After an absence of more than a year, KingBob returned to House of Blues last night to see if Service Industry Night is still as popular as it used to be. Well I can tell you that even though DJ Roger Sanchez was spinning over at Hard Rock Live and even though the Orlando Magic basketball team was competing downtown, that didn't keep HOB from being packed to the rafters too!
The regular Sunday Night disc jockey at HOB is DJ Sandy however on special occasions DJ Magic Mike will play. Last night was such an occasion. Magic Mike knows how to mash songs and he does most of it without the aid of a computer or pre-purchased mashups like we hear everywhere else. That was impressive. Also impressive was the first 45-minutes of mostly techno/dance music. Come 1am though he switched to a 100% hip-hop format which was popular with the crowd but disappointing to me. I understand DJ Sandy sticks with Dance music and only throws in some short Top 40 hip-hop verses from time-to-time.
The other real negative is something that has happened to me at HOB on a regular basis. They schedule concerts very close together such that the prior rock event did not get cleared by the 10:27pm opening time for SIN and thus the SIN crowd had to wait until 11pm to enter. Then, it took forever to get set up and the curtain did not open for Magic Mike until 12:15am! That really is unacceptable. Also, once the music went hip-hop, they had this annoying MC come onto the stage that kept yelling a lot of the lyrics in a fake Black accent even though he was White.
Update: Forgot to mention.....saw quite a few Mannequins, 8TRAX and Motion regulars out Sunday night!
Roger Sanchez was not playing sunday at Hardrock. It was canceled.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the update; I wondered about that. The HRL website still listed it as of Sunday afternoon.
ReplyDeleteyeah i checked HRL at 10:15pm and the doors was closed and ticket window was closed as well. Since I work at Citywalk. I had to see if he was playing or not.
ReplyDeleteok so now I understand why it wasn't techno all night...because it was not DJ Sandy. I have never experience the delay with getting into the club, although I usually show up around 11:15-11:30. I guess I'm just lucky I haven't experienced that wait. That really is not good if the music didn't even start until after midnight.
ReplyDeleteOf course there is no demand for this night life stuff, so naturally no one will care if it's late or doesn't open at all!
That's the interesting thing. Every Sunday night there are a thousand (or whatever the capacity) techno fans showing up at HOB. When I saw Tiesto at HRL last fall, another thousand fans. There is a demand for this kind of music that basically no one is meeting on Friday/Saturday nights. I'd sure like to know where all these people hang-out on those nights!
ReplyDeleteI have had similar disappointing experiences at SIN at HOB, that is, the late SIN start due to concert overtime. And yes, the first hour or so of techno is awesome, but when they start playing hip hop, I leave; it's not that I dislike hip hop but I can get my fill of hip hop at other venues; I go to SIN strictly for the techno. The best Sundays to go to SIN are the Sundays that do not have a concert prior to SIN; those are the nights they definitely start on time.
ReplyDeleteAll hip hop after the first hour? Surely you didn't forget about the almost 1/2 hour of Drum and Bass goodness mixed in around 1:45. If a DnB remix of Prodigy is hip hop, then I'm losing my mind.
ReplyDeleteI signed my tab and departed around 1:45am so I missed whatever you're referring to. Appreciate the information.
ReplyDeleteking bob post a photo of your self so when we see you at these techno events we can get your autograph, because your keeping pleasure island blog alive. Your awesome man.
ReplyDeleteWell thanks for the kind words. This Blog is all about keeping everyone informed about what is going on out there with PI. It's amazing how many people want the clubs reopened!
ReplyDeleteThere is actually a picture of me hanging out with some show girls in the 1/10/09 posting.
I know KingBob has been working towards renting out a club for a Mannequin's reunion for a while now. I was just thinking that maybe it would be easier and less expensive to rent out something like a big banquet room and hire a good DJ with his own sound system and hire some bartenders.
ReplyDeleteHi Ken! Your idea has always remained a possibility but it's a last resort. Most DJ companies do have their own equipment but it's usually of poor quality...relatively speaking...to what you find in a club. It's hard to beat the speaker system and lighting that you'd find already installed in a night club.
ReplyDeleteRecreating Mannequins is already impossible without the floor but to even have a chance at coming close, it's going to need to be in a club.