Play Something We Can Dance To!

In my youth, I often marveled at the ability of couples who could still converse with each other, seemingly without effort, even though they had been married to each other for decades.  One would think that after all the many years together they would have exhausted all the topics of interest and be relegated to making general comments about the weather.  In much the same way, after over two decades of writing this article, it is difficult to image writing about a new topic of interest.  Yet, like couples who have been married for generations, life’s experiences present a rich array of topics worthy to share.  For example, the recent opportunity I had to DJ at a pork festival in a beautiful town with a population of less than a thousand people.

For many years, my wife has served as the manager of the business, taking the bookings and reserving the dates.  Typically, we cater to the bridal market, but are open for other events as well.  When she informed me that we had booked a two-day event for a town’s festival, and asked me which team member to assign to the event, I eagerly volunteered to DJ that one myself.  After all, I wanted a change from the norm of first dances and bouquet tosses.  Another reason to work this gig is that I could not remember actually DJing a town’s festival in my 34-year career.  

For wedding receptions, we meet with the couple to help them plan the flow of the events and ensure that all the music they want played is lined-up and available for their event.  The only preparation for this small town’s festival that I did was to locate the town on the map (it was about an hour from our house) and organize family-friendly music into a folder.  I assumed that this event would be like other small town festivals that I had attended.  That is, there would be lots of arts and crafts booths, a variety of eateries, and a mass of people enjoying the festive atmosphere despite constantly rubbing elbows with strangers as they made their way through the crowd.

My wife joined me for this particular event; assuming of course that she could visit the craft exhibits while I DJed the event.  According to our GPS, we were almost there, so we began to look for signs of the festival.  As we entered the town limits, we saw the only poster advertising the weekend’s event.  To our surprise though, it stated that the main attractions were barbeque, bluegrass music, and fun.  Except for the “fun”, the other two attractions were completely unexpected.  Less than a mile from where the poster was planted, we found the festival location.  The sight was in an open grassy area, the size of a baseball field, with a large gazebo that we assumed was the covering for the DJ.  

The first question that we asked as we were setting up was about the bluegrass music.  Perhaps we were hired to simply play between sets of live musicians who would be providing the bluegrass music.  Our client readily informed us that we were the only entertainment and that she wanted a mix of bluegrass, country, rock and roll, and soul music from the 60s.  Luckily, I still had plenty of bluegrass music from a previous gig with me and the rest of the requests could easily be found.  The list of music that I had prepared earlier would be inadequate to create the mood requested by the client for the pork festival.

One thing that did not come as a surprise was that I would be the master of ceremonies for the event and would make frequent announcements to keep everyone posted on the upcoming activities. There were numerous contests and other happenings that provided me with ample material to chat about on the microphone.  The main contest was the pork cook-off that started on Friday night, with the winner announced at the end of the event on Saturday.  Three local barbeque outfits were competing to be named the top cook.  We witnessed each team placing the whole hog on their oversized cookers.  Growing up on the farm, seeing the fresh, pink skin of the animal as it was hauled from the rear of the pickup truck, then unceremoniously tossed on top of the flames, did not bother me.  However, the scene made my wife turn her head and she requested that I inform her when the lid on the cooker was closed.

Another contest was the hog-calling showdown.  Eight contestants registered for this loud event. In hindsight, giving them the microphone was probably not needed. After all, in reality, my dad never used a microphone on our farm to call the pigs from the field for their evening slop. As fun as this event was to host, the hilarious part of this contest was when I announced at the end for the judges to come forward to proclaim the winner, and our client shouted out that she forgot to pick judges. We had to do it once again.  My wife, and a random lady standing next to her, became the impromptu judges on the second go-round as we asked for the audience to clap and cheer their favorite hog-caller.   If my wife needs to make a career change, “hog-calling judge” can now be added to her resume.  

This was one of the few gigs that I have ever performed that I did not have a clear expectation of the nature of the event.  One of the principles that I teach my business students at the university is to always have a plan.  The plan will usually have to be adjusted, but none-the-less, the chance of success is greater if you have a clear vision of the path you need to take.  Perhaps it was luck, or many years of experience, but even without a plan, this event was a success.  It was a different style of music for sure (see this issue’s list for the ordered playlist) and dancing was not the primary goal for selecting the tunes.  Unlike most events however, the strangest part of the entire show was that no one ever shouted, “Play Something We Can Dance To!”