Friday, March 26, 2010

Last night was a bust

So last night, I drove through a snowstorm to this bar where a friend of mine was celebrating his birthday. It's a respectable bar where people get together on Thursday nights for swing dancing.

Driving was a real challenge. The snowfall wasn't heavy, but visibility was bad, and the driver's side windshield wiper wasn't doing its job very well. It was hellacious, I tell you.

What's more, the DJ decided that he would mostly play Latin music rather than swing music. It was a bit much, and as one of my friends commented, most of the regulars weren't on the dance floor very much. It was mostly occupied by the visiting ballroom dancers.

I've got mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, it's nice to make the visitors feel welcome. However, if the event is meant to be a swing night, shouldn't at least 75% of the music be swing tunes? Instead, it was about 60% latin music (plus some rather marginal swing numbers).

The DJ was a friendly guy, but he tends to be kinda flamboyant. It shows in the way he moves and dresses. I don't want to begrudge him that, but... oh, I don't know. I get the feeling that this colors his musical choices and dance style, neither of which fit swing very well IMO.