Played an opening DJ set for the very talented singer Shaan on 30th April, 2011 at Palace Grounds, Bangalore. Playing right before such a big artist does give you its jittery moments, when planning and performing. I too had mine.
Here are a few pointers which might help DJs in the future and also give an insight to my friends, as to what goes into such a performance.
1) Sound check well in advance and take a brief from the major artist before performing. Most artists have a few queries about the music you maybe opening for them.
2) Do not play tracks that belong to the artist performing. Leave them to the artist alone.
3) People have paid to watch the headlining act and not really you. Yes that is a fact and you have to accept it. Saying that, it only makes your job tougher.
4) Promote the artist headlining when playing your opening set, do not talk about yourself, instead build a hype around the major artist. This helps in relating to the crowd at that moment and yes they will tolerate you a few more minutes.
5) I am of the belief that any opening act should not be more than an hour. After this the crowd does get restless. I played for 45 minutes which was just perfect.
6) Yes you will have to try harder than the usual too woo the crowd. So prepare that monster set, without jeopardizing the bigger act.
7) Most mass events are very commercial in nature, especially the Bollywood ones, Thus do not play too dark/intense set. I personally like to keep it very simple and popular for such events.
8) Yes last but not least have a lot of fun on stage. And show the crowd how much you too are anticipating for the major artist to take over.
Hope the above pointers helped. I had
a great time and next looking forward to open for the hugely popular Mohit Chauhan in June!
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