A thread about my first rave, my passion for DJing & how it almost died out, and how playing one big show reignited it.

This is gonna be a long one, there’s a lot of context that I wanna give

I hope this explanation into my DJing journey will motivate you and inspire you

So it all started on December 27th, 2014. I was attending my first EDM event with some people in my high school.

Up to this point, I only saw and heard EDM through music festival sets on YouTube, so I didn’t know how much more amazing it was gonna be compared to an actual show.

The show was called Hyperglow Tour. The DJ’s included some locals as well as @Bassjackers and @DJ_DOD

This show blew my mind! It was so much better than I thought it was gonna be & I already had high expectations!

It was after this show I realized I wanted to become an EDM DJ.

I’ve been DJing for about 3 years before that show and I even started a DJing group called Make it Bump with someone from my school (who isn’t in the picture anymore), however, this show really solidified my love for EDM and the scene, so I started pursuing my goal!

After going to another Hyperglow show, I signed up for Hyperglow’s promoting team.

I saw it as a way to connect with the guys running the event, make some money, and spread the word about the EDM scene in the area (which was small for people under 21 at the time, I was only 17).

Now I was making mixes and trying to learn how to produce music, but it really wasn’t anything crazy.

I made a lot of trash beats, made a lot of basic mixes with no structure and no mastering, and I wasn’t getting any attention back then.

At some point the next year (2015) I recruited another friend to be a part of the group (Yes, MIB was a trio at one point).

I also always had an interest in mashups, so around this time I started trying to recreate mashups played by big DJs, here’s one!

I promoted for Hyperglow for a couple of shows, and my ticket sales started out at like 10 for the first show and it hit over 40 for a show in 2017! Because of this, they took notice, and the head promoter said he would get me a spot on the next NJ show!

Unfortunately, when the next NJ show came in 2018, I didn’t get a spot. I don’t recall what had happened but I believe they were all booked for the show and they couldn’t get any more DJs to come in.

Obviously, I was disappointed & frustrated because I was guaranteed a spot.

It was at this point (Spring of 2018) where I got accepted into nursing school.

Years of making mixes, mashups, a few trash original productions, and promoting for Hyperglow yielded no results that I wanted, so I almost fully dropped DJing to prepare for my nursing program.

I started nursing school in Fall of 2018, and I was convinced I was never gonna live up to my dream of becoming an EDM DJ @ the time.

School was difficult and very stressful and I couldn’t help but think about how my dream may die out because of the lack of shows and support.

However, in November of 2018, Hyperglow announced a new show, and I immediately hit up the head promoter to see if he can get me on the lineup since I did so well in 2017.

I got the show, and I was so excited because it felt like everything was finally falling into place.

So I haven’t promoted for an event for about a year and a half at this point, and my last show I sold about 40 tickets.

I worked my ASS off for this big show and I sold over 60, breaking my old record. I felt so much love and support because of how many people came to see me.

A big portion of the people I sold to were friends from High School that I haven’t connected with in years, and I’m still thankful and grateful for all of them since they wanted to see me succeed.

As it was getting closer to the show though, I was getting more and more nervous.

I’ve never played in front of a crowd of more than maybe 300 at this point, this show was sold out and the venue had a capacity of over 2,000 and I was actually so anxious going into it.

Also, this venue is the SAME venue of the first hyperglow I ever attended back in 2014

Fast forward to show day. My partner at the time and I pull up to the venue and I’m still nervous af. I was about to play a show for the same company that hosted the first rave I ever went to IN THE SAME VENUE where that event was held, it was so fucking surreal.

When we got on stage my nerves shot through the roof. It was only my second time playing on CDJs (and I also didn’t know how to use the FX, so we just didn’t use any during the set). But when we started playing the crowd feedback was AMAZING.

We decided to warm up the crowd with future house and bass house, and it was a great call. The crowd sang to every song, dances to every drop, and I saw EVERYONE having an amazing fucking time. It was honestly THE BEST feeling I’ve ever felt in my life.

After the first two tracks and doing some meh transitions, we really got into a groove and our mixing was on point.

The next few tweets in this thread are gonna be videos my friends and I took from the event!

Deep Down Low always BOPS @ValentinoKhan

This remix of Day N Night by @wearemoksi was probably my favorite track from our set that night.

Here’s the first track we played, in the middle of our set, and at the end of the set

You may have been able to tell but I have a go-pro strapped to my chest here’s some footage from it!

To all the DJs watching this clip - I was messing with the mids and highs cause I didn’t know how to work the FX on this mixer at the time

The 30 minutes we played on that stage in front of those thousands of people was singlehandedly what kept my DJing dream alive. It was the first of many shows I’ve played for Hyperglow & I’ll never forget it @Hyperglow

Here’s the mix from that night! https://www.mixcloud.com/MakeitBump/make-it-bumps-mix-hyperglow-in-the-wellmont-theater-11219/

Wow I actually ran out of tweets to add to this thread (twitter wont let me add any more )

If you got this far, thank you for reading and thank you for supporting me. You’re one of the big reasons why I keep doing what I’m doing and I appreciate you so much for it