My assistant and I were at the historic William Pacca House in Annapolis for this one. This is a nice venue but I think that only cocktail receptions with strings should be scheduled there because they have some serious sound restrictions.
My assistant and I arrived at about 2:30 PM for a 4:30 PM reception. Set up was rather routine and the folks from the caterer and venue were nice.
At around 4:00 PM we got the music for cocktails going with some Rat Pack. After the introductions we kept the Rat Pack rolling through dinner.
This reception was scheduled to stricktly end at 8:30 PM. We had to scrap some of the activities because the venue afforded a very beautiful garden and the bride and groom wanted many pictures there.
Once we got the dance portion going the area being used as a dance floor filled.
I had to make the balance between guests requests to turn it up and the venue's requests to turn it down. It was a difficult balance to make but we got there.
We had quite a few Navy folks there as the groom is in the navy. We also had many Top Gun fans and, of course, the mandatory "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" had to be played; I don't usually play that for weddings but this was an exception.
At 8:25 PM we had the farewell dance and I made the announcement requested by the venue designed to get people out; it didn't work.
Everybody had a great time.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
June 20, 2009 Wedding
We were performing at the historic Elkridge Furnace Inn.
My assiatant and I arrived 3:00 PM for a 6:00 PM wedding ceremony and reception. It had been raining off and on all day and the ceremony was scheduled to be outside at an overlook of the Patapsco River.
The rain finally let up and we were able to set up the ceremony gear and return to finishing the main set up.
Even though the groom had his leg in a cast and the bride was limping because she had cut her foot, all went well.
For the reception we kept the joint jumping when we hit the dance segment. The bride and groom had requested some Baltimore club and it had been a while since I had played BC and mixed it so I wasn't having a great deal of confidence but it did work. It was just supposed to be five minutes of BC but the crowd really was enjoying it so I kept it up for about twenty monutes.
My assiatant and I arrived 3:00 PM for a 6:00 PM wedding ceremony and reception. It had been raining off and on all day and the ceremony was scheduled to be outside at an overlook of the Patapsco River.
The rain finally let up and we were able to set up the ceremony gear and return to finishing the main set up.
Even though the groom had his leg in a cast and the bride was limping because she had cut her foot, all went well.
For the reception we kept the joint jumping when we hit the dance segment. The bride and groom had requested some Baltimore club and it had been a while since I had played BC and mixed it so I wasn't having a great deal of confidence but it did work. It was just supposed to be five minutes of BC but the crowd really was enjoying it so I kept it up for about twenty monutes.
June 6, 2009 Wedding
Wow, talk about being busy...
From the previous post you can see that my assistant and I were doing a Relay for Life from around 1:30 PM the day before till about 5 AM.
My assistant for this event and I arrived at 3:50. I was going on about three hours of sleep.
I was able to back the truck up almost to the table we set up on. We had the gear set up, generator running, and the system sound checked by 4:15. I downed a bottle of five hour energy, parked the truck, and changed clothes.
Guests started arriving at five and the bride and groom arrived at 5:30. We had intros at 5:45 and stayed ahead of the curve all night. It took awhile releasing the tables to the buffet because the caterer was doing on-site cooked pit beef and slicing to order. Nobody was in a hurry because all were enjoying the music I was playing and good food is worth waiting for. After dinner the bride and groom went to have sunset pictures taken and I started the first dance set with All Summer Long. The floor filled and the only thing that emptied it for the rest of the night was the other formalities and when we had to briefly shutdown so that a shorter extension could be hooked to the generator to take the load off.
We were done at 11 and loaded out by 11:30. I got home at midnight. At 1:00 AM I was finally able to drift off.
With this one I think I could do no wrong because that dance floor was full all night long.
From the previous post you can see that my assistant and I were doing a Relay for Life from around 1:30 PM the day before till about 5 AM.
My assistant for this event and I arrived at 3:50. I was going on about three hours of sleep.
I was able to back the truck up almost to the table we set up on. We had the gear set up, generator running, and the system sound checked by 4:15. I downed a bottle of five hour energy, parked the truck, and changed clothes.
Guests started arriving at five and the bride and groom arrived at 5:30. We had intros at 5:45 and stayed ahead of the curve all night. It took awhile releasing the tables to the buffet because the caterer was doing on-site cooked pit beef and slicing to order. Nobody was in a hurry because all were enjoying the music I was playing and good food is worth waiting for. After dinner the bride and groom went to have sunset pictures taken and I started the first dance set with All Summer Long. The floor filled and the only thing that emptied it for the rest of the night was the other formalities and when we had to briefly shutdown so that a shorter extension could be hooked to the generator to take the load off.
We were done at 11 and loaded out by 11:30. I got home at midnight. At 1:00 AM I was finally able to drift off.
With this one I think I could do no wrong because that dance floor was full all night long.
June 5, 2009 Relay For Life
I love helping people, especially victims of cancer. Here's how my day went:
June 5th was a very rainy day.
I was on site at 1:15 and my assistant arrived about 15 minutes later. It was still raining but that wasn't a problem as the stage had a canopy and was fairly dry. We were set up and ready to run by 2:30. We set up the speakers on stage, under the canopy, to keep them dry. We kept them on boxes because the stands were too high.
I started playing a set I call toe tappers. These are mostly upbeat songs that may be danceable. I had my rig set on autoplay and moved on to a Motown set with some funk thrown in for good measure. The funk had some folks dancing in the on again, off again rain.
At four I began announcing that we were taking requests at $1.00 per request (as opposed to $5.00 in previous years) and the requests rolled in at a steady pace that filled our play list all the way to the end (more about that soon). I did not keep track but I'd say the Relay made well over $200 on the requests alone.
Once the requests started rolling in it was just a matter of managing the play list.
At 6:30 we had opening ceremonies, the end of which was the Survivors Lap. During that we play songs that are generally upbeat and have a survivor theme while the names of those that have survived that are on the lap are announced. We also had a kids lap and used "This is how we roll" and "Witch Doctor" from the Chipmunks soundtrack.
After the opening ceremonies and lap we were back to managing the requests, making planned announcements, and making announcements about various activities as requested.
At 9:30 we had the luminary ceremony which consisted of a poem being read, a bag piper playing "Amazing Grace", and the lighting of the several hundred luminary candles around the track and in the stands. After that it was back to managing the play list and, finally, we were able to move the speakers to stands outside canopy as the weather had cleared sufficiently.
After we got the speakers outside we set up a video projector and screen and played a photo montage I had developed from photos gathered from previous Relays. The montage was a hit. We kept the video up till around midnight when misting made me concerned about the video gear. No harm to the projector was done.
At midnight we had a string of four guitar/vocalists that had their own amp and we played some songs from the request list as each artist got set up. It was an excellent set of folks.
After the last artist we went back to playing the requests we had and taking some more until 5:00 AM when we played "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere". Then it was a series of sun songs starting with "Here Comes The Sun" as the sun made its appearance.
At 5:30 AM we were informed by coordinator that the Howard County Police had been called for the third time and we were to shutdown. We did. Nobody told us about the other two times. The coordinator said all we were to do was turn it down when he told us but I indicated that if they have been called three times and got a fourth complaint they could confiscate our gear and I was not taking that chance as I have a wedding later on. We shut down and packed up. The interesting thing is that we had not touched the volume all night and we were playing at the same level we played at last year. My partner had verified that we could be heard at the end of the 1/4 mile track we were set up outside of but it was not that loud, and we could be heard through out the encampment but not outside of it. We did the same thing last year with no complaints and completed the Relay at 6:30 AM. Go figure.
I had to drop a projector screen off that one of my associates was borrowing on the way home. I was back home and in bed by 8 AM and awakened by wife coming back from dog sitting at 11:00 AM.
June 5th was a very rainy day.
I was on site at 1:15 and my assistant arrived about 15 minutes later. It was still raining but that wasn't a problem as the stage had a canopy and was fairly dry. We were set up and ready to run by 2:30. We set up the speakers on stage, under the canopy, to keep them dry. We kept them on boxes because the stands were too high.
I started playing a set I call toe tappers. These are mostly upbeat songs that may be danceable. I had my rig set on autoplay and moved on to a Motown set with some funk thrown in for good measure. The funk had some folks dancing in the on again, off again rain.
At four I began announcing that we were taking requests at $1.00 per request (as opposed to $5.00 in previous years) and the requests rolled in at a steady pace that filled our play list all the way to the end (more about that soon). I did not keep track but I'd say the Relay made well over $200 on the requests alone.
Once the requests started rolling in it was just a matter of managing the play list.
At 6:30 we had opening ceremonies, the end of which was the Survivors Lap. During that we play songs that are generally upbeat and have a survivor theme while the names of those that have survived that are on the lap are announced. We also had a kids lap and used "This is how we roll" and "Witch Doctor" from the Chipmunks soundtrack.
After the opening ceremonies and lap we were back to managing the requests, making planned announcements, and making announcements about various activities as requested.
At 9:30 we had the luminary ceremony which consisted of a poem being read, a bag piper playing "Amazing Grace", and the lighting of the several hundred luminary candles around the track and in the stands. After that it was back to managing the play list and, finally, we were able to move the speakers to stands outside canopy as the weather had cleared sufficiently.
After we got the speakers outside we set up a video projector and screen and played a photo montage I had developed from photos gathered from previous Relays. The montage was a hit. We kept the video up till around midnight when misting made me concerned about the video gear. No harm to the projector was done.
At midnight we had a string of four guitar/vocalists that had their own amp and we played some songs from the request list as each artist got set up. It was an excellent set of folks.
After the last artist we went back to playing the requests we had and taking some more until 5:00 AM when we played "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere". Then it was a series of sun songs starting with "Here Comes The Sun" as the sun made its appearance.
At 5:30 AM we were informed by coordinator that the Howard County Police had been called for the third time and we were to shutdown. We did. Nobody told us about the other two times. The coordinator said all we were to do was turn it down when he told us but I indicated that if they have been called three times and got a fourth complaint they could confiscate our gear and I was not taking that chance as I have a wedding later on. We shut down and packed up. The interesting thing is that we had not touched the volume all night and we were playing at the same level we played at last year. My partner had verified that we could be heard at the end of the 1/4 mile track we were set up outside of but it was not that loud, and we could be heard through out the encampment but not outside of it. We did the same thing last year with no complaints and completed the Relay at 6:30 AM. Go figure.
I had to drop a projector screen off that one of my associates was borrowing on the way home. I was back home and in bed by 8 AM and awakened by wife coming back from dog sitting at 11:00 AM.
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