meet a compromise. As it turned out, neither 80s nor chart were doing much. The 1990s turned out to be a rich seam though. Out came mid to late 90s dancey tunes to whoops of 'chooon' as every track came in the mix. Judging by the reactions I was getting I decided to haul out the kind of things I was playing when I started my last club residency. Needin U II, Do Your Thing, It Just Won't Do, etc etc etc. Absolutely mint. Well, apart from accidentally putting my hazer on full & setting off the hotel fire alarm. Which did absolutely nothing BTW - well apart from the panel at reception beeping annoyingly. That's pretty bad. Aaaaaanyway moving on... It later emerged that somebody was caught smoking a cig inside, and being that the sensor was nearer them than me (i.e. near reception a good 30 metres corridor away).. nah just blame the DJ's hazer eh. Great gig apparently, but I felt a bit meh about it despite getting to play loads of music I actually like for a change,

Last night I made sure not to use my hazer other than manually for short periods... and it was VERY cheesy. Couldn't get anybody to bite until after the buffet - other than the first dance.. but when I did.. oh boy. The trigger track? Tight Fit - The Lion Sleeps Tonight. We went from zero dancefloor to over a hundred people in one fell swoop. I was like "ummm, okayyyyy, so what do I follow this with?". It was suggested I play it by a guest & I figured I had nothing to lose. From there I needn't have worried because everything I played after that worked. Cheese begat cheese which begat even more cheese. The end of the night came quickly & I played Mr Brightside as the 'last' song.. then screams of 'one more'... Oh go on then, I said.. and launched into ... The Lion Sleeps Tonight from 2.5 hours previous.

Loads of requests for cards.. which I still don't have but are now finally ordered. Funny, on Thursday I'd only been playing for about half an hour & I was asked for two. Last night somebody came over & said "Mr DJ, we need to have words". "uh, oh what have I done now?" I asked, half tongue in cheek.. Somebody who works for a certain flightcase company praised my DJing efforts & offered to give me a superb price on some cases for my kit.

One more wedding tonight (yay!), then another on Monday. Then no more weddings! Til Friday, Saturday & Sunday,

[musicology]

Out of interest, What hazer do you use Juski?

[Nakatomi]

Out of interest, What hazer do you use Juski?

Slightly embarrassed.. Not quite the very cheapest I could lay my hands on but getting there.. erm.. I'll have to look it up cos I can't remember who makes it.

I figured that if I won't get to use it much it might as well be cheap as chips. Ah here we go.. Neo-Neon Z150.

The jury's still out on whether it was me or the smoker setting off the alarm & I was asked not to use it tonight. No skin off my nose since I'm not reliant on beams for my effects.

So tonight's gig.. I was knackered before even arriving - tidying my garage & child wrangling all day long.. I think the only sitting down time I had was for lunch & tea, plus 2 runs to the local tip to dump all the packaging my gear came in.

Made a point of speaking to the bride & groom & found out there was a 1st dance after all (hotel manager said he'd asked & they'd said no preference.. grr)... and my usual eloquent intro was declared redundant by the emmcee they'd hired in. Oh and by jove did his voice not suit my trusty ancient Trantec radio system. The poor chap sounded very nasal even though he was using it properly. Whereas when I use it.. buttery smooth baritones come out of the PA. Heh. A mic is a mic is a mic is a mic. Not!

Bride said before we started that I had her permission to play absolutely anything, and if it killed the floor, get it off quick. She'd done her homework though, and said she'd been impressed by what she'd heard the previous 2 nights. I was asked to get people to join the couple half way through Mr Sheeran's Loud Thinking song, which I followed up with more of the same & ramped it up gently - got rammed to bits until the buffet opened. Mr emmcee did his last bit to announce that & somehow got a massive bout of feedback despite standing further back from the PA than I do. Like something out of a film. Heh. Coming out of buffet time I changed things big style. Queen - Somebody to Love, which literally had everybody swaying & singing in their seats.. and then rammed the floor with Rod Stewart - Maggie May. Maggie May produced a request on behalf of the groom - for Thin Lizzy's Whiskey In The Jar which I played immediately afterwards...

We had rock, current charts, a modicum of cheese.. but mostly rock beyond the usual suspects & me going out of my comfort zone a few times. It all paid off well. I even took things down a few pegs because even with the B&G provided flipflops I could tell feet were flagging. I know mine were too. It's not something I generally do - go off on a smoochy tangent - it was programmed out of me as a 'fun' bar & club jock.. but tonight we needed it & it was nice to see a packed floor with some proper old school romantic tunes. Segued out of a big rock set into Aerosmith - Don't Wanna Miss A Thing which led me nicely to the slow bit.

At around 11.30pm a self-confessed 'PA & disco' guy came over & asked me where my subs were. I laughed & asked if he was serious. He was. Seriously? You're getting chest thumping bass out of those Mackies? Yup. Okay they don't knock anybody's socks off but I know how to get the best out of them now. I explained they're Italian pedigree & he nodded sagely. Ah, that'll be it then. Oh, and by the way I was brilliant. Apparently. Nice compliment for any other DJ to say that I think.

The groom is something of a Beatles fan so I planned to go for Hey Jude as the last song.. except during Mr Brightside before it the room's population started to dwindle fast. Nooooo! 10 people in a circle swaying away to Paul's whiny voice & a few in-chair swayers... I couldn't rightly murder it in cold blood but still...

Mr groom by all accounts at this time was lying upstairs in a drunken stup.. I mean tired & emotional state. Ahem.

So yeah it was alright really but I was glad when it was over. I've heard this time next year is going to be utterly mad there.. all of August & most of September sees a minimum of four weddings a week. Which'll be nice for whoever's doing em cos it won't be me!

[Imagine]

Well, back off holiday and straight back into wedding season for me.

Last nights was one I'd been looking forward to for a while. It wasn't a top end, expensive wedding and not a big earner, but more importantly it was a pleasure to do.

This one was booked off the back of a 50th I did last year. The chap who recommended me actually lives in the same street as me, and is "ex job" himself (apparently couldn't make enough money at it).

I met the couple a few weeks ago in the local Costa (they're going to start charging me rent soon!), and went through everything in the normal way. They've been together for 20 years and have suddenly decided to make things legal as it were, but obviously not spending a fortune on the event as it's not what they wanted to do...no problem.

Bride has been going around car boots for the past year looking for vintage china and glassware, and was proud of her achievements when we met up. I wasn't so sure, but....

Turned up this afternoon (it's two miles down the road from me) to do an early setup. I've been to this venue before so knew the layout and that the setup was going to be a doddle, but took my boy along as a roadie just to save me a little grunt. I walked into the venue knowing they'd set up the previous evening and WOW!....all that vintage stuff looked really good. Nothing matched, but that didn't matter. It just looked like they'd taken the time and care to do things THEIR way rather than go along with the corporate way we're all used to these days. It was really nice.

I also had the chance to put my new Jaguar MSD up on the overhead rig rather than being confined to tripods (see below). I thought it looked like a nice clean setup....it certainly pumped out enough light

Anyhoo....moving forward 4 hours and it's showtime. I walked in with the laptop and plugged in (I don't leave that behind on early setups), and stuck on Grandmaster 70's (it was one of those weddings where timings were very "ish" and I'd agreed to keep the volume down whilst the evening guests arrived until the first dance....which was supposed to be 7:30).

8:30, I'm finally making the announcement. I got her name wrong!
Now....there's actually a story behind this which I'll happily share, and which we laughed about during our consultation.
I'd previously had a client with the same surname as her maiden name, but obviously different first name. This previous client's first name also happens to be my wife's name (still following?).

The night before the consultation, she emailed me whilst I was supporting a Jazz band at a wedding. At the same time, I'd been texting wifey....and replied to the email with the wrong name (oops). We laughed about this when we met up, and she jokingly said that she bet I'd introduce her as the wrong name but don't worry - we'll just laugh about it.

Now this has been going through my head for the past three weeks and I was determined to get it right. I even had the names on a sticky note on the laptop screen. For some reason (probably my sub conscience playing silly buggers), I was shaking like a leaf when I did the intro - I haven't been that nervous since my first wedding. I do my intro from in front of the booth (you can see where this is going) and introduced her as the wrong name.....the guests laughed - I wanted the floor to swallow me! I jokingly retorted along the lines of "whoops....it's a long story" and swiftly got into the first dance

I wasn't expecting a great deal from this one. It's been warm in this neck of the woods, and from playing at this venue previously I knew everyone would be outside on the patio where there also happened to be a hog roast (did you know they have Sids as well? That's a story for another day).

So, into chart stuff after the first dance, followed off by the announcement of the hog being ready and a fairly empty hall...bugger

Eventually they trickled back in though and I went into a Northern Soul set, followed by Motown and some 70's, followed by the list of cheese the B&G had requested (Oops upside your head being a priority.....OK....). I was pleasantly surprised by the numbers that came in to dance to the cheese section

Ended on New York New York as per instructions and the bride immediately rushes over with a big hug, loads of compliments and some useful information....

I knew she worked in the wedding industry (I don't pry too far into who they are). What I didn't know is that she's something to do with a wedding magazine and I'm going to be featuring shortly as the guy who gave the perfect wedding disco

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Interesting reading guys and well done!

As many will know from my 'Dreading it....' thread, last night I was at a venue that had its own sound system installed in the roof of the marquee. I won't go over all of that again because this review will be long enough so if by chance you haven't read it as yet and want to set the scene and see why I was dreading the gig then stop reading this now and catch up and then come back to this....

Right, here goes.... Firstly, for such a lovely venue (a bit unique I'd say), it was a shame that I had serious doubts and apprehensions about this booking. I was nervous for the first time in yonks and who could blame me. I even thought at around 8.00pm that some of you who had commented on the 'Dreading it...' thread maybe wondering how I was getting on, even though obviously you had your own gigs to concentrate on. I know I've done it before.
Anyway, as I said in the other thread, I rang the venue owner yesterday afternoon and told her in the politest way possible and in a roundabout way that the sound system installed wasn't very good. Of course those actual words didn't come out of my mouth....I just said that I had problems hearing what I was saying and that was in an empty marquee. I asked her if she'd mind if I took a speaker along with me to use as a monitor. She was absolutely fine with that idea and even said "Others have done it before" (Hasn't she ever thought...why?).

So, I arrive at the venue at 6.20pm for a 7.00pm start and the venue owner is out on the grounds outside the marquee. The wedding party are inside the marquee and everything is running (apparently) 20 minutes behind so I know I have plenty of time. The system isn't turned on as yet. I get my 2 (not 1) Mackies inside and connect them up via the booth output on the Denon x500 and then go back outside. The weather is beautiful and I am standing there talking to the venue owner. She's a bit of a character. She's elderly and quite posh but quite funny and she really likes her sound system.....pity I didn't and so I hear, neither do others that have been there. It is such a shame because it really is a nice venue. Maybe one day she'll realise this when someone possibly tells her the score straight?

As we're standing there chatting, inside the marquee the speeches begin. It is heading towards my start time and that passes quickly. The venue owner then informs me of 2 things....firstly what I would call the bad news and this doesn't help the nerves whatsoever. She informs me that the guy who was there yesterday (ex-DJ and all that) who looks after the sound system is out for the evening. I ask her who is looking after the sound system in case of any problems....."Nobody" she replies..."We've never had any problems before"...(Lucky I took 2 speakers then eh!). She then informs me (we'll call this the good news) that she is also out for the evening and will be returning about 10.45pm (finish time is 11.00pm). She informs me that a guy will be around looking after the place "doing his rounds" as she put it.

So, speeches are done with and the time is 7.45pm, yes they were long. It seemed like everyone had something to say and although some of it was hilarious at times, by now I just wanted to get on with it as I hadn't soundchecked as yet. The best man came over again to let me know what was going on and he was very good in his role. When it got to my time to start playing I picked a couple of the downtempo songs from the large request list to soundcheck and I was so glad that I took the Mackies because without them I would have been royally screwed to put it mildly. The Mackies on their sides improved the sound quality and volume 10 fold and I went out front and walked around the marquee and you could hear everything perfectly (obviously not what the venue owner intended but she'd gone out on the razzle by now).

First dance was out of the way and as it was coming to an end I did my announcements, congratulated the Bride & Groom and then said "Firstly, can everybody hear me ok?"....There was a massive "Yes!" and thumbs up from the audience so I then said "Right, let's have a party then!". Everybody cheered and the dance floor was packed.
It was like this for the majority of the night as I went through the request list (pre-requests from guests and the Bride & Groom). I went through different decades and genres and everybody really got into it. My nerves had disappeared and I was really getting into it. I kept thinking to myself that if I could get away with doing this then I wouldn't have a problem going back there.....Then at around 9.00pm I look to my left and there's a guy standing right next to me. This is the guy who the venue owner employs to look after the venue whilst she is out on her weekly razzle in the village. He doesn't introduce himself, he just looks down at the speakers on the floor and shakes his head..."You do know that you're not allowed to use those don't you" he says (with a smile on his face). "Yes, I understand that" I reply..."But they're monitors so I can hear what I am doing"....He shakes his head again...."They're bloody loud monitors" he says. I tell him that I can't / couldn't hear anything previously and that I'd agreed it with the venue owner. I show him the EQ on the mixer and I can see that it doesn't mean anything to him...."The volume is a lot louder than usual" he says "Try and keep it down a bit"....We actually had a bit of a laugh believe it or not and by the time we'd finished our chat I think he'd come round to my way of thinking.

He returned 30 minutes later during a dance set shaking his head again...."It's dance music" I said..."It will be more bassy"..."I can hear it from the top of the hill" he says...I then inform him that I will be playing Indie next so it should be less bassy. Around 10 minutes later during the Indie set I see him trying to get my attention across the packed dance floor.....He's giving me the thumbs up....Good!

We enter the last few songs and this bunch are really getting into it now....Don't Stop Me Now is followed by Don't Look Back In Anger and then Never Forget and then it's It Must Be Love and as requested Mr Brightside is the final song. The dance floor is rammed and as the synths fade out from the song it is 5 seconds past 11.00pm. There are cheers and clapping (great!) but then it's "One more! One more!". I hate this moment because I've been under strict instructions to finish at 11.00pm. As the cheering and chanting gets louder I decide to turn off everything and ignore it as best as I can. Then a guest comes over and says "Mate, you gotta play one more. What about Wonderwall? They'll love it"...I inform him as best I can that I MUST finish at 11.00pm and he goes back to the large group on the dance floor who have already started singing it. I am packing down as quickly as I can and everyone can see that but it doesn't stop another guy coming over and asking for Summer of '69. I tell him the same thing and it's now 11.10pm. I see the venue owner across the dance floor and she is clapping. I thought for a moment it might be one of those "C'mon hurry up and go" claps but she was applauding me. I nip over through the crowd and ask her if she's had a good night out "Yes thank you" she replies..."I hear you've done a great job, well done!" she replies.....Phew!

As the multitude of taxis turn up to ferry the guests home I am left with the catering staff to pack up our stuff. One of them asks for a card then the venue owner asks for a card and then a very nice young lady asks for a card.....I must have done ok here.
It turned out to be a very good night. It is a shame about the sound system here. Like I said, IF I could get away with taking the Mackies then I'd have no problem going there again. I think the best thing to do would be for anyone (including myself) that gets an enquiry for the venue to speak to them first and see if you can take something for monitoring purposes. It's amazing the difference it makes. If it's a NO then unfortunately it's not the best idea to just use the installed system. It really isn't worth the potential hassle you could get. I had no complaints whatsoever and no issues but it would have been a totally different story had I not taken speakers. At one point just to prove a point I turned the booth volume down so there were no monitors for a few seconds and the difference was mad. A couple of people on the dance floor looked around as if to say "Where did the sound go?"....seriously, it is that bad.

[Nakatomi]

... I'm going to be featuring shortly as the guy who gave the perfect wedding disco

Time to put your prices up again? </cynic> That's the kind of publicity you can buy but it's probably prohibitively expensive. Good effort, that man!

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Well here we go again. Usual scenario for me.....late nights after DJing and not much sleep means I am cream crackered today (I guess it's good practice for....ooh, I can't even say the word but it's only a few months away now). The last of 3 weddings for the week was last night and it was one that I was looking forward to as it was at one of my favourite venues. A venue that I do around 6 times a year and one that I always have good gigs at and last night was no exception.......eventually!

It was a wedding for yet again a lovely couple who'd booked me right at the beginning of the year. I met with them last week to go over the details and I asked them (like I usually do) why they chose me over other suppliers and they said it was because of the information that I provided them with and that I sounded like a nice guy over the phone. We clicked straight away when we met and the way they were pretty laid back about the whole thing and more or less gave me free reign over the music was why I was looking forward to it.
About 2 weeks ago I had an enquiry from someone about a wedding for next year and we exchanged a couple of emails. In the last email the girl said "I'll see you in a couple of weeks as I am a Bridesmaid at Tracey's wedding". During last night she came over and introduced herself and I'd totally forgotten about her. Once I'd remembered I felt a tad like I was auditioning but the feeling soon went as I had other things to concentrate on.

I arrived at the venue at 6.30pm to set up and be ready for a 7.30pm start. This was done pretty easily and I had time to spare. Lots of people were sat outside in the grounds because the weather was lovely. I spoke to the toast master to make sure we were on the same wavelength and then got myself ready for when the Bride & Groom and guests were ready to enter the room. It was then that I noticed that one of the speakers wasn't performing like it should have been. I checked the cables and everything was fine. One side of the Denon was working perfectly but the other side was crackling. Despite years of doing this I got myself into a sweaty stressed state. It was minutes away from everyone entering the room. I quickly swapped the left hand side (crackly side) of the Denon's mixer channel and everything was fine but doing this meant that I would lose a channel off the VDJ and laptop back up. I decided that it was as good a time as any to work with VDJ for the whole evening as there wasn't much I could do. I'd have to look at it today. I think it is either the cable from the mixer to the left hand side of the Denon or it is the channel on the mixer. I was stressed and frustrated and couldn't do much at the time and went through the whole night with it in the back of my mind.

Anyway, first dances were out of the way and for a few songs everybody filled the room but then it quickly emptied out as people went back outside to enjoy the sun. There were times where I was playing to nobody! I knew it would happen and I even said it to the guy in charge on arrival because it was such a lovely evening. This venue is very nice and where the Disco is set up, well...it's almost a dedicated Disco room. There are lots of other places to chill out around the venue and there was also a photo booth there too. Sometimes, no matter what you're playing...it's difficult to keep people in that room especially on a night like last night so I knew that once it got dark things would improve and they did. It was pretty much a packed dance floor from around 9.30pm to Midnight and lots of requests came flooding in. Lots of current chart and cheese and the Five megamix was the tune of the night easily. All the weddings I have done this week and over the past few months actually have had a big 90's feel and the likes of Five, Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls etc have packed the floor.

Overall a really good night apart from the technical issues which I will get sorted later today, ready for the wedding tomorrow (yes, a Tuesday night wedding).
The girl who enquired and was a Bridesmaid came over towards the end and said she'd be in touch as she'd loved the music so that was a plus. The only other issue I had which was slightly negative was with a complete and utter who was very drunk. He was like it when I arrived and I knew I'd have to keep an eye on him. He looked like a 20 something and was very loud. He appeared to be trying to be something he wasn't if that makes sense? I'd been at the venue 2 minutes and was walking in with some speakers and he said "Mate, hurry up. I want to throw some shapes"...10 minutes later when I had all of the equipment in the room and was standing there surrounded by it all wondering where to start, it was as if he hadn't seen me before...."Oi Bruv, are you the DJ then?" he said....I felt like saying "D'oh, obviously BRUV!" but I didn't...I just nodded. Once I'd set up he popped back in, this time with another guest and said to him "Look mate, this is where the magic happens. Disco Dave over there is gonna rock the house aint ya mate"...I just laughed. Deep down I knew he'd be a problem and he was.

During the last hour he was all over the place. At one point he came over to the decks with a nearly (nearly!) empty bottle of Peroni. He looked over the Equinox stands an was going to drop the bottle between them and the mixer. I had extension leads below. The dance floor was packed at the time and he wasn't even looking at me. I grabbed the bottle from his hand and shouted at him "What are you doing!!??"...he gave me a dirty look and was then ushered away by 2 other guests. One of them returned and apologised and I just told him to keep the drunk away from me. After that everything was fine. When I was packing up at the end of the night the guy apologised again and I said it wasn't a problem. The drunk guy was asleep at a table and I said "Pity he couldn't apologise eh!" and then left it at that.

One last thing to note - There were lots of american's there who had travelled over. One guy was very complimentary and very funny without knowing it. He came over at one point and said "Hey, great Disco man....Do you have Mambo No 4?"....I said "I've got Mambo No 5" and he said...."D'oh!" in the best Homer Simpson voice I've ever heard. Earlier on in the night he'd come in when a few of the girls were dancing and said "Hey man, do the English not like dancing then?"...I said "They're making the most of the sun and will be in later. We don't get the sun much here". He laughed, said "Great party dude" and then called a few of his fellow american's in from the bar to join him on the dance floor. They were all very complimentary which was nice.

Right, a few things to do to prepare for tomorrow so (in american accent)...."I'm outta here dudes!"