ANXIETY & THE RAVE SCENE
Not everything is at it seems sometimes, what’s shown on the outside isn’t always the same from the inside. Being a DJ means standing up there and controlling the crowd with the music you are playing, you are the taste maker and the reason people go out to have a good time. You hold the magic in the palms of your hands, it’s also improving your own work each time you are booked to play.
At times this doesn’t always translate well and I would like to share with you through my eyes how I dealt with my anxiety.
Picture the scene, it’s 2016 in deepest darkest Kent, UK. I’ve been booked to play at a friend’s event, I’d been in high spirits ahead of the gig by doing my usual practicing on the decks with a selection of tracks I wanted to play. All is going well, I arrived at the venue and when it was my time to jump on, the CDJ’s were different and older than what I was used to. It was nothing I couldn’t handle though! Just required a different approach to how things were done, I noticed that just as I stepped up and I was announced on the mic by the MC that I started to feel this odd sense of panic and dread that I hadn’t felt before.
I’d had anxiety problems before but not to this big a scale that I was about to find out. It felt like something had grabbed me that night and my mind was saying “don’t look at the crowd “ so my head went down and I wasn’t interacting as I usually would. As I started my set I see that the decks were not working as they should, proper glitching out I wasn’t sure what to do and felt a powerful sense of dread. I mean hey it was Halloween after all! Haha!
Normally when using a digital controller or a CDJ I would use the old way of mixing by listening via my ears like everyone does when mixing vinyl. That night though it was like I’d lost that ability and was staring at the small line of beat grid on the tiny screen. In the end nothing was mixing together so I panicked and ended up chucking in the next track each time fading the last one out a bit then bringing the next one in.
Get Sparki Dee’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
I could see large parts of the crowd stopping briefly from dancing and looking over at me as if to say “that’s odd! He’s usually better than this” of course this made me feel worse. Big up to the MC who kept the flow going and probably could see I was struggling. My friend was just the other side of me seeing the panic on my face he did a breathing motion as if to say, take deep breaths. I tried but the overwhelming sense of dred has gotten to me and with 10 mins to go I asked the next DJ to go on earlier as I was having an absolute howler.
I remember taking out my USB sticks and heading towards the exit to sit outside and cool down. I wet through with sweat, my t shirt was sodden, my combat shorts were uncomfortable as my balls had sweat so much it’d dripped everywhere (grim image I know) and I couldn’t breathe properly. It took another friend to sit with me to calm me down and get me some water.
We all have a bad set sometimes, that wasn’t my first one as I’d been in the scene 14 years by then, but this one was one of if not THE worst sets I’ve had. I remember not wanting to do any sets for a little while after but what really put the knife in was someone who said I was shit and in so many words shouldn’t have been allowed near the decks. I bit back and it seemed to poke the nest as I was then enemy number 1 for daring to tackle someone’s over the top view of me.
Back then I didn’t handle things as well as I do now, I’d handle things pretty well but when I was stressed I would fly back at people who wanted to give me shit over nothing. Seeing as this happened and I got a lot of flack back, I actually stopped DJing out for just over 2 years and I would turn down really good opportunities because I was right back where I was years previously with my anxiety. I was believing what negative people were telling me instead of laughing it off and just carrying on.
Luckily I had a few good people around me and one of my best friends who was there that night took me under his wing again and gradually brought me back out of my shell. It wasn’t instant though and took a lot of time and soul searching until I felt I was ready to get back out there. How did I deal with all this anxiety and pressure? I went to a ‘Man Club’ where men with mental health talk to each other.
With the mental health group and the support of family and friends I managed slowly but surely get back on the horse and start making noise again. It took a little while longer than expected as I’d disappeared off the radar and was only doing radio at the time. I managed to claw my way back and sporadically I would start to get an influx of bookings.
Time can be a great healer, I don’t feel any pressure at all and now I’m with a collective run by a DJ and pirate radio legend from London who has scooped me up and given me lots of opportunities and I’m ever so grateful. I’ve never been in such a great place in my career! It’s come late as I’m 38 but who cares! I’ll be doing this into my 90s and would die slumped over my decks, that is how much music means to me.
