First Open Mic experience.

Little Walter.

A few months back I made a decision to take the bull by the horns and walk in on an Open Mic night unannounced and just have a go.

I’d picked this event up from a Facebook contact and the venue was close enough to me but also far enough away that nobody would know me if I made a complete pigs ear of it.

This was an important jump for me. I’d jammed with a few musicians before, but only in a very domestic setting.

I’m sure I felt like a reluctant virgin walking in on a hot date, because this was certainly virgin territory for me. Maybe I could blag it, front it out, and nobody would guess I was a rookie first timer?

There was only one person there that I knew; I think he was surprised to see me. Barry was the organiser and I’d taken a handful of harmonica lessons with him and to his credit he’d set me up with some excellent resources to learn from.

Barry scribbled my name down on a playlist and I nervously waited my term. There were some very competent musicians up there; this made me even more anxious. Barry said he’d accompany me on the guitar, another guy was recruited to play bass; it was agreed that my first song would be ‘Key to the Highway’. I felt comfortable with this; I had practiced this by listening to Little Walter and Taj Mahal.

As the time got closer I excused myself and went to the men’s room. Within the empty echoing space I whipped out my ‘D; harp and had a swift run through the basic riff, just to warm up. This did nothing to dampen my growing nerves and calm my thumping heart.

Then came my moment!

Two valuable lessons came at me point blank. The first being that you really need to agree to a tempo with your guitarist; for me Barry ripped off at 90mph and I had to peddle hard to keep up. His version of ‘Key to the Highway’ was much more upbeat than mine; mine was slow, mournful and bluesy, Barry’s was less Little Walter more Chas and Dave – or at least it seemed from my perspective (maybe he has the Clapton model in his head?).

The second lesson was the Mic….. For God’s sake take it out of the Mic stand! It just felt so awkward!

Also, the screech of the ‘D’ harp - I suspect my sound was a little too full on for my audience, though they responded politely.

 I have since realised that the Mic and the PA need to be set up differently to deal with the harmonica.  

Another thought only occurred to me much later – I suspect I felt a need to fill every available gap; maybe I hogged the music too much, I’ll never know. I asked Barry afterwards, what did he think? His answer was that it didn’t matter; I’d automatically scored 8/10 for having the balls to get up in front of everyone!

This was a great experience and Barry was an excellent MC, but for me it was a ‘back to the drawing board’ thing. I need to work on my repertoire and really, in a perfect world its Blues musicians I need to work with – hence this blog.