Opening DJs, please don't hammer the crowd - Original Console Generation - Live Pa @ Spa Afterhours

My life has been a mixture of exact planning and deliberate chess moves, mixed with random life adventures that happen at the snap of the finger. Case in point, when Colorado's DJ and promoter Schmid E, who runs Wacky Shack Productions asked myself and Lex Luthor if we could do a live psy-trance and goa PA for an upcoming event, without hesitation we told him yes. Never mind the party was in one month and we didn't have any psy-trance tracks written ;) Or that every track we'd ever made to that point was electro bass. But the love of the psy-trance sound overcame. Enter many PBR and Stranahan's whiskey filled production nights, two long practice sessions and an hour long set of funky, sleek techy psy-trance was born. Being a live PA, we were the "headliners" of the party which was held in the old Moscow Underground night spot underneath one of the Denver business skyscrapers. At that time in 2007, it was the Spa Afterhours club. We were using a mixture of Ableton live, Propellerhead's Reason, two trigger fingers, a midi keyboard, an Access Virus A and Roland JP-8080 for the set. Despite a few technical glitches, the performance and the crowd were definitely happening, and we had a fantastic time. Except for the knucklehead DJs who opened for us. You know the type - the one's who are all about self, who don't care about other acts on the bill, and most importantly, who don't care about the flow of the night. As long as I've been mixing records, running crews and events, I've always been a firm believer that the overall goal was to have an event that flowed. From the opening DJ, to the headlining sets, to the closers. Tag me as a cheese-head, but those were the types of parties and events that stood out, that had that magical element of a proper "night". These guys cranked and amped full-blow hardcore 150% 160 BPM psy-trance from 10 PM to 12 PM, hammering the crowd. You could tell it was too early - people hadn't gotten into the groove yet, you could see some folks almost shrinking away at the intensity and volume. If a DJ's number one goal is to get the girls dancing, which gets the guys dancing, which gets the drinks sold, these cat's did not get the memo. Yet the less people danced, the more they cranked the volume and the faster their set got. In a sense, they almost did us a favor, because it was that much easier to bring people into our groove, because we did indeed have a groove. And damn did that crowd need a break from the onslaught. I might be getting a tad older and a bit crankier, but this is a lesson I wish all DJs would learn, especially the younger ones. Build for the crowd, for the time-slot and most importantly for the flow of the night. You're not doing anyone any favors, including yourself, by pulling a Paul Oakenfold. There's no 'I' in team, but there is definitely a 'U' in douchebag. Trust me. Special shouts to Matthew from Denvertronic, who came by and documented a bit of the live set on video.   City of Bass: blogging daily about the electro music scene.