I recently suggested in this column that the obligatory end-of-night Irish wedding disco was grossly overpriced, costing as it does about the same as a mid-range Ukrainian mail-order bride. This was part of a rant on the storm of rip-offs that forms a traditional wedding in this country – castles of pure marzipan, demeaning tuxedos on squirming pageboys, hundreds of leathery slices of ham, and so on.
Having lately provided a wedding disco as an unremunerated and highly amateur favour to my brother, however, I have to revise my opinion. Pass that humble pie, please, I shall eat it along with my words.
Here's what the DJ, that much-maligned individual we all love to hate, has to do for a typical wedding booking. First and foremost, he has to suffer the ridiculous professional appellation of "Disc Jockey", probably the most puerile job description in the world. The chauffeur gets a fancy French name – he isn't called a "Gearstick Groover". No-one refers to the photographer as the "Picture Popper". There's usually a priest, not a "Magic Man".
Anyway. Our friendless horseless jockey then has to transport his equipment to the venue, by van or trailer, and carry it in. We're talking maybe a tonne of stuff here, between bass and top speakers, amps and mixers, decks and disks, lights and controllers, stands and cables and possibly a plexiglass shield of the type used by police in strife-torn states.
All this gear has to be set up, discreetly and safely, in a room which is heaving with inebriated celebrants disporting themselves to the rockin' sounds of Syphilitic Simon and the Hairballs, or someone similar. The Hairballs will inevitably play late and finish suddenly, but the DJ has to be ready to blast off one second later. Then, for the first few tracks, he has to check the volume is right, the lights are working, and the cattleprod effect of his selected songs is correctly stimulating the crowd. As long as the Hairballs don't "accidentally" turn him off at the mains while they're removing their own kit, the rest is plain sailing though, right?
Wrong. There's still the age-old DJ's dilemma of what the hell to play. There will be drunks demanding Meat Loaf, and they will not appreciate being directed to the restaurant. There will be other drunks demanding Celine Dion, and if you're really unlucky, they may engage in a grapple either aggressive or amorous with Mr Loaf’s disciples, right on top of the flimsy fold-out table upon which several grand of audio electronics is placed. The best you can do is to please some of the people some of the time, and dodge the bottles thrown by the rest.
Remember all this, please, next time you're sneering at some Hawaiian-shirted mullet-head calling himself DJ Dave, just because he doesn't have I Am Kloot's second single in his flight case of cheesy 80s compilations. Consider instead that, while you're carousing in the residents' bar at 3am, he'll be humping his boxes back out to the car and catching hell from hotel management for playing four minutes over.
Man, this humble pie is disgusting. Got any cocktail sausages?