A massive gig for me this weekend, perhaps my biggest of my career. Don't get me wrong, I have played at various iconic venues around London and by all means, yes, they were big gigs and even stepping stones to other ventures, but for me, this one feels like the behemoth; the gig I have been working towards for 3 years since signing on as Dark Matter Resident DJ.
The gig is 3 days away, and I am a mix of emotions rumbling around my stomach, the butterflies are wearing Doc Marten's and they're doing the Rumba.
The usual feeling of 'oh frips, what am I going to play?', despite knowing how to play a 90 minutes Techno set, its been 18 months since a Dark Matter party so I have a year and a half of highlights to pull out the bag with no waffle. I have always gone against planning sets because one of the fundamentals of DJing is being able to read the crowd and craft the musical journey depending how they are reacting to current output. However, in this case, for this gig, I am in the Main Room, deep withing the cavernous belly of Union in Vauxhall and I am playing the set before the headliner. This gives me a safety curtain, well, presumably, as (hopefully) much of the audience will be there to see my dear friend and talented Techno DJ and producer, Marie Vaunt, which could mean whatever trash I play, THEY (the crowd) could put up with it, knowing Marie is moments away.
But, of course, this is extremely presumptuous and downright unforgivable; I will be issuing myself a good kicking for behaving like that, but what it does mean is that I'll have new eyes and ears to perform my very best, in the bid to gain more followers and fans.
One is hoping that tickets have sold, naturally. The promoters of the night keep that data close to their chests, however, they have stopped complaining about the lack of initial sales so that could only be a good thing. Promotion for the party has been far and wide, because quite frankly, in my own opinion, this is Dark Matter's BIGGEST party to date. And it has been quite a happy coincidence that LA-based Marie was this side of the water already in time for this party. We HAD to have her play, because I don't think the night has the budget to fly her from LA, Germany on the other hand is practically local.
Please excuse my thought processes, I am following the curvature of my brain and it's tangents and I felt the need to blog, to purge these thoughts and worries onto something semi-physical; this blog, so that I can 'free up' the brain-space these thoughts were taking for performance and track selection.
THERE ARE SO MANY TRACKS I WANT TO PLAY! But will it be the right environment to play them? Will the crowd be 'there' in both physical and psychological state for these tracks not to fall completely flat on their face?
I'll make a folder on my usb stick of all the tracks I want to play. The last couple of times I've made a set list, I have shy'd away from it because it isn't correlating with the crowd.
Being a DJ requires a level of psychology and psychoanalysis of people, as both individuals and as a 'unit'. It is when the 'unit' are all synchronized, experiencing the same moment at the same psychological level then harmony and euphoria can be established.
God, I hope it is busy, I want it to be a truly memorable night for the crowd, the promoters and of course Marie; name and reputation kinda ride on this party as well. Perhaps that is what the feeling in my stomach is, its a feeling I've rarely had but I think this is not just a gig, any old random gig, this gig can be pivotal to my Djing career and journey.
By the way, completely sober before you think I am off on some kinda-'expanded mind' illusion of grandeur, drinking orange juice and lemonade, I just really care about this gig, the BIGGEST gig in my career and I want to be completely mentally prepared for it.
That said, I will probably play some tracks by T78 and make this face (below);
I will let you know how it goes!
James x
