Got my first gig and It's bigger than I hoped for…

Phil… It was a disaster… an absolute freaking disaster… Its a bit of a story, so bare with me, and please can you give me some feedback, especially on the sound issues…

So for the build up towards this gig, I checked about 7 times on exactly what kind of music I should be playing.. The type of crowd they expect, age groups, is it a bar or club.. over and over I checked.. Unfortunately I couldn’t actually go to the venue on a different night to check it out, as this was kinda there first night to make the bar a happening place…It’s basically this very upmarket hotel bar, with posh trimmings and over-priced booze and a place that looked like 50 year old men go to smoke cigars and sip scotch…

Anyway, so I was instructed to play Electro and House, as this was an evening aimed at getting a younger more vibrant crowd into this bar. Sponsored by Skyy Vodka, many promotional things, as in was supposed to be a big evening… I was then told the night before that the crowd is going to be varying in age and tastes, so I better bring a whole lot of Hip Hop just in case.. I don’t have much Hip Hop and I have never really played more than a few minutes for fun with it. But anyway, I got a whole lot of kick ass Hip Hop together, I got all my best tech, minimal, Electro, swing house.. every song that I thought was needed, so no matter which way the crowd went in their vibe, I was ready to adapt and make that place bump. I even got a whole lot of Pop stuff that was busting out on the radio and they were playing everywhere. as even though I hate it, I wanted to be ready to impress. I even had a special little set prepared as a kinda finale, which I had tested out a week before, and it was a raging success.. Basically I was ready to go..

So I get there a little late, because the taxi cab driver drove me all over the city trying to find the venue, that was the beginning of the disaster… I get there, set up literally in 5 mins and then I go over to the sound engineer, who starts off telling me that he is this big time guy who works with a lot of big time local DJ’s.. I then find out, that he had actually requested me to be there the night before to test sound etc, which the event organizers never thought necessary to let me know about… He then fannies around the sound deck behind the bar in the back end of the bar, for about 30 mins, then whips out a microphone lead and plugs this gender change adapter onto the mic lead and puts my RCA cables into that… So I am ready, I line up my song, put it in a loop, so we can do a final volume test, as people are entering the bar. And it was much older people, no young people… my heart starts pumping at that realization. The engineer then buggers off to the back, cranks it up loud, so loud that I had my master almost all the way down. I was signaling to have him turn it down a bit but he was nowhere… Then I realize that the song that is coming out the speakers, sounds nothing like my song in my head phones. I am convinced they still have the previous back round music still playing.. so i push pause and everything goes silent.. Crowd looking at me like what is this dude doing.. I push play.. song starts again.. and IT IS my song, but with all the vocals gone, maybe 20% of the bass, and all these like flat and weird noises coming through on the beat that I actually recognize. To make it really sound terrible, the sound kept flaring up and distorting and the bass would scream through and sound like it was a few decibels away from blowing the speakers.. Crowd cringes as this happens.. I am going red in the face… It was barely music.. I am frantically trying to adjust knobs and things to see what the hell is going on.. I realize that every knob on my controller is perfect.. I was having nightmares the night before, about forgetting a filter on or something, but it was all perfect..I am trying to get my friends to talk to the sound engineer… he is no where…

So I just push through, basically the night came down to, I play for 30 minutes, and then a band plays for 30mins, and we alternate.. (The band was this Philippine’s cover band, playing 80’s and pop). So I only had to push through for 30 mins (thankfully).. I try my best, the sound is quite honestly repulsive, and I am trying not to look like I suck, but its well obvious at this point.. no one is impressed… I get to the end of my 30 mins, filter out.. everyone gives me this weak sickly applause and I clear off to find the engineer to say what the hell is going on with the sound.. The manager of the bar intercepts me, and says, why am I playing dance music, I am supposed to be playing 80’s, can I not see that everyone here is older and they don’t understand the stuff that I am playing.. I am trying to explain that I am playing what I was told to prepare by the promoters and that I don’t have any 80’s… and even if I did, the sound is so terrible that it wouldn’t even sound like 80’s… They basically pull me straight after that, I only went back on stage to pack up my gear in front of the whole bar.. To make it feel worse, the band (who was phenomenal) saw I was having difficulties and tried to get the crowd pumped for my next set, saying, “give it up for the DJ!” and I walk on to pack up.. to make me really pissed off, they turn the back round songs back on from some play list on the bar computer, and guess what.. Freaking Electro blasts out, and then all the young crowd started filling up the place, and I just sat at the bar, with my feet up on my controller travel case, sipping the free drinks I was allowed to have all night by management and feeling like a big idiot… and so angry at being told not to play my tunes and then they played the exact same stuff over the speakers…

Phil, after that long story, any ideas on the sound issues…

What a freaking nightmare… and it was Friday the 13th, and I am not superstitious or anything but it really felt like that was out to get me.. So my first gig went down like a flaming Zeppelin…