Confessions of a Wedding DJ

Joe Del Buono spills on life as a wedding DJ and how to keep the party banging

img

With five years in the wedding business, DJ Joe Del Buono has his fair share of opinions on how to keep the music banging on the dance floor. The Emerson grad, who cut his teeth at WERS-FM (88.9), shared some of his likes and dislikes with us.

What’s your favorite party-starting song to play? Anything from the Motown era never fails to set a celebration off properly. It’s such an inclusive era and gets everyone from grandma to your music elitists involved on the floor. One of my favorite can’t-miss starter songs is Hall & Oates’ “You Make My Dreams.” It’s a great intro and an easy buildup to open the floor with and make the dinner-to-dancing transition a breeze for everyone. … Everyone knows the song and will proceed to cut up a rug. If they don’t, you’re at the wrong wedding.

What’s your least favorite song to play? There are so many repeat offenders. I stay far away from anything that has a dance associated with it such as “Macarena,” “Electric Slide,” “Cupid Shuffle”—except Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” because it always get me hype. My least favorite song to play (I’ve only had to play it once, thankfully) is Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” because it’s just incredibly corny and basic. If that’s in your set, then tonight’s gonna be a bad night.

What’s the weirdest song request you’ve had that revved up the crowd? This isn’t necessarily a “weird song” because it’s one of my all-time favorite tracks, but one wedding I DJed was sort of winding down later in the evening when a guest came up to my table and requested UGK’s “Int’l Players Anthem.” I gave my look of approval and said to myself, “Great selection, but probably no one will dance to this besides me and this dude.” But for whatever reason, it re-energized the floor with all generations, and people were crawling up the walls like it was a concert.

Wedding Mix from DJ Joe Del Buono


Related Articles

Comments are closed.