Sometimes I feel like I'm caught in the middle. I'm a baby boomer at 68. But my music is way too old to play for the under 50 crowd and too young to embrace all the music of the 85 - 95 year olds I find at most of the places I play.

Thoughts?

In the early 90's I saw it coming. Too many contemporary songs suddenly in the arena and too difficult to learn them all. A friend kept hammering away at me to become a DJ. Trying to stay true to my musical training, I put it off for years until the friend put it this way: "Don't you get it.......if you make your money as a DJ then you can cherry pick your live music jobs." That's all I needed......changed on a dime and went out and bought DJ equipment. Best thing I ever did.....it changed and enriched my whole outlook on music and performing. And for the first time I was free to sing standing up (to Karaoke discs) instead of "sitting" at a keyboard.

So what I did (on live music jobs) was bring the keyboard and play for an hour to show everyone I was a genuine musician and then I switched to a DJ presentation for the rest of the night. Never got a single complaint for the switch-over!

You couldn't do that now....in the 90's DJ-ing was in it's infancy and well before disco lights and lasers and what-nots became essentials. Back then all you needed was 2 CD players and a case full of CD's......and a personality.

get some up to date dance mp3s to play and mix it up in that situation....

Blurred lines
Can't stop The Feeling
Cake by the Ocean
Lets get Loud
Cupid Shuffle
Fireball
Do It

etc, etc, dont get stuck in a wrong crowd situation they will tear you a new one if you get my drift.

let me also remind you that just using the "STOCK" songs downloaded from the net or wherever are not gonna cut it,.....EACH and EVERY song must be critically edited to suit different needs for many many reasons before using them on stage....