That one time I f**ked up and felt like a stupid d**k !

One of the worst experiences of my life as a DJ happened about 15 years ago. I was playing at a club in Durban, South Africa for an deep house event . It was a nice and intimate event whereby I was doing the opening set for an headliner . So the evening started out good , I got on the decks and started to drop some deep house jams then followed it up with some afro house jams . I could feel the crowd was ‘wanting more’ and started to take the tempo up a notch . I started to bring out some ‘big gun’ tunes and was killing the dancefloor , everyone was going mad . Hands were in the air , people were screaming and chanting and I was totally in love with the crowd.

I ended my set with Chris Lake’s ‘Changes’ which was the biggest tune at the time . Everyone went nuts when I dropped it . I was so happy with how my set went , and then the main DJ came to take over. It was legendary DJ & producer Brett Jackson (RIP). He was known for playing the best in deep house and would kill any dancefloor. As I left the DJ booth I heard Brett drop his opening track , which was Nick Holder’s ‘Time’ . I remember this exact moment so specifically. I was walking across the dancefloor to get to the bar to grab a drink and I heard him drop his opening track. And immediately I felt the mood of the crowd change. It changed to a crowd who wanted quality tracks , DEEP HOUSE tracks . Not the specific tracks that I was dropping . I felt this massive pit in my stomach and felt like such an complete an utter dickhead. I felt absolutely horrible at the complete fuckup I had done. I ruined the night for the clubbers and for Brett. I got so caught up with just playing tracks that would get the crowd to react that I completely forgot my responsibility as an opening DJ, to play a set to warm up the dancefloor. Not get people to shout and scream.

This was one of the biggest lessons I had ever learnt in music career and one I never wish to repeat. Every so often this memory will pop in my head and I will cringe at myself and how badly I felt that night. I have walked away from this very fortunate as this had happened very early on in my career and I could take this lesson and having learnt from it , never repeat it again . I also learnt that as an opening DJ , we have a big responsibility to the way the evening will flow. We can’t go out ‘guns blazing’ and play all the hits. At the same aspect we can’t go out and just drop deep house tracks so deep you’d want to fall asleep . It is our responsibility to play a set that gets the crowd ‘moving’ without spoiling the set for the headliner. We are opening acts , we are here to make the headliner look good without sacrificing the crowd or ourselves.

Take my mistake a lesson to you all that if you’re playing an opening set always bear in mind that your set is just as important as the set of an headliner , and in some cases even more .