Annie Mac's Dispatches From the Service Station Frontline

Okay, so you've probably seen @DJsComplaining by now: that bastion of ego-mocking where the narcissistic short-sightedness of famous (and not-so famous) DJs are shown up. It allows us to laugh at people who have forgotten what it's like to work a minimum wage job because they're now too busy prancing around playing records, and moaning about how the promoter won't hold up their bottle of Grey Goose to the light for twenty minutes to make it room temperature.

Funny as it is though, what @DJsComplaining, and people who laugh at touring DJs moaning about touring forget, is that touring probably is a bit of a slog at times. Regardless of fees that make it worth the effort, and the tour diary photos that make it look like a laugh, I definitely don't envy DJs who spend much of their week in airport lounges with just their smart phones for company. It's a world the average punter knows nothing about and, with Twitter accounts like @DJsComplaining, seems like a world full of wankers.

If DJs are the new rock stars, with some commanding astronomical fees and pulling the kind of onstage stunts more often associated with stadium shows, how do they balance being going at mixing records in a room full of people with the oft-warped expectations of being a rock star: self-involved, destructive weirdos with more than a passing interest for the spotlight?

Well, they don't have to, do they? DJs don't have to be rock stars. They can just be, DJs. Some are wankers, sure, but some are lovely, like BBC Radio 1's resident belter Annie Mac.

With over a decade of touring worldwide, Annie Mac is the kind of DJ that has experienced her fair share of ups and downs in a life on the road; the adrenilin rush of killing a set at a festival to tens of thousands at night, and then the strange daytime limbo of travelling alone, meeting up with strangers and friends alike. When there's no-one around, too, there's always the service station. I doubt those awkward pit-stops on long car journeys with dodgy fry up breakfasts for dinner and unforgiving strip lighting cross your mind that often, but they're the pit-stops that touring DJs like Annie have come to know and love, in a funny sort of way. They're a chance to stretch out, think of the hours ahead of you and, for Annie, have dear memories attached to them in a way that only someone who spends large chunks of their life on the road can.

In this personal account Annie tells us about her love-hate relationship with these British service stations, and shows us first-hand a side of life as a touring DJ that sarcastic Twitter accounts can never convey.

"'Welcome' Breaks. The islands of Moto; pot-bellied truckers playing slot machines,  overpriced Costa coffee and camping chairs, Wellington boots, Michael Bolton CDs, and the omnipresent smell combo of piss and disinfectant. They are weird places service stations; little clusters of stale humanity dotted along the M-numbers stretched out over England's countryside like veins. They have been punctuating my journeys to DJ gigs for nearly ten years now.

We met Dizzee Rascal bounding out of a Road Chef on a Saturday afternoon on the way to Creamfields once. He suggested that we travel in a convoy, so my friends and I duly agreed and followed his people carrier up the M6. There's only so many times two cars can pass each other out and wave. We obediently stayed behind them all the way to Runcorn. Finally, after thinking we were on the road for too long, we realised that Dizz was driving to his hotel first. We had to turn around and drive back the way we came, feeling very stupid and confused.

5am on a Sunday morning I was stumbling through the car park of Toddington Services on the way home from a gig, when a car screeched to a halt beside me. The passenger window came down to reveal a very excited Erol Alkan inside. He told me in hushed tones that he had discovered an amazing secret, and pulled out an SD card. He said, "These are the future of DJing". I used to travel with Erol a lot in the early days. He was obsessed with Pick 'N' Mix sweets. We would fill up our paper bags with neon blue sharks and white mice, and head on off up the motorway to Middlesborough or Cardiff chomping merrily on sweets, gulping down lattes and shouting at each other over very, very loud music.

I have fond memories of those escapades. A cross-country journey to a gig is always a lot more fun when you have a DJ friend with you. You get to listen to records together, watch each other's DJ sets and, most importantly, have someone to laugh with if the gig is awful: if you mess up a mix, or if something is thrown at you. In my career I have had a coin, an ice cube, a can of Red Stripe and multiple glow-sticks thrown at me. I remember each moment so vividly, as the sense of communal pleasure turns suddenly into Them vs. Me. In an instant, you are struck with the realisation that you are physically vulnerable to a room teeming with cognitively compromised people who could throw anything at you. You are too afraid to look up. The coin hit me on the cheek. I will always be grateful to DJ Mehdi for gallantly offering to take over from me at CYNT in Cardiff that night. It wasn't a good look, DJing and crying.

As my profile got bigger and I started to headline clubs myself, I roped friends to drive me to gigs and so began more years of fun journeys. Screeching up to gigs in Becky's Peugeot 305 or Emma's Mum's Honda jazz was always a sight, but when they got sick of having upside down body clocks and lost their sense of humour at pissed promoters, I finally succumbed to hiring professional tour managers. They have come in many shapes and sizes. One of my favourites, a larger than life London Irish man called Paddy, waited outside BBC Radio 1 to drive me to our first gig together in a white Range Rover with the word "PLAYA' on the license plate. Then there was lovely Toby, who likes to cook in his spare time. He made me a four month pregnant me a chocolate Guinness cake, which we ate together on a private plane from London to Manchester for a gig at the Warehouse Project. Now I have Joe, who I have re-christened Frank Farmer - Kevin Costner's character in The Bodyguard - after he saved me from an ill advised stage dive at a Dublin gig one time.

I have done my fair share of touring on my own, mostly in the United States. I would do ten or twelve days tours so I didn't have to miss two weekends of radio shows. I would cram in as many cities as I could: a different city every day, zigzagging across  North America and getting fatter and fatter with each portion of chicken wings and cob salad. They were tough tours. You would be lucky to break even most of the time, but they were such an adventure. One night I would be playing to 25 people in Montreal, the next to 2000 in NYC. It was always unpredictable and despite jet-lag, delirium and sometimes chronic loneliness, always interesting. Another city, another hotel window view to take a shit picture with on my phone.

I would walk out into arrivals and try and pick out the promoter, usually tired and dishevelled looking. 99.9% of the time male, and then my heart would sink if they weren't there.  On those trips if I met someone who was sound - a promoter, a driver, a clubber - I would keep them close and remember them. I collected names in my phone like 'C-Wills Atlanta' or 'Guru LA', and over the years built up a family in each city so that next time I played there, there would always be someone to meet me for dinner.

I thought that when I had a baby I might want to stop touring, but it doesn't really change. The feeling of anticipation when you're taking off for somewhere new never lessens. The sense of wonder that I have travelled half way across the world to play records to a room full of people have paid their hard-earned money to come and see me never dulls. The only thing that has changed is the intensity of the urge to get home to my family. The Heathrow Express has never felt so long.

love, Annie."