The accidental karaoke wedding

These days, whenever I head out to spin live, I take a digital recorder with me. Like the sessions I’ve been recording at home, these recordings give me a better sense of what’s working when I play live, and what could be better. The recording I’m listening to now, though, is a bit of a special case.

I did a wedding on Saturday, and it was one of the best weddings I’ve done in a long time. It had a great crowd, at a great venue, and a terrific playlist that really meshed with my usual library. We also had a couple of wireless mics on hand near the dance floor, and the point at which the crowd discovered them is the point at which the live recording gets interesting.

When a venue doesn’t have its own audio equipment, the couple turns to me to supply what they need. In this case, I rented a couple of wireless microphones for the ceremony, which took place right where the dance floor would soon be. We ran these mics through my mixer, so everything was coming out of the same speakers.

Sure, when one of the bride’s friends grabbed a microphone a few hours later and started singing along to “I Will Survive,” I could have just cut her volume. “But wait a minute,” I said. “Let’s see where this goes.”

Naturally, it took off from there. It didn’t take long for the night to become a full-on karaoke jam, and although it wasn’t part of the plan, people loved it. Hell, the bride led the charge for most of the night! I did cut the volume a few times, but only to the music during the choruses, and never to the singers who were belting them out a capella.

I’m only halfway through the recording at the time of this writing, which means I’ve got the two sloppiest and most tuneless hours left to go. Toward the end, there’s a mock-argument between me and the bride over “one more song” that I’m really looking forward to hearing.  Oh, and I guess I did a pretty good job with the music, too.

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