Just a little let of of steam from recent gigs and I’m pretty sure that some others of you have this problem as well… the classic, Have you got that tune which goes ‘doo doo di daa’. or some incoherant lyrics, or the wrong name of the song…‘that shuffling song’ for LMFAO - Party rock anthem, or my personal favourite Rihanna ‘M & S’. I have tried many approaches to combatting this but am interested in how you guys either politely or impolitely deal with this
Most of us are hired to entertain the crowd…very few are big enough to draw a crowd that wants to hear whatever you feel like playing for music. I dont find requests annoying.. I think of them as a part of my job that I’m paid to do
playing off an ipod thats someone elses is dangerous… beat matching it in, then the quality, then if theres drop outs, and it make be illegal with like company name drops in…
give guests pen and paper, if they can write it down i do my best to play it-, also works asd a memory card for me as i got the same memory capacity as a goldfish
I usually go down the pen and paper route too, but if its a really bad one I just turn to them and say ‘sorry I’ve left my shit tunes at home’ some of the reactions are hilarious, although its always handy to have a wingman there standing guard
Most of the time I have a buddy that’s between me and the crowd, he takes the requests, makes up an excuse but always saying a yes (like “We’ll try to play it later! Thanks!”) we the songs fits, I play it. As someone said, I’m payed to entertain a crowd, and taking requests is part of it.
Sometimes it’s an awkward situation, as many times they don’t really know the songs name, nor the lyrics and start making some random noises, followed by “do you have it?” and “can you play it right away!?”… and sometines I just can’t hear them and just say “yes”… aahhaha
