I first met Rich on a camping weekend, with a number of other DJs from Hi-life Entertainment. It was the spring of 2021 & lockdown restrictions were starting to be lifted, but we were not at that stage able to play any indoor parties, so as a company, we were in a bit of a hiatus, waiting for the green light. The perfect time for a trip up to North Yorkshire for a camping expedition & thankfully the weather was glorious!
I was impressed by his wide knowledge of music & was introduced to some of his music productions under the moniker “Leuce Rhythms”. Which are infectiously funky, breaks driven dance floor tracks.
He was well known to fellow DJs on our roster, like Dan De Lissandri, Mel Low D & Chris Hall, who were all in attendance. We talked about the multi format DJ work we do for clubs & bars, but also about sets we play for weddings & parties, that are more bespoke and often more broad ranging. Rich seemed an ideal candidate to join our team, once we got the go ahead from Boris Johnson.
He joined the team, as we resumed our DJing activities in August 2021. At the time we had over a hundred & fifty weddings & parties to reschedule, over the course of about 12 months. Sadly the main club venue we used to play every Friday & Saturday night had been a casualty of the lock down laws, so it was time to focus on the job ahead, in a slightly different landscape.
In that time Rich has played pretty much every genre of music under the sun for us, from house, EDM, disco, R&B, garage, hip hop, pop, cheese, etc, right through to classic rock, pop punk, indie and on occasions metal.
He’s based over in the York area, so has played regularly at York Barn, Villa Farm, but also at other venues, including the Hilton, Leeds City, Chilli Barn in Otley, Northorpe Hall in Mirfield, New Craven Hall in Leeds & many, many more. I recently played a silent disco with him, over at Bert’s Barrow, near Monk Fryston & the atmosphere was electrifying.
If you are booking a wedding or party with us, Rich could well be one of the people that I recommend for his ability to build a set up over the course of the night, reading the crowd, but also sticking to the brief we have from our clients.
Pop punk / ska punk / emo, etc are genres often requested these days at weddings. Non more so than this anthem by Blink, that tops the request list. Sure to drive wedding guests into a frenzy, if played at the right time of the night, i.e. towards the latter stages, when the anthems are required. Follow it up with “the Middle” by Jimmy Eat World & “Fat Lip” by Sum 41 & “the Anthem” by Good Charlotte & all that teenage angst is reinvented into a damn great end to a wedding DJ set. I hope I’m not giving too many DJ secrets away here, TBH, if you are “of that age” you know them & a lot more.
2. Old Crow Medicine Show – “Wagon Wheel”
Country music has risen in popularity in recent years in the UK. If we went back 5-10 years it would be unlikely that we would get requests in this genre, other than staples, like Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, John Denver, etc. This song is partly credited to Bob Dylan, who penned the chorus back in 1973. it was a full 25 later that Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show wrote verses for the song around Dylan’s original chorus and melody. Darius Rucker & others have done hit versions of this too. Generally people ask for the song, without specifying the version, as they are all quite similar & will get both young & not so young out of their seats.
3. Darude – “Sandstorm”
Nineties classic trance cuts are popular late in the night. Not many requests emanate from Finland though! This is a real fist pumping dance floor track, which would likely be mixed into tracks by Paul Van Dyke, Faithless, Armin van Buuren, DJ Tiesto, etc. Not for everyone, but with the right crowd this genre can catapult the wedding party into the stratosphere, with ties around heads & hands in the air, reviving that trip to Goa in the noughties, or a night out at Ministry of Sound, or closer to home Mint Warehouse in Leeds.
4. Kevin Lyttle – “Turn Me On”
A one hit wonder & a hard song to categorise, being somewhere between R&B, reggaeton & soca, this is a song that translates well to the right crowd at a wedding. It’s easy on the ear, being melodic, but it also has a fantastic beat, that wants to make you get out of your seat after that excellent 3 course wedding breakfast & the obligatory speeches & toasts. There are some great remixes too, but it’s hard not to go with the original cut, that was released in the UK in 2003.
5. Chris Stapleton – “Tennessee Whiskey”
The second country song on the list. Often a first dance, or end of night closer, but it can work as a drop interlude in a DJ set too. Sometimes slowing the dance floor down for a track in the early, or even late stages can have a big impact. It’s not always the 130 BPM bangers that drive everything, be they Motown, indie, rock, dance, afrobeats, or whatever. Sure, most things work with a dance heavy beat, but an impact can be made with a drop in tempo. This track sounds a lot like the blues track “I’d Rather Go Blind”, by Etta James, covered by Chicken Shack & many others, including Beyonce, who recently reclaimed the country music / Americana for a new audience with her “Cowboy Carter” album. It joins a lot of dots & Stapleton is selling out huge venues in the UK these days.
6. Avicii – “Wake Me Up”
Featuring vocals by Aloe Blacc & guitar by Mike Einziger of Incubus, this EDM anthem was a huge summer hit in 2013 & has not gone away, despite the sad passing of Avicii in 2018. The singalong chorus & catchy keyboard riff make this an infectious dance floor classic. EDM, (an abbreviation of “Electronic Dance Music”), is quite hard to define, but emerged n the early 2000’s as a term for a wide variety of styles of electronic music, with it’s origins in electro, dating back to the 80’s & 90’s. Calvin Harris, Skrillex, David Guetta, Deadmau5, Swedish House Mafia & Martin Garrix all had massive hits around this time & the genre is still immensely popular, with the rise of new artists, like Fred Again & Le Youth releasing huge hits & headlining festivals all around the world.
7. Icona Pop, featuring Charlie XCX – “I Love It”
Probably the most “pure pop” track on this list, a collaboration between Swedish electro duo Icona Pop & British singer Charlie XCX. An angsty break up song, but a wedding party is more about emotion than lyrical content. It is basically a great “girl power” uptempo singalong tune. It can mix with other electro pop type music, be it Blondie / MGMT / Erasure, or emo type rock / pop punk due to its energy. It was massive in 2012 & was reworked a year later, but this version is the one I think works best. Great to play out. I love it personally. A great ditty with swirling electro pop beats.
8. Kooks – “Naive”
The early 2000’s saw the rebirth of indie, after the death of “Britpop” around 1997/98. New guitar slingers emerged from both sides of the Atlantic, like the Killers, the Libertines, the Coral, the Zutons, Vampire Weekend, the Strokes & Arctic Monkeys, amongst many others. This has a loose, funky guitar riff, with an excellent plaintive vocal that just raises the mood & makes you want to dance, sing, or just tap your foot. Brilliantly produced & it never really fails to any crowd. It’s one to drop fairly early in the night, as it is very melodic & accessible, while being engaging. “She Moves In Her Own Way” is another belter, but I’ve gone for this.
9. System of a Down – “Chop Suey”
OK, metal is not everyone’s choice in the weddings that we do, but there is a significant groundswell of people who love it. We often play rock themed weddings, that may kick off with tracks dating back to the 60’s to the nineties, but then lean later to more contemporary tracks, be they Foo Fighters, Linkin Park, Slipknot, Limp Bizkit, Killswitch Engage, MariIyn Manson, etc. This track is almost a post Metallica take on Bohemian Rhapsody, frenetic & then operatic in equal measures. Being a bespoke company, we cover all ground with knowledge, respect & passion for all genres & rock / metal is one.
10. Billy Ocean – “Red Light Spells Danger’
I had to put an older song in here for balance. So many things I could not include in a simple “top 10”, and trying to just avoid the largely obvious things everyone would put out as a “typical wedding playlist”, as in reality there isn’t one. Whilst never being “northern soul”, it has the infectious beat & the hook that has that appeal of an old Motown floor filler. It’s pretty hard not to get drawn in by this as an early dance floor opener. It just works on its own level & is brilliantly produced, it just drives and lifts stratospherically in the chorus.
OK, that is the top 10.
Over to you. Is one of your favourites on there? If not, tell us what you think we should have included.
Everything we do is bespoke, i.e. aimed at our individual clients tastes & is responsive on the night to guest requests, subject to guidance they give us on the music planner portal. (The music planner lets you set the parameters of what is & what is not acceptable). We also book an appropriate DJ, with the knowledge of the genres requested.
