Get back on your feet

Everything i post here is meant for constructive purposes and if i hit a nerve i apologize as it is not my intention.

First off I would never take a gig with a live player unless i had done a rehersal with him previous to it

2nd off If a rehearsal was not possible i would have at least tried to get him to give me a list of tracks and songs that he would like to rock out to and then i would have built my set accordingly.

Who was the highlight of the evening? was it the live sax player or you? From the sounds of things it was about the live Sax player, and he sounds like he is a bit of a diva so to speak.

I would talk to the owner and discuss exactly what had happened, and reason with him, have you had other shows at his venue that went really well? If yes then you have a leg to stand on. At this point i would make it a point to NOT point out the errors of the night and just brush it off as an unsuccessful night. We all are going to or already have had shitty nights…its going to happen its the industry, and let him know that as well…thinking that every night is going to go perfect and that you are going to have a crowd thats gonna rock out is unreasonable.

The worst thing you can do in this situation is start pointing fingers, take the hit and accept it move on to another venue if u think that the one u are talking about is no longer going to fly. It takes YEARS to build a solid reputation, but only 10 seconds of being an idiot to ruin it.

Overall just chalk this up to a giant learning lesson and move on. DJing is a marathon and you are gonna trip and fall on occasion, its about just letting it go and finding future endeavours.

DJ Menno, post: 32473, member: 3768 wrote: Hi all,

Was wondering, did you ever loose a potential residency because of a terrible night ? I’ve had one of those, it all went wrong :

– The saxophonist I was playing with arrives unprepared at 10:30 pm when we should have started at 09.
– I can’t find his “vibe”, and since he didn’t reply to requests for having a training session, it was all live unprepared.
– I had 30 people in the bar, out of which 5 where requesting reggaeton only, which is not my style, at least not for a whole evening… and the rest where smoking outside.
– Once the sax sees it’s not working he blames me, grabs the mic, says “The DJ is not in the mood tonight, I stop playing” and goes…
– friends and invitees didn’t show up in the numbers we’d expected.

It just removes the fun, you’re there in front of an almost empty bar, nobody’s dancing, you can hardly follow the crowd since there’s none, and you just try to play the best songs you can think of. But when the sax guy ditched me in front of the whole bar I was about to pack my things and go…I just couldn’t fight my own despair of being in such a situation.

I still managed to get the barmaids to dance on the bar, and everybody told me the night was okay (not exceptional, but okay… no technical errors, good vibe, nice music).

But since the owner is a friend of the sax guy, he blamed me for all that went wrong and cancelled the next gig.

My friends tell me there’s other bars, other clubs, other opportunities… But in a small city all the bar owners know each other and it’s just bad for the reputation…

Did such a night ever happen to you ? How did you get back on your feet ? Is there anything I could have done to change the situation ?

Thxs for the advices 🙂

I myself had some downs as well as ups Djing. You just have to get back on your feet, and dont let what happened here affect future gigs

Well first off: If he does not want to rehearse I would have rejected the gig right away.

Now all you can do is act professional. No fingerpointing, stay polite and humble. Simply state facts and try to talk to everybody, even the sax player. Tell them what you think went wrong, ask what you could have done better and give constructive input what they should do different from your point of view.