10-07-10

Blues Union: Monster Mike Welch

DJ'd the band break for Mike Welch at Blues Union last night. I had so much fun dancing to the band - it's a completely different deal dancing to live music, especially when the band appreciates the dancers and you start getting interaction between them and the dance floor. I'll try to get some full set gigs soon (at the latest that will happen at Blues Muse!).

-Driving Wheel - Etta James
-Love Me Like a Man - Bonnie Raitt
-Ruby Mae - Snooky Pryor & Mel Brown
-In the Mississippi River - Mavis Staples
-Color-Blind Angel - Robin Rogers
-Red Mud - Chris Thomas King
-Another Man Done Gone - Irma Thomas

The set worked out pretty well, with just one snag. I think every DJ experiences a point in time 30 seconds into a song where they realize "shoot, this is not what the dance floor wants right now." And no matter how much you usually love that song, the next 2-3 minutes are torture, as you watch your dancers fumble through and you start hating every beat of that music. If this happens to you, it doesn't mean you're a bad DJ - you just made a mistake (though obviously the goal is to avoid these situations entirely). The trick is recovering. Look at your dancers and see if you can tell how they want to be dancing, even though the song is not letting them. More energy? Faster? More pulse? More traveling? Slower? Pick a song that will let them do that. And you'll have your dance floor back. It's all about paying attention and being perceptive.