Tuesday I’m playing my first club gig. More on that here.
I’ve been breaking my head on which track I should play first. Because in my opinion, the first track will leave the first impression, and it might sound a little cliché, but it has to be love on first sight on the crowd’s side.
I thought of a few but I’m not getting the “yes of course this one!” feeling.
Which tracks do you guys prefer to play first ?
I’m looking in the progressive house genre, but why not turn this into a fun and interesting thread and share your favorite intro tracks !
if you are opening, which if it’s your first gig, i’m assuming you are… the only way you will get another is if you dont play any bombs.
your job is to play background music for when people arrive, you can use any mixing trick you like, but as long as your mixing is clean you should be okay, but again… if you try to upstage the headliners, you wont get another gig. So forget about your first track, you should only be thinking of your eighth track and how you will get to it, then wind down for the next guy.
If you want a better set in the future, become friends with the promoter and show your skills another time away from the club… don’t be fake, always be true to yourself, but know your place, and you will go far..
Spot on advice from synthet1c - also, find out who is playing after you, what they play etc so you can compliment their sound which helps get everybody built up and in the mood!
Though your advice is probably very true for opening DJs, it is not the same case here.
I’m doing a DJ competetition, and I’m the first of 3 DJs. I have 90 mins to show what i’ve got. So it will be the best from start untill finish, never mind who comes next.
See what I mean ? It’s as if I were the head DJ of the night.
if your in a comp then yeah you should dominate start to finish, but 90mins is a long enough time to take the crowd up then down then back up again, try and find out what the guy before you plays and start there, no one likes to be jolted into a new sound (unless your really f@3kin good and can follow every track with something better, until you slow it down ready to take em out with your bomb then your epic close track. what i think i’m trying to say is it doesn’t really matter where you start, only the where you finish, and leave them wanting more.
also dont play anything from your demo in the comp, it shows them that you pre-plan all your sets and are not versitile enough for residency.
If its a comp then thats a different story
Well It depends if you want to kill it right from the start but I would probably start with an intro track since you have 90 min and not 30. I keep a playlist just for those. Here are a few prog tracks in there
depending on what order you go on in I would have at least 3-4 tracks prep’d incase they get played. You dont want to scramble last minute
if you are playing prog house and you have 90 minutes, you should aim for your last track to be the biggest one. that will definitely leave the crowd wanting more!
Best advice I was given in a competition, was to wow the audience in the beginning. Catch 'em by surprise and get their attention.
Is it strictly an EDM competition or open format?
One open format competition, I did, I started off with the beginning of N Sync’s I Want You Back, then stopped it right before the beat hit. Played a vocal snippet from Blackstreet’s Don’t Leave (Stay) beginning where someone say’s “Way back, back into time.” Then started playing Jackson 5’s I Want You Back. Surprised the crowd and got them going after that.
Now if its strictly EDM. I’d say play a classic anthem that’s has a modern remix, but make sure there’s a part where it sounds original (that will hit hearts of the crowd).
I want to eventually create my own intros to use for DJ sets and live gigs, ala DJ Steve Lawler. One of the things that attracted me to his style of DJing was hearing his epic, deep and unique opening sequences which he crafted himself, it added a personal touch to his entire set. It creates the mood and lays the foundation for the rest of the set.
the crowd went mental… 
