How Was Your First Gig?

My first gig was bad, but educational. I sent out my first ever mix to all of the clubs in town and was surprised to hear back from the manager of one of the biggest. He decided to throw me in at the deep end by putting me on at midnight on a saturday in the back room. I was absolutely terrified, and as the DJ before me started his lat song I started plugging in my equipment. At the time i was using FinalScratch 2 DVS so i had a lot of cables to plug in, but I’d rehearsed it many times at home. Unfortunately, I hadn’t accounted for their setup being more ‘spread out’ than mine and as a result one of my cables was too short to reach from my soundcard back to the mixer, so i was forced to use one final scratch deck and one deck with normal vinyl (luckily I’d packed some just in case!)

The other problem was down to the really cheap headphones that I was using – fine for practising at home, but almost completely inaudible over a booming club system! So i had to wing it for the whole gig, trying to beatmatch by turning up the volume on the incoming channel just enough so i could hear it and get it in time.

All in all, it didn’t actually go too badly, although the manager didn’t invite me back 🙁 But i learned some valuable lessons that night, and since then I’ve never been as terrified as i was before that gig!

“when I realized what was happening, I looped the very last two beats and loaded up my favorite track.” Welcome to the world of drunk DJing 😀

my first gig took place @ a family party.. 30 W speaker full volume and a barrel to support the subwoofer…a hercules mp3 e2… i played the music i liked so i think i had the most fun… i didnt read any articles about djing before….so now i know that the crowd has to have fun too

Lose the fear, lose the passion.

DJVendetta, post: 8531 wrote: I’m scared of getting a gig for some reason. I guess I’m so self conscious and scared of trainwrecking that I’m not making the extra effort to find a gig

You should make that extra effort. Take it slow…doesn’t have to be a big gig in a club or anything like that. Have some friends over, mix for them, hear their opinions.

Do a live broadcast (Mixlr or Icecast) if you can and invite everyone in your Facebook list. Or at least a broadcast of a recorded mix of yours. Out of 100 people, maybe 1 or 2 will be interested but still…it’s a start. If you do that, send me a link or a message and I’ll be happy to listen to your stuff.

Check your school’s clubs – there’s bound to be a music club (maybe even an electronic music one). One of the universities in my city has such a club and they organize an event/workshop every Monday night. DJs of all levels come and mix for a really small audience composed mainly of other DJs. Then you get pointers and kudos from the others. Maybe your city has something similar.

You should read the articles on the blog that say how much the audience is willing to forgive and forget from a DJ in terms of mixing if the music is good.

And don’t worry, you wouldn’t be normal if you weren’t afraid of performing in public. Pretty much everyone here is – from hundreds/thousands of beginner DJs to the most experienced ones that have made a living out of it.

But yeah…do get out there with your mixing (as slow as you have to). You get to know new people (some of which become nice contacts, even if it’s just for a guestlist or stuff like that), you get exposed to new music (that might or might not interest you, doesn’t matter, it’s still educative). But most importantly, it’s the fastest and most complete way of learning how to DJ technically AND socially. And you also discover new things about yourself – new strengths and weaknesses (it’s always better to know them than not).

Cheers mate! Go make us proud!

My first gig out was at a local Hard House night back in the day (2002) when that was what i span. I got the gig just by going to the night finding out who was running it and asking nicely.

I was the second dj on and was quite nervous. I had proper shaky hand syndrome but i put the first vinyl on mixed in the first tune, I made sure it was a mix that i knew well and had done many times before. Once that mix was done i relaxed and realized there not alot to worry about.

I had an excelent time even when i droped a mix the cround geered i held my hands up and carryed on. After the set people were telling me they liked it so i think it went well. I was invited back the week after to open the night when got there the dj that was meant to be on after didn’t turn up and i ended up warming up for the headliner Andy Whitby (For those that don’t know he is one off the biggest dj’s in the Uk hard house scene). But that went well as well and i haven’t looked back since.

My first gig was at a small local bar. I had all the tracks I was going to play carefully planned and I wouldnt drift from the plan – something which is not very proffesional (a DJ has to act according to crowd reactions right?) but I thought its better to feel safe and play my planned selection of music and leave the “DJ-crowd communication” for later when I would be more exprerienced.

Needless to say, when I got into the booth (a guy was already playing and I had to mix my first track in), I was so nervous that my hands were shaking and sweating, I could feel my head as if going to explode and I thought ALL eyes (and ears) were on me (even though it was a small bar and probably there werent more of 30 – 40 pairs of them, so even if they were on me, it wasnt such a big deal lol). As soon as I dropped the first track though all the anxiety vanished.
I remember clearly that it was a great feeling when a couple of guys in front of the booth started “swinging” to my music which boosted my confidence.

I voted: educational and alright

So here I am,just came home from my first gig. I must say it was pretty good. I played for about three and a half hours. First I played tech-house,and tribal house,then I switched to something like “loca people” and some other commercial music,and then again some tech-house and house music… I played it from the lowest tempo which was 124 to the highest 136. The only problems were the fight which broke out,so I had to finish earlier,and people who weren’t dancing. I tried to make them dance with lot of types of music,but they just didn’t seem to be in good mood. But there were also people that were dancing all night. 3 guys told me that the music was awesome,and I was really glad to hear that from them. Well,that’s how my first gig looked like,and I must say I am really satisfied with it.