My First Ceroc Freestyle DJ Gig
Published: 11th November 2023
Recently my local Ceroc franchise (Ceroc Yorkshire) expanded to include new venues and to add more freestyle nights. As a result they started looking for new DJs. I expressed an interest in learning how to DJ, but I wasn’t comfortable committing to a regular weekly slot. The reason being that I have a demanding regular job and didn’t want to turn my hobby into a second job.
My first freestyle night as a DJ was a 70s theme night at my regular venue (Ceroc Yorkshire at the Tadcaster Riley-Smith Hall). To date I had DJ’d for two Ceroc class nights at the Ceroc Yorkshire St. Chads venue, but a class night is very different to a freestyle. To prepare for this I dropped into CEX in Leeds and started looking for pre-loved 70s compilation CDs, Caroline managed to find 2 such 1 disk compilations for me, both priced at £1 each. We then dropped by HMV and took advantage of their deals on compilation albums and picked up another 3 disk 70s compilation and a mixed pop 3 disk compilation. It took a long time to add all this music to iTunes and then to listen to every track to assess them for whether they would be dancable. Still feeling like I had some gaps, I started looking through our own previously purchased albums and added those to iTunes as well. Finally I cherry picked some songs I know I like to dance to and purchased them directly from iTunes. As a result I was able to add a lot of tracks to my Ceroc playlists.
As the big night loomed, I was playing all of my candidate tracks repeatidly. I had one play list set up as a “testing” playlist and would only move tracks from this playlist into a Ceroc playlist if I felt they were good enough to dance to. In some cases I had to adjust some songs, in certain cases the intro or outro of a track was undanceable and I used a tool called Audacity to trim those down.
On The Night
At the beginning of the night I was nervous and worried that despite all of the preparation I’d done, that the night would be a disaster. Having gotten there early to set up, I had lots of time to kill before the customers turned up and I started to worry about whether anyone was going to turn up and then about having an empty dance floor.
Once enough customers had turned up, the floor started to get busy and those worrying feelings started to abide. I was fortunate enough to get some advice from my friend Jo (an experienced DJ) that proved to be invaluable. Tips including handling variance in sound levels in songs, what sort of sound levels to be aiming for and for handling of track cross overs.
Once I got into the flow of things and the dance floor remained busy, I started to relax into the role of DJ and that was the point that DJing became a lot of fun. I was regularly reviewing my line of tracks, swapping tracks in and out, aiming to mix in songs appropriate to the 70s theme amongst the needs to cover multiple genres and making sure there were dance floor classics and modern hits.
I spent the majority of the night at the DJ desk dancing away by myself having a lovely time. I did come down to the dance floor to test sound levels regularly and sneaked in some cheeky dances with the customers in close proximity to the DJ desk.
My Kit
My DJ kit is very basic, but adequate enough for a Ceroc freestyle night that is typically attended by around 100 dancers. My Kit includes:
- Apple iPad Pro (11” 3rd Generation)
- Apple Magic Keyboard
- DJAY Pro App
- XENYX 302USB - 5-Input Mixer with XENYX Mic Preamp and USB/Audio Interface
- 2M USB to USB-C cable with USB Plug
- 1M USB-C to USB-B cable
- Dual RCA to XLR cable
While the Apple Magic Keyboard has a USB-C port, it is used purely to charging the iPad Pro and offers no other functionality. But this means that I power the iPad while keeping the main USB-C port free to connect to the mixer via USB-C to USB-B cable. The mixer itself doesn’t need much power and the iPad Pro is more than capable of feeding it enough. I then connect the outputs of the mixer to the speakers via the RCA to XLR adapter cable. Sadly the level of the kit I have right now does not allow me to preview songs while the music is playing out of the main speaker, so in the interim I have been previewing the tracks via bluetooth headphones using my iPhone.
The Set
My set for the night was not pre-planned, all of my preparation had been to provide me with enough options that I could be flexible with what I played through out the night. I made sure to mix the 70s theme tracks in amongst dance floor classics, varying genres and modern hits. My aim being not to create waves of increasing musical intensity with varying genres to appeal to as many of the dancers as I could.
| Artist | Song | BPM | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mungo Jerry | In The Summertime | 83 | 1970 |
| The Jackson 5 | ABC | 94 | 1970 |
| Bill Withers | Lovely Day | 98 | 1977 |
| Maroon 5 | Don’t Wanna Know | 100 | 2017 |
| Freda Payne | Band of Gold | 112 | 1970 |
| The Temptations | Treat Her Like a Lady | 113 | 1984 |
| Blondie | Heart of Glass | 115 | 1979 |
| Gloria Gaynor | I Will Survive | 117 | 1978 |
| Toploader | Dancing In The Moonlight 3 | 119 | 2009 |
| Heatwave | Boogie Nights 1 | 120 | 1977 |
| Take That | Relight My Fire 3 | 123 | 1993 |
| Steps | Better The Devil You Know | 125 | 2000 |
| Earth, Wind & Fire | September | 126 | 1978 |
| George Ezra | Budapest | 128 | 2013 |
| Norman Greenbaum | Spirit In The Sky 4 | 128 | 1969 |
| Pixie Lott | All About Tonight | 129 | 2011 |
| The Isley Brothers | This Old Heart of Mine | 130 | 1966 |
| Bruno Mars | Just The Way You Are | 109 | 2010 |
| Jason Mraz | I Feel Like Dancing | 112 | 2023 |
| Chaka Khan | I’m Every Woman | 114 | 1978 |
| Elton John & Dua Lipa | Cold Heart (PNAU Remix) | 116 | 2022 |
| Sister Sledge | We Are Family (Single Edit) | 118 | 1979 |
| Lady Gaga | Poker Face 1 | 119 | 2008 |
| P!nk | Raise Your Glass | 122 | 2010 |
| Joel Corry, feat MNEK | Head & Heart | 123 | 2020 |
| The Jacksons | Can You Feel It | 125 | 1981 |
| Elton John & Britney Spears | Hold Me Closer | 126 | 2022 |
| Robert Abigail, DJ Rebel & The Gibson Brothers | Cuba (Radio Edit) | 128 | 2011 |
| LMFAO | Sexy And I Know It | 130 | 2011 |
| The B-52s | Love Shack 1 | 133 | 1989 |
| Stevie Wonder | Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours) (Single Edit) | 109 | 1970 |
| Muna | I Know A Place | 112 | 2017 |
| George Ezra | Green Green Grass | 113 | 2022 |
| BTS | Dynamite | 114 | 2020 |
| Kim Carnes | Betty Davis Eyes | 116 | 1981 |
| Tavares | Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel | 117 | 1976 |
| DNCE | Cake By The Ocean | 119 | 2015 |
| Thelma Houston | Don’t Leave Me This Way 1 | 121 | 1976 |
| Train | Drive By | 122 | 2012 |
| Michael Bublé | Everything | 123 | 2007 |
| Stealers Wheel | Stuck In The Middle With You | 124 | 1972 |
| Mimi Webb | Ghost of You | 126 | 2023 |
| Eros Ramazzotti | Fuego en el Fuego | 127 | 2000 |
| Walk The Moon | Shut Up And Dance | 128 | 2014 |
| Pitbull, feat Ke$ha | Timber | 130 | 2013 |
| Gonzalez | I Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet | 134 | 1978 |
| Miley Cyrus | Midnight Sky | 110 | 2020 |
| Candi Staton | Young Hearts Run Free | 116 | 1976 |
| Keith Urban | Wild Hearts | 117 | 2022 |
| Smokie | Needles & Pins | 119 | 1977 |
| Bee Gees | You Should Be Dancing | 123 | 1976 |
| Galantis, David Guetta & Little Mix | Heartbreak Anthem | 124 | 2021 |
| Joel Corry & Tom Grennan | Lionheart (Fearless) 2 | 126 | 2023 |
| Kirsty MacColl | In These Shoes? | 128 | 2000 |
| Ava Max | Kings & Queens | 130 | 2020 |
| Betty Who | Running Up That Hill | 112 | 2023 |
| P!nk | Never Gonna Not Dance Again | 114 | 2023 |
| Janelle Monáe | Make Me Feel | 115 | 2018 |
| Marvin Gaye | I Heard It Through The Grapevine (Single Edit) | 118 | 1970 |
| Michael Jackson | Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough 2 | 119 | 1979 |
| Years & Years & Galantis | Sweet Talker | 121 | 2022 |
| Becky Hill & Galantis | Run | 124 | 2021 |
| Michael Bublé | Sway 2 | 126 | 2003 |
| Kylie Minogue | Padam Padam | 128 | 2023 |
| Jace Everett | Bad Things | 131 | 2005 |
| Suzi Quatro | If You Can’t Give Me Loved (Edited) | 134 | 1978 |
| B*Witched | C’est La Vie | 109 | 1998 |
| Chic | Good Times (7” Edition) | 110 | 1979 |
| Rick Astley | Never Gonna Give You Up | 113 | 1987 |
| Tavares | More Than A Woman 2 | 109 | 1977 |
| Cameo | Word Up | 116 | 1986 |
| Bananarama | Love In The First Degree | 118 | 1987 |
| Zucchero | Baila Morena | 120 | 1995 |
| Baccara | Yes Sir, I Can Boogie 1 | 123 | 1977 |
| Steps | Tragedy 3 | 125 | 1998 |
| Seal | Cry To Me | 110 | 2017 |
| Nick Lopez | Pink Champagne | 110 | 2016 |
| Coldplay & BTS | My Universe 1 | 105 | 2021 |
| Yoav | Club Thing | 104 | 2007 |
| Geroge Ezra | Anyone For You | 103 | 2022 |
1 I made some edits to this track to make it more suitable for dancing.
2 This track was added as a request for a customer.
3 This track is a cover of a 70s song.
4 This track charted in the 70s despite initial release in the 60s.
Breakdown By Decade
| Decade | Tracks Played | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 1960 | 2 | 2.50% |
| 1970 | 24 (28 Including covers and charting success) | 30.00% (35.00%) |
| 1980 | 7 | 8.75% |
| 1990 | 4 | 5.00% |
| 2000 | 9 | 11.25% |
| 2010 | 15 | 18.75% |
| 2020 | 19 | 23.75% |
| Total | 80 | 100.00% |