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That's good advice, although ISO400 sounds a bit optimistic. I also find Aperture-priority a good way to work, as it can keep up with fast changing lights better than I can. Spot-metering is a must in my opinion, although what you'll probably find is that there's no one correct way to shoot.

I've a fair few gig photos in my profile on here with all the EXIF info intact. If you have a shuffle through those, it should give you some ideas of what typical settings I use.

If you're really struggling for light and you've cleared it with your mates, you may want to try using flash for a few shots.

If you do, a good starting point settings-wise would normally be 1/10sec, ISO800, aperture-wide-open, matrix metering. Dragging the shutter like this will help to produce a decent balance between ambient and flash light. You may wish to experiment with much longer exposures, depending on how much movement you want in your shot.

Hope this helps.