Originally Posted by island texan
I finally did it. I did my first open-mic night performance last night. It wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.
Now, to be clear, I’d attended a number of open-mic-nights before, but not at this venue. I was pressed to go by a friend of mine who plays for a living. She said it was a bit crazy but a lot of fun. “Be there by 7:30 to sign up for a start at about 8”, she said. “I’ll be there to cheer you on.”
So at 7:30 I show up – guitar all in tune, capo in pocket and a bit of rehearsing before hand to minimize the butterflies. As the first one there, the sound guy said they expected about twenty performers that night. I explained my lack of experience and he nicely suggested I maybe take spot #3, which I did. Eight o’clock rolls around and other than a young lady with a ukulele who took spot #4, nobody had signed up. Eight fifteen, a couple of guys took spots 1 & 2. Eight forty-five a few more with guitar cases drifted in. By nine the white-board was almost full. Ninety minutes in and I had sipped down my beer by then, but still no sign we were going on. 9:15 and finally the MC comes on to say performer #1 should take the stage – a pianist/vocalist. By now the crowd was about 50+. (My friend never showed) Best I could tell, I was the only person there born before 1990.
This guy was really good, but you could hardly hear him over the din of chit-chat from all over the place. Whoever was #2 had disappeared, so there I was, striding onstage to face a stand-up microphone that had yet to be sound-checked. Ditto for the amp. After several attempts to get things balanced, I was told to proceed. My little instrumental intro seemed pretty good, other than I was having a hard time hearing it over the crowd’s talking, even with a wedge speaker in front of me. Then came the ear-piercing feedback as I broke into song. Three verse-lines and three more feedback screeches later, I was ready to walk off, but I didn’t want to go home.
I searched the audience looking for eye-contact so I could somehow feel I was actually performing for somebody. Found a smiling young lady near the front to my left and the sound guy in the back paying attention. So on I went. Mild perfunctory applause after songs 1 & 2. No boo's just what felt like general indifference. I was told to do three songs. By song three I was almost hollering into the microphone, just to be certain it was on since the noise of the crowd was now overwhelming. The house now held about 75 folks. Oh look! There’s two guys in the back who could have been over thirty-five; one might have even been fifty.
I stepped off stage and headed for the back – not to leave but to at least stick around and courteously ‘listen’ to the following performers. As the feedback problem and microphone balance issues were more or less resolved, the next few string players had it a little better than I, although you really could barely make out what they were playing. After sipping through my post-performance brew and taking about all I could stand of another half-dozen performances, I made my discreet exit into the night. Sorry guys, I just could not follow your advice and stay to pay homage to all the others who came after me. Enough was enough.
My experience at other open-mic nights had always been, first of all smaller audiences, and secondly a relatively quiet group of listeners. Okay, I should have gone to this bar at least once before to have a better idea of what I was getting into, but how was I to know that a millennial audience couldn’t refrain from conversations and loud laughter while performers were doing their thing? I chuckle at what happened last night now that it’s over. Clearly that first experience will not be repeated at that venue. But am I just a crotchety old fart whose intolerance to millennials needs re-examining for gross generalizations, or is this a harbinger of what to expect at open-mic nights where such a younger crowd will simply behave that way?
Thanks for putting up with my wordy narrative. I’ve now gotten it off my chest and will live to play another day.
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02-14-2020, 01:41 PM
