Good Gig, Bad Gig.

[Imagine]

So, the last one of the year and it was awesome in so many ways.

It was my local Primary school. I've done this one for around 10 years now (and help them with other stuff as well). It's a sort of mutual arrangement where I charge them a nominal fee, but I make it all back in local kids parties . It's an arrangement which has worked well for a very long time now.

A game of two halves as they split it into KS1 and KS2. Bearing in mind the last one I did there was Christmas 2019 before everything was shut down, I was looking forward to this one. Being a villager, I know most of the kids (especially those that do the Scouty thing), I know most of the staff, and I know most of the parents. For me, it's a nice easy job with a huge fun factor.

It's always a minimal setup for this one as time is a huge limiting factor. But to see the KS1 kids come into the hall with their teachers and see their faces as they saw the flashing lights.....AWESOME. Bear in mind a lot of these children haven't BEEN to a school disco and it makes it all the more exciting for them. And when those same 100 kids start dancing, singing and enjoying themselves....you just know the job's a good-un. Add to this, for the first time ever I was allowed to take the snow machine....they're going to remember this one for a while

KS2 more of the same although slightly different playlist and open for requests (ruined only by son of a local Sid making numerous requests for things I was never going to play in that environment). I have a fairly free rein on music policy so long as I'm sensible, but do the competition really have to stoop to trying to get their kids catching me out?

The best part with the older ones? I wind them up something chronic. The idea is that they're allowed to be as loud and wild as possible so yes, it's all about the Macarena and Cha Cha Slide, but also the older requests like Eiffel 65's Blue (which they sang at the top of their voices), McFly's Don't Stop Me Now (again, loud) and the song of the evening....DJ Otzi's version of Sweet Caroline. They're actively encouraged to drown out the sound of the PA (it's one of the few where I fade things down to let them sing). My watch warned me several times during that one that I was in a high risk noise environment

There's also a personal "challenge" with the KS2 party. My own kids used to come home absolutely soaked in sweat at the end of the school discos and I remember the windows and walls running in condensation when we picked them up. I ALWAYS aim to re-create that experience....so when the massive arched window at the end of the hall is no longer see-through and the kids look like they've just got out of a hot shower....I consider my mission to be accomplished

All in all, a brilliant end to a busy December and busy 2022 as a whole. The social channels are already buzzing after that one which is always good.

Other than a bit of sorting out of the lockup, a couple of kit repairs and maybe a little playlist/crate curation....that's me done until the 14th January (because I'm a miserable so and so that doesn't DO NYE).

Looking forward to a long rest now

[Excalibur]

Looking forward to a long rest now

Don't turn your phone off son, ah say don't turm your phone off.

[Excalibur]

Really? I have to say that after some lovely highs in 2022, the tailend of the year has pretty much fallen off a cliff. Last few bookings haven't been great, and I had a free weekend Christmas Eve. So, would the gateway into the new year change all this, and leave me looking forward to 2023 with a big grin on my face?

It's not a " phone a friend " question.
In October I took what looked a nice, easy, low key NYE gig covering for a lad in Harrogate. Nice upper class place, Harrogate, and I do know some fabulous venues there. I also know that every area has its less salubrious ones, and I found another one. A standard WMC, with very poor access and parking, where I was the obligatory NYE entertainment ( with a small e ), a necessary evil. Treated with polite apathy, basically.

I arrived early, got set up, and started up half an hour early, as the place was heaving. Started off playing to younger adults in the mixed audience, and it was very sporadic. One of those crowds where you couldn't keep the floor full for three songs. I then had a somewhat rotating crowd, as new ones arrived, and others left for pastures new ( often returning to finish the night here ) or the smoking shelter. The tribe of anklebiters left at a reasonable hour, and I limped up to midnight in a fairly acceptable manner.

Then the over 21s woke up fully! It was like someone had thrown a switch. In the last hour, I could do no wrong. Everything worked. Party songs, Rave, Indie, just everything I played. I'd lined up two songs to 1am, explaining that I couldn't 1) Hold Back The Night, and time was beating me, and I would be imploring 2) Take Me Home A1M/Country Roads. Oh come on, what do you expect for £60, originality and sparkling comedy?

There was the standard enquiry for that lost Spanish friend, Juan Moore, which I had anticipated, and prepared a wind down, Fairytale NY, the only Christmas song I played all night. Pack up, relax, and choose how to get home. Either all Motorway ( the longer way, by fifteen miles ) or the short way , with twists, turns, and junctions. Both taking the same amount of time. Any other night, the short way would have won, for novelty value, and the fact that it gets me to Ronald's nearest purveyor for my fix of magic liquid.

However, he had given his little helpers the night off from 10pm, till 8/9am next day, ( and I don't think any were going rogue and staying open ) and I was going to have to make it home Cold Turkey. Motorway it is then, stuck on the limiter. Home bang on 3am, for a can of craft beer, bed just before 4.

New Years Day was planned to be social, except that the Chief Cook and Bottle Washer had got some lurgy, and banned all guest, so it turned out to be just a slow day recovering, like today also will be. Happy New Year everyone.

[Excalibur]

Although I am considering a change to something easier, like riding a unicycle across a tightrope, while juggling chainsaws!

50th birthday, nice venue fairly local to me, really easy to get to. A Curate's Egg of a playlist. At first glance, it was fine, but on closer inspection it revealed only a handful of real bangers, a load of acceptable tracks, and a lot of tracks that weren't the ones you'd normally play by bands you'd often play. It leant heavily towards lesser known, non dancefloor friendly 80s and indie stuff.

Now here's the thing- I played the more mainstream tracks early on, and although I wasn't told not to deviate from the list, against my expectations, it was working really well. The only dissenters were a lady and young girls who wanted R&B/Soul, and a chap who came up with three minutes to go to ask for 70s Disco and Jamiroquai. Neither were lucky.

I had leeway to finish, because I was booked to midnight, but they had the room to 1am, and bar till 12.30pm. Guests were drifting away by midnight, and I was happy to overrun by fifteen minutes to get the finish I wanted. Birthday girl's daughter requested just about every track The Smiths ever made, and a load of obscure Beatles ones at 11.45, which was never going to happen after I'd played a similar list from her at about 11.30pm!

I switched off at 12.15, to a round of applause, with a very happy birthday girl, some happy guests, happy bar staff who had got an early finish ( they'd expected 1am ) and a DJ who looked as if he knew what he was doing all night, when in fact he could have crashed and burned. ( But I always had the option to bring The Usual Suspects of course, if I was dying).

A thoroughly nice night, refreshingly different, with the strong prospect of a good NaD review, which always helps.

Only one more in January at the moment, and it won't be pretty. Repeat customer, in a cramped venue, with a route march along a narrow path to get in. And they want Karaoke! I may just be able to enlist the services of an outstanding Roadie, if he hasn't got a job that night.

[Excalibur]

Only one more in January at the moment, and it won't be pretty. Repeat customer, in a cramped venue, with a route march along a narrow path to get in. And they want Karaoke! I may just be able to enlist the services of an outstanding Roadie, if he hasn't got a job that night.

And indeed, it wasn't pretty. Details are in Supporters, let's just say that Mr Jackson was sorely missed.

OK, so the next one was an FFN one, turns out to be a crowd I've seen before who moved to a larger venue, because it went so well. I get there early, find out I can nearly drive the van into the room, and set up. FFN take over for their bit, and I have a really hard night, I must have worked for nearly fifty minutes! Lovely, lovely crowd, who restore my faith in the human race after the previous gig.

Back to Lincoln tonight, surprise party in a venue I know well.

[Excalibur]

I'm getting ahead of myself. That's Saturday. Hang on, dear reader, all will be revealed.

Friday:
A surprise 40th Birthday party, which was planned for Saturday, but they could only get Friday. This led to problems for some guests, so numbers were down from around fifty, to nearer thirty, in a room capable of holding a hundred and thirty. As expected, it was a damp squib, although guests were lovely, just not up for a lively party. In a smaller room, we might have had a fighting chance.

Saturday:
Ah yes, the one you've all been waiting for. A surprise booking for me, I was only asked a couple of days before, and it appears the resident has Covid, the plague that just keeps on giving. It's a Holiday Inn, with some of the nicest staff I've met anywhere, and the atmosphere there is just so pleasant. Well, this was to be a doddle, a Motorsport presentation evening, Presentation, Raffle, hot buffet, and dance the night away, simple.

Oh no, dear reader, anything but. I was early, as is my wont, and on course to be set up well ahead of schedule, which was good, as they had wanted to move the timings forward half an hour. Earlier finish, yippee. All is set fair, when an organiser turns round and says " Oh, I nearly forgot. You are doing Karaoke, aren't you? When we booked it ages ago, that was the first thing we specified". Houston, we have a problem. I point out that I haven't been asked to do it, and have no kit to do it with. Oh dear. Organisers are unhappy, and I say I will do what I can, but I hold out very little hope.

Step forward the man of the hour, Alex, party manager. What a star. I ask if he can possibly find me a monitor and an HDMI cable. Oh, and the hardest part, a small table to put it on. What does he do? He only goes and " borrows" a monitor and cable from reception, and finds a battle scarred lectern! Hold the front page, we might just manage this. I lash the monitor to the lectern with gaffa, for security, plug it in, and we have a picture. The laptop has the karaoke files on there, and once I've asked Jon Brown for a bit of technical advice, we have a working karaoke monitor.

Now for the mics. One of the reasons I bought my Polars was the inbuilt mixer. A bit of head scratching, some frantic checking of spare cables, and I think I can do it. The Polars have two mic/line inputs, one instrument, and one bluetooth/mp3 input. I had brought a radio mic kit in case for presentation, and it's two twin sets, with one channel on headset. I picked two handheld, and plugged them into the mic channels on one Polar. Having found an adaptor cable XLR to phono, I plugged the playout into that, and ran the whole shebang back across to the other Polar, and amazingly I had ( very little control of ) two karaoke mics, one Shure radio mic ( and I must say that the W Audio ones actually outperformed the Shure for feedback rejection ) and one cabled mic for me. Lyrics on a screen, and unbelievably, we had a karaoke rig!

Long story short, the night effectively ran to schedule, I grabbed some of the superb buffet where I could, herded singers ( who were enthusiastic, if not good ), and effectively frazzled myself by midnight. I was delighted to see my bed.

[Excalibur]

Three apparently successful gigs, all completely different.
1): Surprise 60th, last minute one from FB for a lad I'd work for again. Sit down meal before music till 1am. Birthday girl was lovely, and once I had enticed folk onto the floor, he hardly left it. Came over at the end to give me a cuddle, and say how great I was. I hadn't played much of anything really outstanding in my book, and the ambient light in the room made mine pointless, but hey ho, happy customers, and happy boss.

2) An FFN gig. Like shooting fish in a barrel. I only worked about half an hour at the end, could have put it on autopilot for the same result really. If we return there, they rumbled that paying me for an extra hour is the way forward.

3) The one that surprised me, in many ways, and not all good. Another surprise 60th, which appeared to have died halfway through, and I was adamant that we wouldn't see midnight. Quite a few guests left early with young children, and very quickly I was down to less than a dozen guests, who visited the dance floor only sporadically, and made very few requests. The kind of booking where you just want to go home.

With an hour to go, unbelievable amounts of strong drink had been taken, and I was wishing I'd had some too. Guests were being virtually carried out, Birthday girl's hubby collapsed over furniture, and the daughter of the birthday girl was absolutely steaming! I'm in the corner offering up a silent prayer to the bar staff to ask me to call last orders, but no such luck. In the last hour I became a jukebox for one guest's choice of stuff you'd rarely play at any function, and guess what? His wife thanked me profusely, cos " he never slow dances with me normally, and you've played all the stuff he loves " ( Obscure Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Jonathan Richman, and CCR stuff ). As guests left, almost all acknowledged my efforts and thanked me for great music all night, and the daughter was effusive in her praise, even if she had to cling onto me for support.

There you go, it's a funny old game.

[Excalibur]

Well last night was good for my ego if nothing else. I was covering a 50th birthday for a multi-op in a Golf Club near Leeds, where I've been before, and I believe the staff like me. Certainly more than some they've had! I walked in, said hello to the manager, who was chatting to someone, and she loudly proclaimed me to be " her favourite DJ, he's really great, you know".

I got set up, and had a chat with the birthday boy, who informed me that they were going to have his son's band playing a session, but due to illness, it would be only two of them doing a few songs. No problem, and again, the Polars offered inputs for this, even if the cables we used were less than perfect, with an adaptor or two making them fit. The lads turned out to be very fair players, even if the overall effect was somewhat " disorganised", with guests being drafted in on vocals, and lyrics being read from phones. Ah well, we all had fun.

I was sent a short Whats App list of preferred music, and it leant heavily towards Indie and Alternative, with a lot of classic stuff on there. No problem fitting a lot of that in, even though the guests appeared split into two age groups, son's friends, and Dad's friends. The playlist reflected this, bouncing from Hi Ho Silver Lining, Sweet Caroline, and Hey Baby at one end into lots of Libertines, Blur, Oasis, Killers , with a four song diversion into EDM. Tracks of the night were Tiesto-Business ( which due to communication issues, I spent hours looking for by Coldplay! Damn near found one, as well ), Darude- Sandstorm, and anything by Oasis, who appear to be coming back into vogue.

The end of the night came, with the obligatory guest throwing a strop because he couldn't use my mic to say what a great bloke his mate was ( basically because by then I'd unplugged the speakers, and no it isn't just a case of throwing a switch to get them going again. Added to which, I want to go home, which is why I'm packing up, I'm two hours away from my bed at least ). Compare that with some young lads wanting to tell me how great I was, shake my hand, and suggesting that despite my advanced years, I should keep on keeping on. Got a warm glow from that.

All in all, a very good night, which did my standing there no harm at all.

[Imagine]

Yesterday was a long one.....14 hours long . You know, one of those where you turn up in the morning to setup dreading the hours and hours of standing that lay before you.

Actually, it was a very good day, and I was only there for that length of time due to various "errors" in the booking which only came to light in the week running up to the day. The venue normally include a Toastmaster in their package and when the groom booked me for all day for the MC side of things, and then decided he actually needed me a little earlier, I didn't actually think anything of it.


My original brief was MC duties and background during the afternoon, first dance, fill in for a band's break, then three hours to 1am to finish.

Until that is, I got a call from the Toastie on Friday lunchtime. The venue had somehow omitted to tell the couple of the inclusion of the Toastmaster!

Suddenly it was a day I'd been looking forward to with full MC duties, to looking like a very long and drawn out day of pressing play on the groom's carefully curated list of background music (something this particular Toastie normally does through his own Bose L1 system), and waiting around a lot. I didn't actually need to be there for the afternoon but I wasn't going to contact the couple on the eve of the wedding to explain things and cause possible confusion, so the Toastie and I rolled with the flow (he's a good bloke I've worked with on many occasions and we just "gel").

So, guests seated, background music playing, it's time to eat. I like this venue - the food they give all-day suppliers is legendary and has dented my attempts at losing weight for a couple of days

Eventually it's speeches time, which are done through the Toastmaster's PA system because that was his preference (and at the end of the day, they run the day), so not a lot to do there.

90 minute room turnaround saw a lot more sitting around (I'm so glad I've invested in a fold-up bar stool for these particular occasions), and into the cake cutting and first dance. Then it's time for the three-piece acoustic band who were absolutely brilliant. A little 15 minute fill-in for their break warmed the guests up for their second half, which was unfortunately interrupted by the buffet being served

Then - it's time for yours truly. The plan was for a load of different stuff based mainly around the '90s for the first couple of hours to midnight with license to go off-script where necessary, followed by what the couple had called the "Power Hour" from midnight to 1am which was the likes of ACDC, Foo Fighters, Blink-182.....certainly woke me up

I was blessed with a full dance floor for the entire evening, even for the sing-along numbers that had been requested. It was an AWESOME night and so much better than recent outings this year.

Highlight of the night for me was the last song. The couple had asked for Coldplay's Chasing Cars which I thought would end up with a good old fashioned circle of love. Nope...the remaining guests laid down on the dance floor ALA Chris Martin and singing along. Something different and memorable and a nice way to end what had been a long but very good day

[DJ Jules]

The couple had asked for Coldplay's Chasing Cars which I thought would end up with a good old fashioned circle of love. Nope...the remaining guests laid down on the dance floor ALA Chris Martin and singing along. Something different and memorable and a nice way to end what had been a long but very good day

Sounds like you had a good night!

Coldplay though? What have I missed?

Julian