Finally Secured My First Gig!

Do your best and get into the zone (Place wear you can’t hear or see anything but the music). I love getting into the zone, it is when a dj is at his best until some randomly guy/girl comes up and as for a request or the question we all hate “What music do you have?” that’s basically when you lose the zone.

Chuck van Eekelen, post: 41388, member: 2756 wrote: Yoo Emazing, they actually approach you and ask that? Guess you don’t have that stern “stay away from me”-look that I have ahahahahhaa.

Don’t we all know it :).

Greetinx,
C.

Unfortunately they do :(. Digital dj tips need to do an article on that, but I’ll work on my “Stay Away from me” look for this Saturday gig.

Coltrane09, post: 41390, member: 2800 wrote: Hey, congrats! My little two cents would be, if you haven’t already practiced this already, is to practice setting up and breaking down your equipment and having your gig bag in order. Makes for getting in and out of the pub much easier.

Not always true, I remember djing at a lounge and I didn’t get paid until everyone left especially on New Years. I didn’t get home till 8 am because people didn’t want to leave and we close at 4 am. Don’t you just hate it when people don’t want to leave especially when you’re done playing music.

I have nights where I go through the whole spectrum from Disco to House, from Ska to Reggae and from old to new rock … you never really know what is gonna work. And even on the same night, what might not work at 10pm when everyone might still be (semi)sober, might do wonders at 1am when everyone is loaded.

It’s an acquired skill. Gotta pay your dues here. Don’t get frustrated, just try something see if it works, if it doesn’t change it up some more, if it does try moving in small steps from there.

Keep it up m8 & greetinx,
C.

Yep, it’s like that sometimes. I got “lucky” with my first pro residency. 6 days a week in 5-star hotels. And you know it isn’t packed with dance happy folks every day of the week (weekends it is of course). So you learn to play for few or at times no people (great times to practice all kinds of stuff or play the records – yes, VINYL 🙂 – that you really like or that just got in).

You grow some callouses that way.

Lot’s of weddings are like that too. Lot’s of family that hasn’t seen each other since the previous wedding or funeral (I never gig at those though … just kidding :-)) and want to catch up for the first two hours. You end up with a handful of 5-year old not exactly dancing, more like chasing each other across the dance floor.

It’s all good. Every song you play does something with the crowd, building their dance desire. You can tell by the telltale tapping or swinging of feet, heads, fingers if their subconcious is registering the music you play. And then, this is a big bonus of being a mic-bearing DJ, at some point you can get creative with your call for action and kick the party off. Doesn’t work all of the time, but most of it.

As long as the majority in the crowd is sitting like they are made from granite, tossing you angry looks with every new song you play or move as far away from the speakers as they can get (might be a good idea to pipe it down a bit early in the evening when nobody’s dancing yet anyway) and the person in charge is not coming to you in panic because nobody’s dancing, then you are probably fine.

Greetinx,
C.

Yeah, make ’em dance and get ’em thirsty!!!! LOL