DJ Gig Wrapup: 2009-12-31
The gig went well; no equipment, software, or power failures; no unruly guests, and they only requested two or three songs I didn’t have. I’ll add those shortly.
Perhaps 50 people attended the party; a good-sized crowd for the house and garage where we hosted it. Though crowded, there was still plenty of room to move around freely, and dance too.
This time, I adorned the DJ table with four multi-colored strings of LED lights, which fetched numerous festive and complimentary comments.
I noticed much dancing; especially by the children. In fact only one or two songs played to an empty dance floor. Otherwise, they packed the business area. But we played not one slow song, and the most popular music came from 2009.
Yep. The kids ruled the show last night, much to the (though muted) discontent of some adults. They’d rather we played more seventies and eighties disco and classic rock hits, and I certainly would have played some of that, had there been more requests for it. But those of my generation and earlier said little, apparently content to see the kids having so much fun.
In past years, we’d play the kids’ music before midnight, and then switch over to classic rock afterwards, and go into the very wee hours of the morning. But last night, few wanted to hear any oldies, opting more for today’s upbeat and bouncy hits. Further, nobody, but one sleeping man, remained in the music area after around 1:00 AM. These days, people in our circle retire early. Gone, it seems, are the times when we’d party until 6:00 AM. But I’m not sad over that actually because these days, I can DJ until around 2:00 AM but then, experience unmanageable drowsiness, and must call it quits, even when the crowd screams for more.
Taking written-only requests worked out well because, not only does it save my voice from shouting over the thumping bass to verify that I correctly get what’s being asked for (“WHAT DID YOU SAY???”), but I can enter the requests into the computer at more of my own pace as well. In previous gigs, people yelling their preferred playlists, at will, was highly prone to errors and frustration because either I wouldn’t hear them (and thus, never play their requests), or I would hear them, but be inundated with so many others that I’d forget some. Or, while entering one request, someone else would urgently interrupt me with another. Again, the result was that many requests never made it to the speakers without this more orderly and permanent approach of recording them.
Finally, having folks write their favorite songs discourages them from excessively chatting at me. Though I like socializing, the DJ booth, like the corporate office cube, is not the place to gab, off-topic. While DJing, I am in fact, working, and the job of watching the overall mood of the crowd requires nearly-full focus, in order to determine what to play next, to best keep the people pleased, and dancing.
Indeed, I almost never play requests in the exact order in which they were received, and some, I may never play, depending on what I believe the collective crowd appears to want. Individual requests hint at that but rarely convey crowd desires fully. So I regard requests as suggestions; not mandates. I may get to them. But then, I may not. You can imagine, I’m sure, that skipping certain ones can anger someone bent on hearing a song that I happen to deem inappropriate for the current venue. A few have challenged me, coming around to the computer and sitting beside me, reading the playlist, and telling me how I should move songs around in it. One tween, at a wedding reception a while back, actually ordered me to delete requests that others had made, but that she didn’t like, just so she could hear hers before time ran out. Her audacity amazed and distressed me, forcing me to realize that frequent and direct negotiations with patrons, is a bad way to run a DJ gig. So to minimize having to do it, I now insist on this written-requests protocol. The result? We experienced none of these head-butting sorts of problems last night, and the gig was correspondingly, quite enjoyable and stress-free.
I liked it.