I just played my first real show and it went amazingly well! [excited bragging post]

A few times a year my small college throws a campus-wide party that usually gets 1500-2000 people or so (slightly more than the student population—it's sort of a social anchor and everyone goes and brings friends etc.). The centerpiece is the rave room, which is the converted black box theater on campus. After years of fiddling around with Virtual DJ in my room, saving up for actual equipment/software, and even more fiddling around, I finally played my first real show in the one of the prime time slots the other night. Now, I'd opened for previous incarnations of this party in the past, but because I was self-conscious about my own skills I undersold myself hard and wound up really, really early in the night. There were probably only like 15-30 people in there at any given time. The person who came on after me was using a pre-mixed recording, which finally gave me the confidence to ask for a better slot this time around (no hate to them, but I just realized I didn't need to sell myself short).

So this time I go all out. I get my friend (who's developing a glitch art VJ program) to agree to do visuals, and I spend MONTHS finding and refining music for my library, as well as practicing my ass off. I was nervous because most of the kids at school just seem to listen to trap and big room type stuff, which isn't really my style. I put together a rough playlist of mostly house from the 90s and early 2000s, with a couple more contemporary remixes and things to keep people interested.

People loved it. I could not believe the response. I was in the 11-12 slot, which is usually pretty popular, but this was definitely the most packed and energetic I'd seen the rave room before midnight. The floor was almost empty when I went on, and within 10 minutes or so there weren't any big gaps on the floor. Another 10 minutes and it was totally packed. I think the security guys were turning people away for safety reasons (which isn't that uncommon at these parties, but I still can't believe it happened during my set). At one point I put on the DFA Remix of The Hand that Feeds. I had been really nervous that people would roll their eyes at me and clear the floor, but when the lyrics came in and people realized what the song was they literally started cheering. I couldn't believe it. I also put on a remix of a Yardbirds song and people freaked out to that too. I had a few transitions that I wish were a lot better, but I had even more that were as smooth as I know how to make. One of them ended up being such a perfect mashup that I let it ride for a few minutes and people loved it.

I know in a rave-type scenario where half the people are drunk and the other half are on molly it's not super difficult to wow the crowd, but I'm just in total shock about how well it went. I sent out the download of my set to a few people who asked, and one guy just told me that he's listened to it every day since the party.

I know I still have a LONG way to go, and I could never compete with most of you guys, but this was a huge milestone for me and my own self-esteem as a DJ. It's several days later and I still grin every time I think about it. Sorry if this is the wrong place for a post like this, I'm just so excited to keep going and improving and playing music.