Memorable On-Stage Moments
Let’s be honest, we all really miss live gigs. Whether you’re an artist or a fan, something we cherish in our social lives has been taken away (for now) and will hopefully be back (very soon).
With that in mind, we thought it would be fun to reach out to some of our Serato artists and ask them about the good, the bad
We posed this question to them:
“What sticks out to you as the most iconic moment in your career you’ve had on stage? It can be for better or worse, funny or breathtaking. What will you still remember in your rocking chair in 50 years’ time?”
This is what they said.
Miss Milan
I would have to say performing at the 2019 BET Awards for the pre-show. Coming from that era of watching the BET red carpet & awards ceremony, it was always a dream of mine to one day touch the stage.
I got the opportunity to perform at the pre-show with Saweetie. One of the tech people unplugged my usb cord by accident, which froze my laptop. So with literally less than two minutes till show time I had to reset everything! The producers were counting down from five and I needed at least ten seconds to get my laptop up and running with my Serato. God was really on my side because as we got down to the final second and the host announced Saweetie, which was my exact que to start the music, it started running. No one knows that story because professionalism & patience under extreme pressure \was the thing that kept me together. No one really knows the “behind the scenes” things that happen to us DJs especially when it comes to technical things, because anything wrong can happen. But, a dream came true and to achieve that moment I will have forever consider it iconic because I truly earned it!
What I’ll still remember in my rocking chair 50 years from now will be the impact that the DJ culture had on the world during the 2020 pandemic, and how much music truly brought us all together as it always does. The creativity, the streams, the music that had emerged from such tragic times is something that I will always remember – it’s the one thing that kept us happy for the moment. It helped me to realize how much more I love being a DJ & a musical healer to the world.
Kevin Crown
On April 20 2010 I was stabbed in the arm. As a result my radial nerve was severed which left me partially disabled until the nerve grew back. Two weeks after my surgery I had to DJ a 3 hour set at my weekly spot in NYC. I got a mic stand and a bunch of painkillers and turned up, playing music with one hand for about 300-400 people.
Even though my pain killers wore off, I didn’t feel it because my adrenaline was pumping so hard. When I finished the promoter walked over to me and said “you did it.“ I cried my eyes out and I made up my mind that if I could do it with one hand, nothing would ever stop me.
Eskei83
In 2018, I was booked to play at a venue called Kaminwerk in Memmingen, Germany. It’s a pretty big room, around 1000 person capacity and it was packed. The whole vibe of the show was a big concert/festival spec with a full lightshow and the DJs playing big energy sets. I did my thing, playing bass music as people expect when they book Eskei83 for a show. I spotted this girl in the front who didn’t seem very happy with the kind of music I was playing or how her night was going. So unhappy in fact, that she made the effort of climbing over the barrier and onto the stage, right up to the booth to tell me that the music I was playing sucked and to play something that she would like/she thought would be good to dance to. Like many DJs would be, I was over the moon to receive her feedback. Just kidding, it’s nothing short of really annoying.
I tried telling her to leave the stage, explaining that I was here to play the set I was booked for, and most importantly, everyone bar her seemed to be really into it. She told me that all she wanted to hear was Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’. I tried telling her this really wasn’t the right time or place, plus I didn’t even have it in my crate so I couldn’t even if I wanted to.
She wouldn’t let it go. She refused to leave the stage and kept berating me even though I’d explained that I wasn’t going to play it. The security wasn’t a huge help either so I had to take matters into my own hands. After politely telling her many times over to leave the stage, I stopped the music. I grabbed the mic and said in German “we have a guest on stage, and she asked me to play the German Schlager (German Folk Music) song Atemlos by Helene Fischer! She said you guys all would want to hear this?”
Obviously this was a joke, I put her on blast to prove a point after she’d been so annoying. She was so angry, and ended up pulling the finger at me which is how we ended up with this magical photo! It’s funny to think about now, and for better or worse, it’s something I’ll definitely remember.