Prior to the Seattle event, I kept telling people Seattle was going to have amazing weather, like last year, and everyone kept telling me not to jinx it. And once again, Seattle did not disappoint. Even with a heat advisory on Sunday, the fans showed up, filled the stadium and got to witness an extremely high level of volleyball in the men’s finals. Taylor Crabb and Billy Allen put on a digging clinic and every time either of them dug a ball similar to Sinjin Smith, I would yell “RANDY” from the DJ booth. I may have gotten a few weird looks, but if you know your volleyball history, you get it.
The Crabbs may have a hard time letting go of losing in the finals as they were up 8-3 in the third and couldn’t close the door on Theo Brunner and Billy, but I suspect they will move past it soon enough and be in another finals sooner than later. It’s been fun watching them grow as a team and not be afraid of the moment when taking on more experienced players. Summer Ross and Lane Carico made their presence felt in only their 5th tournament together in two seasons on the AVP. Lane got her first AVP tournament victory after taking a second and a few third places finishes the last couple seasons. It will be interesting to see if this tournament win gets Summer and Lane on a roll for the rest of the AVP tour.
Going into this event I knew I was going to lean on some Seattle artists like Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Nirvana and Jimi Hendrix, but I’m kicking myself because I didn’t play any Pearl Jam. I personally feel that their Ten album is a classic and not just because they have a track named after me. I’ll just have to do a 30 minute set of just Pearl Jam next year to make up for my oversight. Sometimes having too much music you can forget what you have. With all the music I play throughout the course of an AVP tournament, I get asked a lot to post my playlist online. Posting my entire playlist would overwhelm you (just consider how many songs would fit into a 10 hour day!), but I will share some of the song highlights from this tournament. Enjoy the playlist from Seattle and know I’m already working on my New York playlist.
DJ Roueche AVP Seattle Playlist on Spotify.
— DJ Roueche —
DJ Roueche has been controlling dance floors for over 20 years with his seamless genre-blending style. He has been the official DJ for the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour for over 13 years now.
JRo is also the contributing music editor to Volleyball magazine and President of VALA Entertainment. He received the AVP Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015 and is a voting member of the USAV All Time Great Beach Volleyball Player Committee.