The first hour sets the night.

A warm up is not filler. It is not the part of the night you survive while you wait for the headliner. It is the part where the room decides whether it is going to trust the night or not.

When the doors open, the floor is empty. People arrive in small groups, they are still ordering the first drink, still looking for their friends, still deciding where to stand. The music has to meet them there. Too much energy too early and you burn the room before it exists. Too little and nobody ever comes to the floor. The job is to build something, slowly and on purpose, so that when the headliner walks in, the room is already warm, curious and ready to go wherever they want to take it.

It is all in the selection

A good warm up starts days before the show. I think about who is playing after me, what their sound is like, what they will want to play and what they will not want to hear in the room before them. Then I choose every record with that in mind. Tempo, key, texture, how long a groove can breathe. Nothing flashy, nothing that steals the spotlight, and never the record the headliner is about to drop.

It takes restraint. It takes dedication. It takes hours of digging for the one track that opens the night the right way, and the humility to play it when nobody is paying attention yet.

Never look down on it

I have been lucky to play the warm up for artists who shaped the music I love, and I never took a single one of those nights lightly. Every time, the goal was the same: hand over a floor that is alive, not a floor that is tired. When the headliner smiles at the end of my set and picks up from where I left off, I know I did my job.

So please, never treat the warm up as the small slot. For a promoter, a booker or a headliner, it may be the most important part of the event.