DiscoComplaint
Date: Thursday 28/12/2023 / Venue: Peak Edge Hotel / Room: The Walton / Times: 18:30 - 00:00 / Event Type: Wedding Reception: Susan Clayton & Bradley Moore.
[Cake] Cutting : [✔] At Last Etta James. First Dance: [✔] The Salmon Dance Chemical Brothers. Second Dance: [✔] Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) - DJ Beats C+C Music Factory Feat. Freedom Williams.
''Do Not Play Any motown or 60s ''
[✔] At Night Shakedown
[✔] Uptown Funk Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars (Had to be played as 2nd song after B&G's fish song because Bob demanded it).
[✔] Despacito (Pop Version) Luis Fonsi f./Daddy Yankee
[✔] On A Ragga Tip SL2
[✔] It's a Fine Day Opus III
[✔] I wanna dance with somebody Whitney Housten
[✔] Freestyler Bomfunk Mc#230;s
[✔] Sunchyme (Radio Edit) Dario G
[✔] Let's Dance David Bowie
[✔] Tom's Diner [Album Version] DNA Feat. Suzanne Vega
[✔] Spice Up Your Life Spice Girls
[✔] Everbody Wants To Rule The World Tears For Fears
[✔] Walk Like An Egyptian The Bangles
[✔] Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic (1981) The Police
[✔] Dancing Queen Abba
[✔] Staying Alive Bee Gees
[✔] White Wedding Billy Idol
[✔] Call On Me Eric Prydz
[✔] Smells Like A Teen Spirit Nirvana ''(Killed the dance floor)''.
[✔] Ice Ice baby Vanilla Ice
[✔] Informer Snow
[✔] Sexy And I Know It LMFAO
[✔] Old Town Road Lil Nas X - feat. (Billy Ray Cyrus)
[✔] Pump Up The Jam Technotronic Feat. Felly
[✔] Without Me Eminem
[✔] Just Like Heaven The Cure
[✔] Animal Nitrate Suede
[✔] ''Toxicity System of a down'' (Really? At a wedding? Fuck sake!).
[✔] Give it Away Red Hot Chilli Peppers
[✔] Shiny Happy People R.E.M
[✔] Sometimes [Erasure]
[✔] Rat In Mi Kitchen UB40.
[✔] King Of Wishful Thinking (Clean) (Single) Go West
[✔] Out Of Space The Prodigy
[✔] 9 till 5 Dolly Parton
[✔] Everywhere Fleetwood Mac
[✔] Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' Michael Jackson
[✔] Professional widow Tori Amos
[✔] Can't Get You Outta My Head Kylie.
[✔] Cars Gary Newman.
[✔] Eminen. (Requested by the kids).
[✔] Prodigy - Smack My Bitch Up (Requested early on, said I would play it but probably best to wait until kids had gone).
[✔] Can't Get Enough.
[✔] Don't Leave Me This Way.
[✔] System of a Down.
''(everyone had left by 11pm)''
I was not able to play the following nine songs from the list as everyone had left:
[ ] Galway Girl Ed Sheeran
[ ] Cosmic Girl Jamiroquai
[ ] Love Will Tear Us Apart Joy Division
[ ] Confessions on a Dancefloor- Hung Up Madonna
[ ] Heaven Niall Horan
[ ] Sussudio Phil Collins
[ ] Hey Boy Hey Girl Chemical Brothers
[ ] Merry christmas everyone Shakin Stevens
[ ] (I've Had) The Time Of My Life Bill Medley And Jennifer Warne.
I arrived 5:15, I could see about 10 people inside as I was unloading and remember thinking to myself "I hope tha'ts noth party" but sure enough it was! Looked like they had just been sat in same room all day before I arrived (everyone fed up).
Went inside and asked the staff if I could bring the gear in as it didn't look like they were going to clear the room. They all sat and stared at me like they had never seen a disco before (asking for requests before I'd even plugged anything in).
The groom briefly came over telling me he knew I was only asked to DJ it last minute and asked if I had got their track list etc.
One bloke asked me how long I would be before starting and I had to tell him it usually takes about an hour to load the gear in and get set up, but was doing it as fast as I could. He told me how he was married to the brides sister and was a builder etc. I didn't have time chat as was busy getting the gear in and setting up. He asked if I was the resident DJ, I said no it was all a bit of a last minute thing - that then somehow turned into you telling me they had said If I hadn't shown up they wouldn't have had a DJ?
One bloke (again kept telling me he was married to the brides sister like it made him extra important or something) pestered me all night long - looking at my laptop asking "what songs have you got" etc. He wanted to be up dancing from the start demanding Uptown funk. I said we are just about to do the bride and grooms 1st dance, so don't worry will get you dancing soon. Then he proceeded to go around telling people not to dance becase bride & groom had not yet done their 1st dance. I was pestered for "System of a Down" loads.
I did play a "DJ beats" or similar edit of 9 to 5 (Nothing way too different from the origianls though), and got a complaint from Bob the builder that they didn't like it and the B&G wanted the original version. I said no problem, we have 4 & half hours left, Im sure I can fit it in later on.
I had not been told I had to play EVERY track from the requsts list (could have done if I had known they were going to leave early). Never ever before have they said only to play original versions of songs and not to mix anything being told this after the event wasn't much good!
Bob was back again after every song asking what was on next, wanting to look at what was on my laptop screen (I was close to asking him if he wanted to do the DJing himself as he was really pissing me off but refrained from saying anything, just put on whatever he was requesting.
At about 10:30 only Bob and his wife were still in the room, he kept asking what time I was there until. I told him 12 and he said looks everyones gone, what can you play before 11pm. He then kept saying how much he had paid for the hotel room and wasn't happy as the party was a flop and whinged that it was in the middle of knowhere and no where else to go (Even the bar staff were telling him Chesterfield town wasn't far and stuff would be open).
At the end of the night (first time I had spoken to the bride and groom), they came and said how good a day / night they had (Tim was next to me) and they left around 11pm. So find it very odd that they never said anything other than compliments to myself and Tim on the night.
All they needed was a CD player and not a DJ / disco (The house music system would have been good enough for them). No atmosphere, no party vibe. Proper shit night. ''They were a bit odd!'' (The funny bit for me is that I actually deleted the 1st dance song from my hard drive only a few days before as one of the obscure songs I thought I would never play so had to re-download it).
I've been doing this job over 25 years and this was one of the weirdest nights I've ever had.
If they want to complain, they need to speak to Bob the builder! I've had these types of people before and know how to handle them, but he obviously wasn't having a good time and moaned to the bride and groom to make them think no one else was having a good time etc.....
Virtual DJ History from the night: http://www.virtualdj.com/user/DjGazUK/playlists/1703787178/index.html (If you want I can get it off my laptop and it states the exact time and the length of time each track was played for etc)
If you can't tell this has pissed me off a bit, I've not had many complaints over the years but think their comments are a bit weird. I don't have 100's of reviews plastered all over my website / photo's on facebook every day like some DJ's do as I feel my work speaks for itself and the moment of everyone in the room singing along / dancing is enough and memories made will last forever.