My wife and I attended a wedding reception recently and the DJ would have been on UD's 'S' list ...
1)He got the special dances - bride and groom, bride and father, groom and mother, etc. out of the way right after the bridal party came in
2) During those dances he never coaxed the guests for a round of applause for the dancing couple during the dance ... another guest and I started to applaud and then the rest of the guests joined in
3) All his speakers were facing the dance floor so IF he did make any kind of announcement during the evening you really only understood him if you were on the dance floor
4) During the serving of the dinner he played about 30 minutes of slow tunes, and I later heard the groom comment to a table of his friends that he had the DJ play all of their wedding songs ... it would have been nice if the DJ announced that while he was doing it
5) While the music was loud throughout the room, on the dance floor it was deafening !!! ... Having been a musician all my life, mostly working in bands, I could tolerate it, but I know a lot of other people couldn't
6) The groom is a fan of Doo-Wop, and he and many of his male friends are good dancers, so there was a good mix of upbeat Doo-Wop, and Disco tunes, but the last 45 to 60 minutes was NON-STOP ear splitting, bass thumping EDM ...

Sigh ... amateurs. (even if they're well paid)

They were on both counts ...

Not all of them...

My wife's cousin (and many others) proofs the difference
But then he also sings during his deejaying (not all the time, but only a few songs on an evening)

He used to play in a 2 man duo, playing both keyboards and guitar..
So he understands what he is doing...

And there is many more of his kind of deejays in Holland
But then he is a little bit older then all the youth

He makes a good 2nd income as a wedding deejay
But then he is an entertainer..
Amd i think that exactly catches the essence..
As soon as a deejay realises he is an entertainer..
And starts entertaining people
He will succeed just fine at weddings...

Of course. There are great ones, and bad ones. I was singling out the reasons I have peeves with the bad ones. I'd rather see a good DJ entertainer than a bad band, any day of the week.

Ha! here's the thing though Dave, I once saw Miles (no myth) play an entire set with his back to the audience. Maybe this was Miles' way of getting into the heart and soul of a tune without the distraction of an audience......or maybe it was just Miles well-known anti-social attitude . But the audience didn't seem to mind; like most jazz audiences, they were there for the music....not to dance, not to sing along, not to clap their hands or tap their feet, but to listen...to an other-wouldly musical performance. But 100 years from now, history WILL tell the story of Miles....and Monk, and Coltrane, and Bird, and Dizzy, and their enormous contribution to America's ONLY original art form. Just sayin'.

chas

Chas, better add Boo Hargis to that list of 100 years from now! Knowing Boo, I would bet even money that he is legendary in Norleans with a lot of the old cronies there.

Gary

Yup, yup, YUP!