Kickin In

“Maybe the important part was simply saying yes”

I think this session started before I realised it had started.

A friend asked me to DJ at their birthday and my first reaction was excitement. A proper, uncomplicated yes.

Music. People. A room full of energy. Making something for other people to experience.

Those are the moments where music has always made the most sense to me.

Then, almost immediately, I started worrying about it.

I wanted to get it right.

I wanted the right tracks, the right flow, the right journey. I wanted to know how the set would work before I even arrived. I started building it in my head long before anyone had asked me to.

I do this sometimes.

Something I'm genuinely excited about becomes something I need to solve.

I would sit down to work on the set and start moving things around. Change a track. Put it back. Try another transition. Change direction. Listen again.

Sometimes I wasn't fixing anything.

I was just trying to remove the uncertainty.

The strange thing was that the more I tried to control it, the less connected I felt to the reason I had said yes in the first place.

I wasn't making music anymore.

I was preparing for an event.

There is a difference.

I noticed it after a while.

I could have spent forever trying to make the perfect set. There would always be another transition to improve or another track that might work better.

Eventually I got tired of trying to make it perfect.

I started listening instead.

That's when things began to change.

Certain tracks just felt right together.

Not because I could explain why.

They just did.

The energy started moving in a way that I hadn't planned. I stopped thinking so much about what should happen next and started noticing what wanted to happen next.

That feeling is difficult to describe because it isn't really a thought.

It's more like your brain becomes slightly quieter.

You hear something and know where to go.

You don't need to justify it.

You just trust it.

By the time I got to the actual night, I still had nerves.

I don't think that ever completely goes away.

There is always a moment before you start when you are aware that people are actually going to hear what you've made. You can prepare for hours and still have that little question sitting somewhere in your head:

What if this doesn't work?

Then the first track goes on.

And somebody reacts.

Then someone else.

And suddenly the thing that existed entirely inside my head is happening somewhere outside it.

That is a strange feeling.

The set wasn't mine anymore.

Not completely.

It belonged to the room.

People were bringing their own energy to it. Their own lives. Their own moods. Their own reasons for being there.

I could influence what happened next, but I couldn't control how anyone received it.

And I think that was the part I had been missing while I was preparing.

I had been treating the set like something I had to get right.

But once it started, it wasn't really about me getting it right.

It was about responding to what was happening around me.

A track changes the room.

The room changes what you play next.

People respond.

You respond to them.

And somewhere in that exchange, the music stops being something you've made and becomes something you're all experiencing together.

That's the part I love.

It's difficult to manufacture.

You can't really force it.

You can prepare for it, but you can't guarantee it.

At some point you just have to let go.

I remember thinking afterwards about how much time I'd spent worrying before the night.

All those hours moving tracks around. Trying to predict the room. Trying to make sure I was ready.

And then the thing that made the night work wasn't any of that.

It was being there.

Listening.

Responding.

Trusting the next decision.

The room eventually emptied and everything became quiet again.

There is always something slightly strange about that moment.

A few hours earlier the room had been full of people and sound and movement. Then suddenly there is just equipment, empty glasses and the feeling that something has finished.

I was tired, but it was a good kind of tired.

More than anything, I felt grateful.

Not because I'd played the perfect set.

I don't think there is such a thing.

Because for a few hours something I'd made had become part of other people's evening.

That feels different from making something alone.

When you're alone, the music belongs entirely to you.

In a room, it changes.

People bring themselves into it.

You give something and they give something back without necessarily saying anything.

Maybe that's what I had been looking for when I said yes.

Not just the music.

Not just the opportunity to DJ.

The feeling of being part of something that only exists because everyone in the room is there at the same time.

I think that's why the title makes sense to me now.

Kicking In wasn't the moment I suddenly became confident.

It wasn't the moment I stopped overthinking.

It was the moment the thing I'd been trying so hard to prepare for finally stopped belonging to my head and started happening in the room.

And once it did, I didn't need to control it anymore.

I just needed to listen.