Good Gig, Bad Gig.

[DeckstarDeluxe]

OK mate, a review of events, and were they eventful!!!
Before I'd left home, I set up a cobbled together Karaoke rig for a party next door, with a tablet that hadn't been charged up since Covid ( when Rishi Sunak bought me a nice new one ) running karaoke on Youtube, and an iphone running a fixed playlist from Spotify. Private function, no rule breaking at all, Officer.

I arrived at my wedding venue ludicrously early, as is my wont, and as expected was refused entry. Now wouldn't you think, that when a DJ turns up so early to get every possible minute of time available to him during turn round, that the staff might not actually start turn round without telling him?

By chance, I'd started trundling the kit in anyway, and didn't lose too much time. The wedding rig isn't too hard to deal with and I comfortably beat the deadline I'd been given to let the guests back in. Venue then proceeded to bring them in ten minutes after the deadline they'd given me, which apparently vital to meet, as they wanted the bar for a coach party, which I know had come in.

Added to this, I had to sneak in a sax player booked by the groom as a surprise, plug her in to my kit, and play the wrong song for the first dance to let the sax player pop up and rescue me. Well come on, I'm an old bloke, I get things wrong from time to time, eh? Somehow, ably assisted by the lovely Amy the sax player, we pulled that one off nicely. The cunning plan was then to have Father/Daughter dance next, let the sax player do a set, and see how the evening unfolded.

First dance absolute success, Father/Daughter hit a snag: absence of male party. Function Manager has the brilliant idea, cut the cake, then let sax player loose. Genius, well done Manager. I must point out that I'd had contact with Amy previously, and I'd be happy to have more. She turned up with an adaptor cable from iPhone to two phono for her backing music ( which she handled entirely ) and a radio mic rig for the sax. All worked really well, and didn't involve me much, excellent.

Buffet comes out during first set, so I have to butt in to announce that, and during the night I have to announce various things like " please keep the anklebiters in this room only, please don't vape inside the premises", and other such gems. Then what looked like a promising young crowd wanting lively EDM swerved off into Bassline and 75bpm dirges. Dear Lord, it's a joyous celebration, and one request was " dying only hurts the first time".

Apart from requests for only half a dozen of The Usual Suspects, it was dire. Surprisingly, many of them stayed with me to the end, and I got a round of applause. Juan Moore got told to eff off, he wasn't needed this time.

Wouldn't our job be far more enjoyable if we didn't have other people in the room.

[Imagine]

Last night was probably the best wedding I've EVER done.
I know we all say that a lot, but this one has genuinely left me buzzing.

A new (to me) venue literally four miles from my front door. It's a permanent marquee in a meadow that for some reason only does around 6 weddings a year. Rustic was requested for the setup (in fact it's one of the reasons they booked me), and as the venue is in the middle of nowhere, I nearly took my Yahama PA but chickened out as they've not been used or tested for a year, and as I didn't know the venue, didn't want to carry those behemoths miles across a field. So EV 50s it is, which coped very well indeed, but the Yammy's would have been soooo much betterer.

Plus as an added bonus, I was parked 12 feet from the setup area after a bit of negotiation with the caterers to move one of their Transits so I could get through.

So, the gig. Evening only and the B&G have decided on a festival theme. Several imaginary stages during the evening split into 45 minute segments of Oldies (think Abba, Whitney etc), Millennial Nostalgia, Indie, Pop-punk, and EDM. There were also two "secret sets" (basically mashups of Bruno Mars for the first and Fred Again for the second), plus a 15 minute "finale" to close the evening. No cheesy action dances, no Taylor Swift (wooohoooo!) and no Brightside (I'm liking this couple more and more!)

Everything was on a big poster for the guests to see as they'd arrived earlier in the day. Music and festivals are important to this pair!

The B&G had given me half a dozen songs for each set, and I was allowed to take requests. I decided not to because you just know Uncle Dave's going to ask for the Rolling Bones during the EDM set. Happily nobody even asked!

Instead I sat down during the week and meticulously planned each set to the minute. Something I don't think I've ever done before....I normally wing it like most of us do.

I was handsomely rewarded. It was a tiny dance floor and folks (a lot from a country I've never heard of called "God's Own" or something like that) were even dancing between tables and chairs. I kid you not, the dancefloor NEVER went below 50 souls all night.

I was fed and watered (rare these days) - even got a genuine Italian Gelato (much needed - despite the apparent "end" of the heatwave it's still blimmin' hot and humid in these parts)

Even better, the only rule this venue has is that the music must be off at midnight. Haze allowed (ohhhhh next time!), no limiter (in fact the louder the better). The last note of Welcome to the Black Parade played out at 11:59:50. Venue happy, no Spanish Uncle, happy guests, VERY happy bride and groom.

I'd promised the venue owner I'd be out by half twelve. She didn't believe it. 12:20 I was in the van and rolling. We got on well, I think i might be going back there in the future

I enjoyed that one waaaaay too much!

[Excalibur]

Naming no names of course, but Wayne knows who I mean. Even if you were blessed with a contingent from God's own County, you didn't have Cowboys riding Dinosaurs.

( How do you find out if a fella's from Yorkshire?

You don't have to. If he is, he'll tell you ).

OK, well I was more than four miles from home on Friday, and last week when Mr Dave Jackson was here, he was more than four miles from home. ( He's moved recently, and previously, it would nearly have been within about one mile ), in a beer tent on the Driffield Showground. He was kind enough to babysit me on Friday, cos he likes to look after Old Folks, and he suggested we set up in exactly the same place he had been the week before. Oh dear.

We had actually got everything in place, when we were told it was in the wrong place. The bar manager told Dave that he'd been wrong to effectively set up in front of the bar, because the sound had deafened his staff. This surprised Dave and I, as we'd always thought that the sound went forward, not backward, but hey, we only had eighty years experience between us, what do we know?

We offered to move, but he said that was too much work, so we left it where it was, and agreed to change ends for Saturday. Dave went home to prepare for his big social event on Saturday, leaving me to entertain the assembled multitude, all six of them. Basically, Friday is set up time, and lorries were coming in nose to tail, parking and preparing for Saturday and Sunday. While it was sporadic until the last couple of hours, once folks had got ready they came over for a beer, and a sing song. Unfortunately for them, I wasn't doing Karaoke, or lending microphones, which did not meet with approval.

I'd started the evening with a request from the bar staff for 90s, I'd then had a mooch round the 70s and 80s, and we ended the night with various flavours of Soul, Cheese ( Cotton Eye Joe was played more than once ) and sing alongs, no you still can't have my microphone. A good night marred only by The Lads ( who were never going to see forty again ) doing shots in front of me, and waving beer about. That is probably my biggest gripe nowadays. The bar kept serving past the intended finish time, and don't tell Dave, but I did too. Naughty Peter. Packed up at midnight, all in all, a good night.

On Saturday, the bar was open when I arrived, and I unrolled my extension cable, and set up at the far end. I tried to play different songs, for the ones who were there on Friday, and to an extent, I did, as the clientele were slightly different, and slightly younger. Again, a slow start, lots of modern Country music initially ( which can be quite confusing, as the New Country which I love is now Old, and the new stuff being requested is in fact Old stuff, from before the New stuff).

The arrival of Cowboys riding Tyrannosauri Rex livened the afternoon up, as did the Nun who seemed to be having issues with her hosiery, and a Priest too, so we were doubly blessed.
Bar staff loved Nickelback, ( but only the obscure ones, seemingly ) and in the last ninety minutes, I got into EDM, Drum and Bass, and surprise surprise, Cheese.
This crowd were lovely, very appreciative, and I think one of us will definitely be back there next year. Whether it's me or my Manager, I have no idea.