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 It
Ain’t No Macarena
Wedding
band leader J Yager reflects o+n the tricks of his trade
By
Josh Potter
Of
all the seemingly endless arrangements a couple has to make
for their big day—writing vows, sending out invitations, renting
space, picking out the flowers, dresses, tuxedos—there’s one
that has the cruel power to either destroy the wedding or
make it a celebration the couple will recall with fondness
for years thereafter. Stress as they might, there’s a certain
point at which the bride, groom and family must surrender
control of the day to someone they’ve entrusted to either
help the party unwind or get down. More than the minister,
best man, maid of honor, ring bearer or photographer, it is
the wedding band that wields this peculiar power.
Yes, this realization may be more than a little bit frightening.
“More
often than not, when people use the term ‘wedding band,’ they’re
using it in a derogatory manner,” says J Yager, frontman and
bandleader for the Audiostars, and formerly of the Burners
UK. Over the past 25 years, Yager wagers he’s played at least
300 weddings throughout the region, knocking out 15 to 25
per year. Needless to say, he’s come to learn what people
expect of a wedding band and what elements make a wedding
reception enjoyable—despite the stigma that accompanies such
an act.
“Whether
it’s a musician or a client, to them a wedding band is the
cheesy kind of stereotypical wedding band that Adam Sandler
went on to be the singer for in The Wedding Singer,”
he says. “It’s a band that is very cookie-cutter, kind
of bland, cheesy, lifeless and soulless. They may have great
musicians in them, but the problem with wedding bands—that
is, bands that are formulated specifically to play weddings—if
you’re not playing what you love, just what you think is going
to make you money, like any job of any type, there’s no soul
in it. Without soul, music doesn’t live because music is entirely
soul—and a few notes.”
In order to avoid becoming this stereotype, Yager did a very
simple thing. “We never aimed to be a wedding band. We aimed
to be a band that’s fun. I just happen to like playing cover
songs, stuff that, as it turns out, other people like to listen
to. It was a function of doing what I love and playing what
I love that people said, ‘Geez, that’s exactly what we’d like
to have at our wedding. Would you play our wedding?’ ”
Therein lies the trick to Yager’s trade. He says the most
important thing for a wedding band to be is themselves. If
the band’s feeling loose and having fun, the party will follow
suit. “At a wedding,” he says, “people have been without food
and beverage for seven or eight hours, and [at the reception]
they’re just starting to relax. You have to remember, it’s
OK to say, ‘Hey, relax. It’s OK to have fun.’ The hard part
of the day is over.”
Some of the first weddings Yager played were for friends who
said they didn’t want a band that played cliché favorites
like “Celebration,” “YMCA” and “The Macarena,” so, while his
band’s catalog includes a lengthy selection of party hits,
he downplays the significance of the songs in favor of the
event’s overall energy. “Every wedding is totally different.
You never know what the parameters are going to be. It might
start raining when it was supposed to be a sunny day. You
might be in a tent and people are freezing. Someone might
have passed out before cocktails were served and that’s all
the buzz. Songs are an important part, but so is energy, personality,
interaction with the crowd, the ability to read what’s happening
in a room and react to it and build upon it.”
So, what does a good wedding party look like? “The best ones
are the ones that have been completely what nobody expects
them to be,” says Yager. He cites a day 10 years ago in Round
Lake when the temperature dipped to 44 degrees and the wall-less
tent was flooded with rain. “People were having such a good
time they ripped off their shoes, took off their clothes,
and began doing mud slides—literally, throwing themselves
down the middle of the tent like a kid’s slip and slide—writhing
around. It wrecked everybody’s clothes. Destroyed the bride’s
dress. But it was probably the best wedding we ever played.
People still talk about it to this day.” When people let go
of their ideal notion of the wedding, he says, they tend to
have the best time.
As for the weirdest wedding, Yager recalls a reception at
a small banquet house where 100 people were packed into a
room that should have fit only 60. For the most part, the
event was a success, as partygoers began dancing on tables
and out in the driveway. But, “at the end of it, the bride
came up to me and, for 20 minutes, stood two inches from my
face, screaming in absolute tears about how I had ruined her
wedding. All the guests were mortified, standing around her,
trying to slip out the door quietly, giving these apologetic
looks. I thought she was kidding for the first couple minutes
before realizing she wasn’t.”
The bride’s intoxicated mother soon joined her daughter while
Yager did his best to bite his tongue. “The funniest part
of the whole deal was when the mother said, ‘You’re the worst
country band I’ve ever heard!’ To which I said, ‘We don’t
even play country music.’ She said, ‘I know!’ ” Two weeks
later, he received an apologetic phone call from the maid
of honor, who had hired the band, explaining that the bride
had been on multiple fertility drugs, which, she said, made
her insane. Furthermore, as of that day, she also told him,
the marriage had been annulled due to the groom’s sudden sex-change
operation.
Over the years, Yager says he’s made the mistake of trying
too hard to anticipate what a wedding party is going to be
like, but, despite the stereotypically staid, generic events
that give wedding bands their bad name, he’s learned there’s
only rule for the gig: “You never know what’s going to happen.”
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