The First Gig- an adventure that haunts my dreams

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
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The First Gig- an adventure that haunts my dreams

Hello everyone!

Its been a long time since I posted here, as I have a habit of forum lurking.

This post is going to get quite lengthy, but I feel deeply compelled to share my experience with the community.

Prolog:

I have been bedroom DJing for about 2-3 years now and have developed a deep love and appreciation for the art. I would love nothing more than to do it professionally. When I set out to learn something, I let it rule my free time- and thats what mixing has done.

The Story:

Finally, after months of promoting myself on my personal Facebook page, a friend of mine hit me up and asked me to play a “huge” house party he was throwing. I quickly agreed. I then asked him what type of vibe he was going for, to which he replied “EDM”. I showed him examples of the broad range of possibilities, as well as provided him with various demo mixes of mine so that he could give me a better idea of what he wanted. He decided that the best fit would be a mixture of Melbourne Bounce, Big Room House, and a little bit of Dubstep to slow things down. He really wanted this party to be high energy and unlike anything anyone had ever attended.

We set up a pretty sweet makeshift booth and things were looking great. I felt great, he felt great, everything was coming together. The night of the party finally rolled around and the first gig nerves had really set in. Hours before the doors opened, the charger for my macbook died. I then frantically searched our small town for a new one, eventually purchasing a charger from Staples for $80. I was only being paid $70 to DJ this party.

As guests started to arrive a car-full at a time, I instantly knew that we had made a grave mistake. These people were not going to like what I was going to play. The party goers ranged from scantily dressed “girl next door” German exchange students, to full on tobacco chewing, lifted truck driving cowboy types. There was no way in hell that I was going to please everyone there. The stress began.

12:30 rolled around and it was time to begin my 4 hour set. From the very first track I got looks of disgust and confusion. Time went by, dance floor empty, as I frantically searched for anything that I could drop to make these people dance. I had nothing. I was not prepared. I got so excited to play the music that I wanted to play- that the host wanted to hear- that I didn’t bring anything that would work for these people.

Angry comments from the party goers ranged from German girls asking if I had some obscure hip hop artist that I’m sure no one has ever heard of, to “Do you play anything besides electronic music?”. I was heart broken. Devastated. But there I was, stuck behind the decks for hours playing music that nobody wanted to hear. I had no other options because I had dug my own grave.

To top things off, some ‘super cool guys’ decided to smoke a bunch of weed in the garage I was playing in (its legal in Oregon now) which created a rather saturated environment, leading to a pretty bad “contact high”. It wasn’t even good stuff…

Moral of the story: Be ready. Listen to the never ending fountain of knowledge that is the internet and have a backup plan. I let my ego and my trust in the host get the best of me and it created one of the worst nights of my life.

Thanks for reading, and I hope that you can learn from my mistakes.

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Wow sorry to hear about you experience DJ’ing, Things can only get better. Was this your first time dj’ing I only assume that it was.

3

Ouch mate, feeling the cringe from here!

Your buzzword there was houseparty. Mixed bag of people, varying tastes etc. At least you’ll know next time. Have a headphone jack handy for the next time, or have a load of compilation albums of varying genres to wack on. Unless it’s your own friends who know what you play etc trying to force a style at a house party never works.

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I think the host shares a lot of the blame for this, he set you up to fail the way I read it. Not deliberately I’ll grant you, but that’s still the end result. So yeah, I echo the “ouch” above. But, you’re still alive and you learned from it and most DJ’s have cleared a dancefloor more than once anyway so don’t worry about it.

Oh, and there will be worse nights than this. There are always worse nights :wink:

5

Been there, done that. I feel for you mate, really do.

6

I appreciate the condolences, guys. It was really dissapointing because I love the music I played. I was so excited to share it with a crowd that I was assured would be into it. In hind sight, had I just made a folder of trap/twerk a lot of the girls would’ve been into it and that would’ve drawn a crowd. They say you learn more your first night than you ever will in a bedroom, so I guess it was a good experience and a lesson in preparedness.

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Don’t sweat it man, we’ve all been there. I agree with Stazbumpa, it sounds like your buddy unintentionally threw you under the bus. You were booked for EDM, you played EDM, and it wasn’t the crowd for it. For the vets here, that would be the point where we would normally switch over to something else and say to hell with the EDM theme, but with this being your first gig, I don’t fault you for it at all. Even when you do switch over, there’s no guarantee things get better. Some people are just super picky and don’t dance to anything except “their song,” and then leave. Sometimes it’s just a downright shitty crowd with bad vibes. Those nights are particularly difficult. It’s easy for us to sit back and coach from the armchair; but at the end of the night, you did the best you could with the knowledge you had and the resources at your disposal. That’s all anyone can ask of a DJ.

This is all just a part of learning the game, and it sounds like you took away a valuable lesson from it. I guarantee anyone who has been out of the bedroom for a year and has gigged semi-regularly has had this happen more than a few times. Just remember that this probably won’t be the last time either, despite your best efforts to prevent it. The difference between this time and the next time will simply be whether you recognize that you’ve been in this situation before, and have a backup plan to try and get out of it.

On a lighter note, I have learned to NEVER take requests from the “lifted truck crew.” Because they’re going to request country. And God help you if you play it, because all they’ll request afterwards is more f**king country :rage:

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^ This.

You were there and you did it. Despite the end result it’s still a big plus point, and you can diversify you music portfolio from this point on given what you’ve learned. You love the music you played that night, hence the massive disappointment that the crowd were not of the same mind, BUT I can guarantee you that within most genres there is a lot of music you will love.

Seek, and ye shall find :slight_smile:

9

Agree 100% - I would’ve turned the music off & packed up.

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DO YOU PLAY EDM! :laughing:

I always play my sound, if people don’t like it they can leave lol. In my opinion its the promoters job to find artists that play the appropriate stuff for their venue

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We’ve all had these experiences. You can’t make everyone happy all the time, especially in a crowd that ranges from edm to hip hop to country (sounds like a nightmare scenario). I carry my whole music library with me so I can adjust to the crowd (I don’t play country! lol). You never know who will be there, unless you’re playing in a venue that only plays one genre like an EDM club/party.
Chalk it up as a good learning experience and don’t be too hard on yourself. People in this type of crowd don’t really care about your mixing skills, they just want to hear top 40 stuff.

12

Like you said, you learned more from your first gig than you did 3 years in your bedroom. We have all been there. We have all had that “oh shit no one is dancing, no one is even bobbing their head, they are all talking about how much I suck, wtf do I do” moment. Now you know, always have a variety of music. I have done many a party where the host wanted some type of music played because they thought they were having the party of the century and they were going to set this vibe like no other party before them and because they are the 1 paying the bill you do what they say. Well when everyone starts commenting on how much this music sucks and the host comes to you in a panic to make a change, you better be prepared to make the change because in the end you are the 1 looking like the idiot DJ that played the shitty music. Always remember, they are not there for you, you are there for them.

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This happen when you play commercial music. People do not go to the party to listen to DJ sets proposed by the dj but to listen to what they already know. The problem is the environment in which you are going to play. If you played " underground" music basically this would not happen , because people go to the party to hear what the dj has to offer instead of pretending to hear music they already known . my advice is to abandon these contexts , start creating you your own identity with musical genres that really represent you and offer the public YOUR sounds . people have to recognize your sound when you are playing… playing "hit " this will never happen. Dijing is an art, and much more important, we are not hateful jukebox.