Constitution Hill, Aberystwyth
On YouTube this video is called Gig Log,Constitution Hill Aberystwyth 19th April 2008
What this lesson teaches
A double night: dropping equipment at a university for a student event, a wedding at the top of a hill, and then back to the university until the small hours.
The shape of the night
Drop the hire kit at the students' union. Set up the wedding in a marquee. Play the wedding. Go back to the university and wait until it finishes - which, he is warned, may be six in the morning if it goes well.
His own comment on that: if it does run to six, by the time you have loaded out and got home you might as well make a coffee and start the next day.
Worth reading as a picture of what the money is for. The fee covers that, not four hours of playing records.
The deliberate contradiction
The teaching content, and he flags it himself: he has said elsewhere that you should not take an all-in-one twin CD and mixer unit to a professional gig - and tonight he has brought one, plus a single player.
So he has also brought a second all-in-one, as backup.
And he states the reasoning precisely: you can do gigs on a twin CD player, but if that one unit fails, the entire evening could be a complete mess - because the mixer is in it too.
That is the whole argument of the backup lessons in this stage, demonstrated rather than asserted. An all-in-one is a fine main rig provided there is another one in the van. Without it, you are one failure from going home.
The rig
Smoke machine, a light screen, two LED cans, 15-inch-and-horn cabinets, an effects laser, a radio microphone, and a 1000 watt amplifier.
Nothing enormous, which is consistent with the ego lesson earlier in this stage.
And the interview
The part of the gig log format worth noting: he finds another DJ at the event and simply asks him about himself.
A working 80s and 70s DJ for a chain of clubs and bars, whose best gig was an outside broadcast with a radio station in front of 35,000 people - top of my CV. And his honest position now: he does not do weddings because he does not own equipment, but would happily work if somebody supplied it.
Which is a real route into the trade, and one not covered elsewhere in the curriculum: there are good DJs with no rig, and mobile operators with a rig and more work than they can cover. Those two problems solve each other.
The format itself
He hands the camera over and asks the other DJ to deliver the sign-off. That is why these logs work - they are not a man demonstrating to an audience, they are a man at work talking to whoever is there.
Contents of the video
0:00 Another gig log for you, fancy van
Alright folks, another gig log for you, fancy van. Two things really tonight, one is I'm doing a wedding at the top of Constitution Hill in Aberystwyth and the other one is I'm doing an actual, well someone's going to hire some lasers off me, believe it or not. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to drop the lasers off in the college, the university in Aberystwyth Then I've got to go to the wedding function. Then when the wedding function finishes, got to go back to the college and hang around, well, until it finishes. It's sort of an old, I think it's an old school sort of rave night. So that should be quite fun as well. I think that finishes like two, three in the morning. So I shall pause the camera and we'll see what goes on shortly. All tight. Right then, I've just dropped the lasers off at the university.
I'm in the college, Students' Union, and apparently basically what they've said is that if it's a good night, it may go on until 6 o'clock in the morning. So it could be quite a late one for me tonight. It's one of those things where if it does go on until 6, once you've got the kit and then got home, you might as well make a cup of coffee and start a new day. So I'm on the way now to the top of Consti to set the gear up in the marquee. Thank you.
And it's raining. We're being watched. Alright folks, I'm here at the venue and there it is. It's a white marquee and down there is Aberystwyth. Now what I've actually done tonight not meaning to contradict myself because I actually did say this in a previous video you shouldn't do this but I've actually brought the all-in-one twin CD player and mixer from American Audio and I've brought Pioneer CDJ 400. Now you may think logically, well what happens if the mixer stops working? Well guess what? I brought another all-in-one just in case. The idea here is I suppose just to show you that you can do gigs with twin CD players but you've always got to bear in mind that potentially if something did go wrong with the twin CD player there is a very good chance that the complete evening could be an absolute cock-up.
2:30 I brought another twin CD player just in case, but theoretically nothi
So I brought another twin CD player just in case, but theoretically nothing should happen. So we'll have a look inside. Alright, what have we got? We've got the smoke machine, we've got the light screen, we've got two of the LED power cans, I've got the 15 and horn, the vortex speakers, I've got that laser, that's the 120, that's pretty wicked that one. I've got a radio mic. And amplification is this QLX Pro amp. It's a PA-1000, so we'll see what happens. DJ as well, so what do you do sir? Yeah, I'm a DJ, predominantly working 80s. I work for Reflex nightclubs and bars. Right. I do a bit of 70s and other stuff as well. Yep. But I will say that I've been here tonight, it's been a fantastic night, it's been very enjoyable. It's good fun, good fun. And hopefully, hopefully if you're watching this and you're doing DJ Tutor, you can do gigs like this one day very soon.
Hopefully, yeah. So tell us, you know, what's your best gig? What's the best gig you've ever worked at? My best gig, well, I used to work for radio stations first. Yeah. I worked for a radio station in the North West called Rock FM. Yeah. And I did that and I did an outside broadcast gig with a few celebrities, Spice Girls and Takeda and a few others. Cool, brilliant, cool. And there was 35,000 people there in 1860. Brilliant, excellent. And that's top of my CV. Alright, have you got a telephone number anyone can get hold of? Yeah, I've got a telephone number. I don't do weddings or anything like that purely because I don't have my own equipment, but if you're watching it and you're willing to supply the equipment for me, I'm more than pleased to do it. It's 07754 239 132.
Thank you very much. I've got a saying and it's practice and enjoy. Would you like to finish off with that? Practice and enjoy. Nice one!
This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.
This video is part of
Related videos
-
How to Get a Better Fee for Your Mobile DJ Services
He disclaims it as not financial advice and notes that everything depends on where you are. Taken as a checklist of what justifies a higher…
