THE DJ DIARY

Music Scene: All in a Weekend with Blu
By: Sydney Blu
www.sydneyblu.com

I’ve been travelling around Canada and North America for over three years now. Every year it gets more interesting, meeting unique people and having new experiences everywhere I go. I regularly play four nights a week in Toronto, except for when I am out of town. The third week of January I officially started the craziness of the New Year.

Friday began before I even knew it and a good friend, DJ Anthony Attalla, from Detroit was visiting to check out the city before he came to play Toronto. I was due at my regular Friday gig called Bitchslap. While I was working, my boyfriend, Cyrus had the duty of showing Anthony around town. It seemed Saturday morning arrived very quickly. After a quick lunch & then record shopping at Play De Record, I was dropped off at the airport to head to St Johns, Newfoundland.

I was feeling under the weather from a cold and there is nothing worse than being sick and being on a plane all weekend. My cure? Lots of cold medication to wake me up and knock me out, luckily I had a seat where no one else was sitting beside me so I got to stretch out.

I arrived in Newfoundland around 11PM to have Stacey, the owner of Liquid Ice; the club I was to play at waiting for me. Liquid Ice has been running for four years now. My set was not until 3:30AM so I decided to take a nap at the promoter’s home before my set.

When my set started I played to an energetic crowd who were going nuts.  I love playing in Newfoundland because it reminds me of my home town, where the people are so warm and friendly. The crowd that evening wanted to literally dance all night long.

By the end of my set it was already getting on 7AM and people were still going strong! I had been playing for 3.5 hours at this point and I was starting to wonder when these people were going to go home. I turned to Stacey to ask how much longer he wanted me to play and he told me the other DJ could take over if I wanted.

By the time I got back to the promoter’s home it was getting close to 8AM. I slept only until 12PM then headed to the airport for my flight to Montreal. I tried to get on an earlier flight because it was starting to snow heavily and I was not going to miss this important gig in Montreal for anything!

My plane was arriving in Montreal at 8:30PM from Halifax and I had to be at the club and ready by 9:45PM. I started to feel like this was going to be a big concern for me.

In all desperation I convinced the Air Canada attendant the promoter would do her hair for free if she let me on the next flight with no charge. Alas! I was on route to Halifax!  I arrived three hours before my flight to Montreal, so I decided to wonder around the airport and call Cyrus who was to meet me once I arrived in Montreal at the hotel.

At this point my back was hurting, I was still sick, exhausted and could barely hear from all the plane noises ringing in my ears. And all I could think about was the fact that I’d better kill it in Montreal because I was about to play in front of 700 people who had never seen me before!