Great weekend.
Today you find Falko in a good mood. Why? Well, I had a super great weekend, that's why!
Slowly but surely I'm beginning to appreciate the things that Shanghai has to offer, and that definitely contributes to my great mood. But the best part of the weekend, by far, was my very successful DJ gig on Friday.
My roomate Dave decided a few weeks ago that every DJ gig he gets is a package deal with me - meaning we DJ together as a team (I really appreciate his generosity on this, especially since he already has many connections in the city). On Friday night, we were hired by a promoter to DJ a "Word Cup Party". We would DJ an hour, then a band would play, then we would DJ another hour. The venue would be Boom Boom Room. Dave didn't know much about the gig other than that - neither of us had heard of Boom Boom Room, there wasn't even a Word Cup game that night, so neither of us was sure what kind of World Cup Party this would be, and we also knew nothing of the band. But a gig is a gig, so off we went.
The venue turned out to be a place called "Bourbon Street", on the big ex-pat bar strip in town. The club is fairly big, dressed up as a New Orleans cabaret, with a dodgy reputation to boot. Apparently Bourbon Street was shut down a year ago for a few months because of rampant drug use and dealing. Not exactly classy sounding. But upon entering, I noted that the place was reasonably full - I would say almost a thousand people inside - and not _that_ bad. It had a theme park air to it - the decor reminded me of those two story western piano bars they shown in the movies, only there weren't any cowboys, nor was there a piano. Instead there was a dancefloor, a very big stage (2 stories high) and a loud band playing already on this stage. Unfortunately, the band had only attracted one dancer to the dancefloor, an older guy who was having a REALLY GREAT time (I capitalize because he was really really really excited, comically so). The crowd was almost entirely Chinese, with a very small scattering of rather slimy looking ex-pat men to colour things up.
Dave, unsure of how to start with a crowd like this, passed the honors of beginning the set to me. Halfway through my second track, _FOOM_ the dancefloor was full. It was incredible! 2 tracks filled the floor, which up until that point was completely devoid of people (the tracks were "Magic Number" by De La Soul and Herbert's remix of Louie Austen's "Hoping", for those who are interested). After 2 more tracks, Dave took over for a bit and the party was rocking. At that point, the promoter came up and asked us to play "more vocals" (despite the fact that we had a full dance floor) because the owner wanted that, so we did (scouring our music collection, because neither of us play tracks with lots of singing in them), but it didn't diminish the set nor the energy at all.
So after an hour, the band came back on and were clearly ecstatic to have a crowd in front of them. They played a very fun collection of cheesy pop tunes (all of them covers), getting the audience involved and singing along and all those things a good cover band does. By the end of their set, the people on the dance floor were hot, sweaty and exhausted. So, as a result, we lost a few when we came back on (they went to get drinks), but our last hour of DJing went almost as well as the first.
All in all, I was very happy with the evening. This is the first time I've DJ'd and had such positive crowd reaction. Playing together with Dave was fantastic, because alone either of us would have stressed and maybe not enjoyed ourselves as much. Together, we had fun with it and the pressure was off. We had fun and it reflected in our performance. Also, the owner, managers and promoter were extremely happy with us and asked us if we could play their next party.
So there you have it. I think I'll be doing a DJ gig about once every week or two, so hopefully this is how it will be most of the time: fun and fun and fun!
Time to go. Hope all is well with you all.
Today you find Falko in a good mood. Why? Well, I had a super great weekend, that's why!
Slowly but surely I'm beginning to appreciate the things that Shanghai has to offer, and that definitely contributes to my great mood. But the best part of the weekend, by far, was my very successful DJ gig on Friday.
My roomate Dave decided a few weeks ago that every DJ gig he gets is a package deal with me - meaning we DJ together as a team (I really appreciate his generosity on this, especially since he already has many connections in the city). On Friday night, we were hired by a promoter to DJ a "Word Cup Party". We would DJ an hour, then a band would play, then we would DJ another hour. The venue would be Boom Boom Room. Dave didn't know much about the gig other than that - neither of us had heard of Boom Boom Room, there wasn't even a Word Cup game that night, so neither of us was sure what kind of World Cup Party this would be, and we also knew nothing of the band. But a gig is a gig, so off we went.
The venue turned out to be a place called "Bourbon Street", on the big ex-pat bar strip in town. The club is fairly big, dressed up as a New Orleans cabaret, with a dodgy reputation to boot. Apparently Bourbon Street was shut down a year ago for a few months because of rampant drug use and dealing. Not exactly classy sounding. But upon entering, I noted that the place was reasonably full - I would say almost a thousand people inside - and not _that_ bad. It had a theme park air to it - the decor reminded me of those two story western piano bars they shown in the movies, only there weren't any cowboys, nor was there a piano. Instead there was a dancefloor, a very big stage (2 stories high) and a loud band playing already on this stage. Unfortunately, the band had only attracted one dancer to the dancefloor, an older guy who was having a REALLY GREAT time (I capitalize because he was really really really excited, comically so). The crowd was almost entirely Chinese, with a very small scattering of rather slimy looking ex-pat men to colour things up.
Dave, unsure of how to start with a crowd like this, passed the honors of beginning the set to me. Halfway through my second track, _FOOM_ the dancefloor was full. It was incredible! 2 tracks filled the floor, which up until that point was completely devoid of people (the tracks were "Magic Number" by De La Soul and Herbert's remix of Louie Austen's "Hoping", for those who are interested). After 2 more tracks, Dave took over for a bit and the party was rocking. At that point, the promoter came up and asked us to play "more vocals" (despite the fact that we had a full dance floor) because the owner wanted that, so we did (scouring our music collection, because neither of us play tracks with lots of singing in them), but it didn't diminish the set nor the energy at all.
So after an hour, the band came back on and were clearly ecstatic to have a crowd in front of them. They played a very fun collection of cheesy pop tunes (all of them covers), getting the audience involved and singing along and all those things a good cover band does. By the end of their set, the people on the dance floor were hot, sweaty and exhausted. So, as a result, we lost a few when we came back on (they went to get drinks), but our last hour of DJing went almost as well as the first.
All in all, I was very happy with the evening. This is the first time I've DJ'd and had such positive crowd reaction. Playing together with Dave was fantastic, because alone either of us would have stressed and maybe not enjoyed ourselves as much. Together, we had fun with it and the pressure was off. We had fun and it reflected in our performance. Also, the owner, managers and promoter were extremely happy with us and asked us if we could play their next party.
So there you have it. I think I'll be doing a DJ gig about once every week or two, so hopefully this is how it will be most of the time: fun and fun and fun!
Time to go. Hope all is well with you all.
posted by Falko at 3:44 PM
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