NYE, Moment Of Truth

[EdBray 0]

My NYE gig last night was a nightmare.

 

To set the scene, my instructions were as follows: set up by 8pm, background music from 9pm, disco to start at 10 with completion 2am at the earliest, with an option to continue if required.

 

Got to the venue at 7pm, was fully set up and sound checked by 8pm and sat down to await my fate.

 

At 8.30 I had a stomach cramp, and went to the toilet, from there on it was downhill all the way. I had the squits, and by about 9.15pm had the most violent urging culminating in my being extremely sick, this continued throughout the night with the symptoms getting increasingly worse. Well, I have to confess, although it was a great night as far as the punters were concerned from about 11pm I was just wishing the time away. As I was having to be away from the disco for longish periods (sometimes in excess of 10 minutes) I informed the management of my dilemma early on, and to be fair they were very understanding, especially after I told them I would continue to do the gig..

 

The gig was a success and I was really pleased when it got to just before 2am, as I thought I would be able to pack up and get to my bed, where I am still at this moment, but, the owners daughter came up and requested I do another half an hour. I did, but this was almost the straw that broke the camels back. By this time I was having hot and cold flushes and the stomach cramps were getting a lot worse as there was nothing left to bring up. I had been on water only all night.

 

So what did I learn from this. Well I got through it and survived, the punters were pretty much unaware anything was wrong and if I ad been a CD DJ I would have struggled to complete the gig. As I was able to keep about half an hours tracks in the to play queue to give me some breathing (chucking up) space.

 

Took me an hour and a quarter to pack up as I had absolutely no energy left (normally takes about 45 minutes) and I got home at 4am. Went straight to bed, and am still there now.

 

Anyone want a ticket for Argyle today.

[lateandlive 0]

Have to say, being 100% truthful, after some of the gigs last year with nobody dancing, I wasn't holding out alot of hope for last night, but how wrong could I be!

 

Genuinely the best gig we've done! Dance floor rammed all night, literally, not a single song without at least 15 people up. Last 15 minutes before midnight the entire room was on its feet.

 

Playlists are useless, we played such a varied selection it's untrue! Set up looked good, and even though we were in a school drama theatre, the way they had laid the room out made for a fairly small dance floor, so with the amount of people it was more like a club - didn't finish until 2am either!

 

People couldn't thank us enough after, and they've already rebooked us for next year, with not a single business card left out on the tables!

 

Gotta love new year! How were your gigs guys?

 

All the best for 2007!

Dan

[Steve_Mitchell 0]

Well done Dan.

[UKHero 0]

Congratulations and a happy new year to you... Now onwards and upwards

 

 

 

Nik

 

[djchrisyork 0]

How was your New Years Eve??

Mine was fab, up unto 4 Minutes to Midnight!!!

My Bongs were loaded and ready, Auld Lang Syne was loaded up on the Karaoke player, House pf Pain, Jump around had the place ...well....jumping....and then..!

 

All I saw was a marauding mass moving towards my decks, my laptop, my cd's and My Mrs!.....the latter could fend for herself!

 

The 2 Local 'Hard men'...as I learned later!...decided to square up to one and other, and knocked one and other's hand bags!! ..and that was it, chaos ensued!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

As the pub, was on the outskirts of York, they decided not to use doorstaff, the landlord, all 8stone of him, tried his best, and the bar staff jumped in, but the mass was still heading my way!!!

 

They tried their best to push one of them out, but it was not happening! In the end, I shrugged my jacket off, jumped over the other side of the decks, and managed to get the local 'hard man' in a thumb lock! ...I didn't realise they sqealed so loud! He was too embarrassed to come back in, he made such a fool of himself, even above the 2.5K of house of pain, you could hear him squealing in agony!!!!!

 

I managed to kill the music, tell everyone to give it a ****ing rest, it's new year, count down the last 10secs of 2006, and start 2007 with a bang!

 

...would you believe, the song i had lined up for after Auld Lang Syne was....>Carl Douglas, Kung Fu Fighting!!!!!!!

 

Just glad to be sat in the lounge, with a well deserved coffee, and a snoring boxer puppy, thinking of how bad it could have gone!

 

Welcome 2007, please don't give me any repeat's of that, this year.

 

And they wonder why we charge more for NYE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Can't wait to hear your stories!

 

Chris

[AJS Mobile Disco 0]

I too had a great night. Lots of dancing really wide range of music starting with swing while they were eating diner then I tried something a little different, a request session while they were eating. This gave them the chance to choose the music and not necessarly dance to it and it gave me an idea what sort of music they liked this went down very well.

 

Elaine Paige and Barbars Dixon is not known as a great dance track but it was a couples fav tune and it made their evening.

 

Many favourable comments both to myself and also the hotel owner.

 

Still smiling

 

Happy New Year Anne

[stoke53 0]

I had a great night mostly younger crowd looks like i may be back next year

 

alan

[alicat 0]

Storming night. Started off slow though which worried me a bit even though the toe tappers and finger dancers were evident all around the room.

 

Fears alaid. Seemed like everyone in the room got up to Fedde Le Grande. Shame I had to interrupt a dance set with the bells at 12! (well not quite)

 

Great night made even better by the fact that the club down the road had a band but 30-40 people left that to come to my gig !!!

 

[The Ogrady Roadshow 0]

so how did it go for everyone. had a good night we did at a local venue 300 people free bar :dan: , top crowd!! had a duete on as well playing two 45min sets they were mint aswell.

what song did you kick of 2007 with i used "dont feel like dancing" see it was a mixed aged audience so this went down well..

 

So how was yours?? :Thumbup:

[UKHero 0]

Yes had a great night was on with band (Alter Ego) they were very good and pleased the audience with a good set...

 

The crowed was an older age group and I kicked off with does your mother know by Abba as this was requested... The band were on first so followed nice of the back of there first set...

 

Was on till 1 am so not to late packed up by 2 am home by 2.30 and in bed by 3...

 

Nik

[Kingy 0]

I had a 3' wide chandallier fall from the roof of the marquee. It landed 6" behind a womans chair, fortunatley missing her. Nothing to do with me, but I ended up having to disconnect it from the mains for the manager as he didn't have a clue what to do.

 

Other than that a pleasant enough night with 400 guests.

[wizard 0]

I had 200 caravanners to entertain in a local school.

 

What a great crowd.....dancing non stop from 7.30 til 1am..... I had prepared a quiz to break the night up a bit..... that went out the window, wasnt going to kick them off the dance floor.

 

First play after Auld Lang syne was quo - rocking all over the world, to see 200 50 somethings jumping up and down to that was quite a sight :mikee:

 

only downside was a puncture in van :damn:

 

upside. got 2 bookings from it including next NYE

[Welsh Audio Man 21 0]

Mine went pretty well considering we played music for 12 hours solid and never had an empty dancefloor. Finally played last dance at 4am. Im glad i had my mate DJ'ing with me, especially for the last 2 hours, as i spent those on the dancefloor. Somehow i managed to get pulled by 5 different women, one being the very attractive landlady (suprising how a bit of harmless flirting, dancing and kissing bought me and my mate free drinks, food and cigarettes all night! :Thumbup: ) jealous yet lads? tongue out icon

 

P.S. Was club music all night, right bunch of clubbers!

[music box 0]

Had a great night last night.

 

Apart from 2 floor killers but guests singing there hearts out to them a great night.

 

Loads of cards out and a great applause at the end and one more one more etc. should have finished at 1am turned the rig off at 1-35 with still more shouts and offers etc. home at 3-30 ish.

 

Thanks to all for the texts etc we could not get a proper signal and a bit busy at the time lol.

 

First tune happy new year Abba as they where still kissing etc. then into Music mann for the kids to my surprise the adults all did it as well. Then into 500 miles some, Madness etc.

 

Hope you had a good un and good luck to all for 2007 hope it's a busu one.

 

Pete an Ali Music Box

 

 

[Paul Smith 0]

We seemed to have three topics running about NYE so I've lumped them all together under the one that was started 1st.

[jamminroadshow 0]

We had a great night loads of people danced and we had the guy that got to the semi finals in the darts there so that was good Andy the Hammer.

 

People are happer at NYE than Christmas partys maybe because they see it as a new start

[Neon9 0]

started of very slow not as full as i hoped for seems the rest of the town was quiet too

getting up to midnight and im all cued for Europe - the final countdown, has to go on at 11:55 ,2 secs no matter what is playing

so on it goes and the volume comes down from b deck put on my 12 chimes, which ive worked out that on the last 11 secs from final countdown the last chime will be midnight

id rehearsed this at home so many times, last 11 secs bells go on, and whats this silence oh no :damn: my greatest fear realised, at the time couldnt work out why b deck dosnt work,

someone quickly switches the tv on Phew turns out they always switch tv on anyway so no one new id made a mistake

auld lang syne all cued up and works a treat dance floor is buzzing cant move

on with new york new york and now ive got them all dance floor remains packed till 3am shattering night had loads of fun and laughs and funny thing is i got paid for doing something id done for free what a cool job we all have :toot:

 

Happy new year all :cheers:

[Eskie 0]

I had a 3' wide chandallier fall from the roof of the marquee...

...so that explains why it was quiet in Peckham last night

 

[jeffwall 0]

Good one for me too....Diane Shaw the motown / soul singer was booked along with myself as supporting DJ

 

West tower country club motown and soul evening....Diane shaw must be easily the best performance i have ever seen whilst gigging about with bands etc. She was brilliant. Just her singing and a lad doing the backing tracks and light show etc. She had them all up dancing all night long.

I took over at 11.15 to 1am, played the requested motown stuff and then the party stuff as you do!

 

Not many people there 70 in total, but in a smallish room sitting at tables, was enough and filled the space nicely. Made my own little mix before i went.....big ben into langs eye into he's a jolly good fellow into dance the night away....was very good.

top hotel....top money...top singer....not bad night in all! and only 2 hrs work!!

[Leonna 0]

NYE for me started off a bit of a mare and ended the same.

 

Went to start the music around 10.30 as most people were finished eating. The DJ booth was in a bit of caos with the headphones not working (sorted problem), the microphone had dissapeared :fear: , bit crucial for NYE, luckily I had taken another one with me as the one there was mine, CD's not where they normally are. Anyway got the music up and running, marked all the quizes and sorted through the request slips.

 

Dancefloor boggying away then the balloons in the net start to get lower and lower with still about 20 mins to go before they were released, people dancing with their hands in the air to keep the ballons off their head. Luckily everyone just laughed about it.

 

12 Came and went did the usual Auld Lang Syne and carried on, then the manager said can I go on longer til 1.30 so I did wasn't too keen on doing it as I had my kids with me. My youngest (7) came and sat with me for the last half hour and helped out pressing buttons etc which was nice. The dancefloor remained busy all night which was good and you don't mind doing extra if people are enjoying themselves.

 

During the night several people asked me to ask people to give a toast to Sonny (previous owner who has not been well) so I said I would do something at the end. I wanted to check with the manager how his progress had been so I didn't make say anything wrong but didn't get much out off him. So at then end of the night I said that as many of you will know Sonny hasn't been well and can we raise our glasses an wish him and his family a better 2007. That done one of the punters came up and said, that he thought Sonny had died, great, no one tells me anything! so I then found one of the waitress and checked with her and she said he had passed away on Boxing day. So then I had to make another announcement saying Sorrybut no one had told me yet and Sonny passed away on Boxing day and will begreatly missed. How embarrassing!

 

It was sad to hear about his passing and the place will not be the same without him. :sad:

 

 

Friends and I got home around 2 and stayed up til 5 doing a bit of Karaoke and Buzz music Quiz (which I won, unfair advantage for me really being a DJ)

 

[Dave80s 0]

I had a great night apart from some idiot crashing into the equipment on his way out of the venue, and killing the power at about 12.15am.

Must have been off for only a minute but it felt longer!

I traced the fault and started the song again (Whitney - Dance With Somebody) to a big cheer, and a few wisecracks on the mic later, all was well.

End of the night got quite a few people saying they had a great time.

 

The chap who bashed into the equipment was one of those people who can't wait to leave after 12am on NYE (I have even done it myself in past years!). He was the sort of person who stays just for the 'bongs' and then leaves.

Edited January 2, 2007 by Dave80s

[Eskie 0]

...He was the sort of person who stays just for the 'bongs' and then leaves.

Oh! it was one of THOSE types of venue! ... no wonder he bumped into the equipment on the way out :pizza: tongue out icon

[MicMac 0]

Hi all... :djuhi:

 

I had a fantastic night....with a couple of hiccups....

 

Set up and left Pub at about 7pm to get a shower (Starting at 8). There was only myself, my brother, and our friend in pub as I left, however when I returned 20 mins later the pub was packed solid...It was like turning over two pages of a book...lol

 

During the evening I was given a karaoke request, however (Despite all being set up beforehand), the words failed to come up on screen. Whilst trying to sort it I accidently switched the whole rig off :aa , and there was an embarassing 30 seconds whilst it all came back on line. (To be fair I was greatful after the event, as I felt Karaoke would have disadvantaged the night.

 

I brought along a radio for the Chimes, however this did not work, so decided to rig Managers sterio up to his amp. spoke to him about 11:50 to be told the sterio was not working, so we would go off the TV, that I could not see. Bloke who could see TV helped me out by announcing "49 seconds to go". I mean who can accuratly count down 49 seconds :shrug: . Well I basically guessed and started the 10 second countdown when I felt it was right....Played party Auld Lang Syne, then played an original Bagpipe version of it....."for the Scottish punter who had asked for it" (Which was me....), however a Scottish bloke came up to me at about 1am and complimented me as he was missing home...., and everyone loved it. Pub stayed packed all night. :bouncy:

 

Finished at 2am